Red, Red, Fat and The Dr.

I just made a discovery. That alone is pretty darn cool for me. What's even cooler is that it's a discovery that was already in my collection. :) What'd I find? The first rap appearance of Red Hot Lover Tone.
I just recently sorted all my CDs, and have been revisiting a few albums, like this one, that I haven't listened to wee hip-hop collecting lad. Along with everybody else, I was getting everything on cassette in those days; but in 1990 my parents bought a CD player. My first two CDs were Long Live the Kane and The Cactus Cee/D.

Well, one of the few other CDs I bought that year was Cool Lover Boy by Red Bandit on Motown. What can I say? I was buying everything in those days. I didn't spend my money on anything else (well, I went through a couple comic book phases at certain points in my childhood); when I got my allowance, that meant I could go to the mall and get a rap tape. If I saved enough change to make $2, I could buy a single. You would fall over if you saw the amount of tapes I had (and still have) by the time cassettes were taken off the market.

Anyway, the CD is ok. You've got a lot of R&Bish rap love songs ("Please Don't Cry" features Ricky Bell of Bell Biv Devoe), and a couple of poppy dance songs. Red Bandit is no great MC, but for these kinda songs, no exceptional skill is really required. It is what it is, and if you like that sort of thing, it's alright.

Now, it's no secret that this album features some of The Trackmasterz' (Red Hot Lover Tone's hugely successful production team with partner Poke) earliest work on record. It may even be their first (everything they first started becoming famous for, like their work with Chubb Rock and Tone's rapping career, started in 1992). They produced cowrote his house track, "House People."

But what I think will be news to most of you reading this, is that the CD version of Cool Lover Boy features a bonus track not available on the LP or cassette. It's a posse cut called "Can I Get a Little," featuring Red Hot Lover Tone, Phat Doug (here in the liner notes spelled "Fat Doug," but I'm pretty certain it's the same guy) and Dr. Freeze (who produced most of this LP, and who had some big production hits around that time, like BBD's "Poison" and Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up"). The mic gets passed down the line, with Tone definitely shining as the best MC on the track (though Phat Doug comes tight, too). Then at the end, the mic gets passed back to the first MC, and each MC kicks another verse. Finally, producer Spiderman (who I never heard of, and doesn't seem to have done anything on this album, but I know he's a producer from reading the album's special thanks) gets the mic and briefly closes the show. Pretty nice find in my own collection, 'ey?

You may remember Bandit better for his "All Men Are Dogs?" single, with production by Postive K, and a remix by Sean Puffy Combs featuring Faith Evans. This was later turned into a major posse cut, with Grand Puba, Positive, Snagglepuss, Notorious BIG, Raggedy Man, Grand Daddy I.U. & Pudgee the Phat Bastard. More recently, in 1998, he changed his name to Jimmy Crooks, started his own indie label, and put out a compilation album of his crew, The Nighthawks (comprised of B-I, Ill Flo, Bigman, Rockiem and himself), The Nighthawks Family Album. I thought it pretty well sucked, but hey, whatever. Then, in 2001, he put out a new solo CD called Straight Ghetto Remixes, which features some surprisingly big name guest appearances like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Queen Latifah, Usher and more (there was also a single off that album, "R.E.D.B.A.N.D.I.T.," if you really want to complete your collection). You can order both of those albums new from CDBaby.com. And as always, of course, I also have the link to his myspace page.

And since this post is reallymeant to be about Red Hot Lover Tone, here's a link to his (Trackmasters') myspace page, and official website. Dr. Freeze has a myspace page, too; but it's currently set to Private.