The Way They Used To Krush

Depending how hip you are to Michigan hip-hop, you may or may not know that one of their founding rap crews, The KMC Kru, was once known as The Krushin' MCs and put out some dope material on Macola Records in the late 80's. Back then they had a third member, Stevie D, who didn't follow T and The Butcher when they signed to Curb Records. But what you probably didn't know is that The Krushin' MC's were around even before their Macola period, and they had a slightly different line-up.

In 1986, The Krushin' MCs dropped "The Way We Krush" on Midwest Records. The MCs here are Wonder T and Sir Klank, somebody they used to shout out on their Curb albums (I used to assume he was a dancer for them). Sir Klank wound up doing some appearances on KMC Kru's independently released fourth album, AKA IG's, where the line-up changed again, with The Butcher leaving and a new MC named Cat Man stepping in. Confused? Maybe I should draw a chart. But the point is, it turns out Klank was an original, founding member who shares microphone duties on this rare, first single.

They also refer to a DJ Mike Ski (guessing on the spelling), who's probably not The Butcher, since his real name was Ken White.

This is some serious old school hip-hop. It's got that deep, thudding drum machine sound, lots of hand-claps and simple, loud cuts. The MCs trade rhymes line for line and word for word:

"We never, never hog the mic!"
"'Cause we're not greedy!"
"We're still at full power!"
"'Cause we eat our Wheaties!"

It's b/w "Bittin' Attack," which is similar, but features some hard (keyboarded) horn stabs. For the DJ gets a little busier on this one, cutting up the classic UTFO "bite it!" sample on the hook and mixing in the horn sample Slick Rick would later use for "Mona Lisa" (that's right, these guys had it first) at the end.

Production for both songs are credited to a Mark Wilson. And instrumentals are featured on the flip.

Like my previous review, I could see this being labeled "too old school" for a lot of heads, but really this is an excellent example of how it was done... way back in the day. This is a tough one ot find, but I also doubt most heads are up on this so demand is low and you just might get lucky.