Loosey's Secret Duet

"Loosey's Rap" is an okay 80's pop song by Rick James featuring guest verses by Roxanne Shanté. It's got some funky bass guitar and it's kinda fun, but nothing to get excited about. You'll dig it if someone plays it on the radio or a mixtape, but it's not surprising that there's tons of copies of this for sale all over pretty cheap, and you couldn't be blamed for passing it up. ...Except it turns out you'd be missing out on a really cool, completely over-looked B-side.

Before we get to that, though, let's quickly run down what else is on this 12". There's the main version, titled "Rix Mix," plus the instrumental. And then there's a Marley Marl remix, which is just a slight improvement over the original version, with a surprisingly classical R&B-style breakdown, a strange loop of a vocal sample of (I think) Eddie Murphy, and a cool little piano solo at the end. And there's a house mix (called "Loosey's House of Trix Mix"), which I think even house music fans would pass over pretty quickly.

Right. So now that that's out of the way, it's time to point out that there's one more mix on the B-side, called the "New Rap Version." So, why should you care about this version so much more than the others? Well, how about if we started by taking Rick James off the record? Then we replace him with Big Daddy Kane. We also throw out the whole premise of the song (singing about some sexy girl name Loosey - she's "loose," get it? Nyuck, nyuck), and just have Kane and Shanté trading braggadocio, freestyle verses back and forth over Marley's stripped-down beat (with recurring reprisals of that crazy Eddie Murphy sample). Suddenly, you've got a classic, 1988 Juice Crew track that could've come right off In Control vol. 1!

Now, you have to pay close attention to what edition of this single you're getting. There are several different 12"'s of this single, and not all of them feature the "New Rap Version" - so be careful! I should also point out that the cover and label credit Big Daddy Kane as being on the house mix, too; but that's pretty misleading. There are just short vocal samples of him and Shanté used in the instrumental. ...Like I said, pass on the house mix.