Poison Clan Appreciation Week, Day 5: Clayvoisie

One of the most common questions I hear about The Poison Clan is, after DeBonaire left, who the heck are all those other guys in Poison Clan? So for the next couple of days, we're going to look at all the members of Poison Clan who aren't JT Money.

First on my list is Clayvoisie. He was featured on several songs on Rufftown Behavior, but is probably best known for doing "Cowards In Compton" (again, see the vid I just did on that joint). He was also featured on "Freestyle Joint," a fresh posse cut I wrote about in yesterday's post.

But in addition to those appearances, he was signed to Luke's Effect Records as a solo artist. The label shut down before they could release his debut album, but fortunately they did at least put out this nice cut. "I.O.U. Nuhthin'" comes in four mixes on this 12", so let's start with the "Original Recipe Mix."

Let's get this out of the way - the song is hype. Pick it up and you won't be disappointed. Clayvoisie is joined by a hypeman calling himself Mr. Perfect and later a chorus of taunting girls who shout, "hey! Hey! Hey! I owe you nothing" to anyone who had their hands out to Clayvoisie. It's a fast paced-beat with a little funk guitar and some great horn stabs. It's upbeat, but definitely a hardcore track, with Clay angrily dissing anyone who's "trying to gain all on my fucking wealth."

The "In Your Face Mix" is similar to the original but has a new, mch more distinct bassline. Mr. Perfect also has some new adlibs (among other things telling us that this is the remix version). Then, on the B-side you've got the "In Your Nasty Face Mix," which is the same as the "In Your Face Mix" but with the vocals redone with added cursewords. Mr. Perfect especially curses up a storm; and there's also an added vocal sample of Ice Cube going, "mother fucker" on the hook. Finally, there's the "In Your Face Instrumental," which is pretty much what you'd expect. It should probably actually have been titled the "In Your Nasty Face Instrumental," though, because this instrumental includes Cube's angry "mother fuckers" on the hooks.

So even though Effect Records wound up shutting down right after this 12" release, this is not quite the only record Clay put out. He came back later with a very interesting indepedent release on a label called Black Power Records - a 12" I already blogged about here.