The Great Father MC Showdown!!

My God! My last post about Father MC was all the way back in 2009? I'm shocked I haven't posted about him yet in 2011, let alone the fact that I somehow missed all of 2010! Of course, I shall take immediate action to rectify this situation, but of sadly... I can't get 2010 back. All I can do is act in the moment.

So, if you want to talk about albums that flew under the radar by rappers who've had big, hit records, you'd have a hard time getting more obscure than Father MC's fourth album from 1995, after he was dropped from Uptown. I mean, he had huge, chart-topping hits, and then I feel like I might be the only person who knew he came back in 1995. It probably didn't help any that he actually came out with two full-length albums that year, on two different labels, with largely the same track-listing...

Yeah, there's Sexual Playground on Topp Dogg/ Spoiled Brat Recordings, and then there's This Is for the Players on Moja Entertainment. Both credit Father MC as executive producer, too, which lends credence to them both being legit. Both have a lot of songs in common, but both also have a few exclusive songs. A few songs are interludes, a few songs are the same but with slightly altered titles, it's all confusing and misleading... And that means it's up to me, and me alone, to break 'em both down and set it all straight for the hip-hop world.

First let's look at the...

Songs in common:

Do Me (SP)/ You Can Do Me Right (TIftP) - Father plays it safe here, rhyming over a classic, old school bassline (from Tragedy's "Live Motivator," MC Beta's "There's Nothing Like New York," etc) and adding a nice R&B hook.

Sexual Playground - Not bad either. Some nice R&B choruses, and the production just sounds like a slightly lower budget version of the stuff on his previous albums.

This Is 4 the Players - Kind of a slowed down, g-funk thing. Corny, and the hook is sub-par.

You Can Do Me Right Tonight (SP)/ I Want Your Lovin' (TIftP) - You probably thought "You Can Do Me Right" and "You Can Do Me Right Tonight" were the same song, huh? But no, "You Can Do Me Right" is actually "Do Me" and this is actually a.k.a. "I Want Your Lovin'." It's almost like they were intentionally trying to be confusing. Anyway. lyrics-wise, and hook-wise what with the girl-sung chorus, it's typical Father MC, but it's got a hardcore X-Clan style percussion track, and some keys smoothing the gap between the two styles. Pretty interesting.

Am I What You Want (SP)/ I Am What You Want (TIftP) - I like how the different title changes the question into a statement, totally reversing the sentiment. Anyway, it's a fun retake on Teddy Pendergrass's "Close the Door," even though a lot of rappers beat him to the punch with this sample (a la Big Daddy Kane in '94 with his single, "In the PJ's"). But it works because Father retains more of the natural R&B elements.

Treat Me Right - This is an upbeat one, some familiar samples, R&B hook, new jacky Father MC exactly like you'd expect.

Okay, but now let's get to the interesting info, the exclusives. First the...

Sexual Playground exclusives:

Let's Get Into FMC - Like the title suggests, this is just an intro. It's about ten to fifteen seconds of pretty random sound-clips.

Playground - This is a garbage remix of "Sexual Playground" that puts the whole thing to an awful club beat and adds some additional, shitty club samples. Interestingly, there was a single for "Sexual Playground" and this wasn't included.

4 the Players - This is just the instrumental of "This Is 4 the Players."

That's All - A silly outro gag.

This Is for the Players exclusives:

High Rollers - This was a single, which is surprising, because it's one of the worst songs on either album. The hook and concept are corny, and the beat's so smoothed out it's flat-out boring.

Sexual Healing - This is a shockingly abrasive interlude by raggamuffin MC Culture who kicks a fun, dirty acapella.

Funking With Father - Father comes a little harder on this one, but then the beat is in more of a smoothed out, G-funky mode with a little muzak twist on "Five Minutes of Funk" thrown in, all of which kind of counteracts his delivery. He closes by announcing that "the name of the crew is called Sex!" Basically, it's just not good.

Hey... How Ya Doin' - This was another single. It's interesting that two of the singles are exclusive to one version of the album. It's not bad, and certainly better than "High Rollers" or "Funking With Father," but I don't know who picked the singles - the album tracks are almost all much better and catchier.

the Interludes - There's several pretty useless skits on this album. On one, he's standing on the city streets talking to his buddies, another is just a random sound effect between songs. The last one features his daughter as they sweetly say goodbye to each other. The cassette has a bonus, uncredited intro, though it IS listed on the CD and LP (the CD and LP also give the Interludes helpful subtitles like "Studio Talk"). This one's pretty long and heavily produced; the premise of which is that Father MC is doing a radio interview with a sexy, flirty host asking him about the album. It's full of amazingly wonderful dialogue like, "what do you mean when you talk about a 'Sexual Playground?' Is that like a bunch of rides?" She even asks him if that's a microphone in his pocket or if he's just happy to be there.

Life - I guess this must be a "bonus" song, since it comes after the Farewell Interlude. This is definitely something out of Father MC's usual scope... it sounds like he's been inspired by artists like Big Mike, where he raps slow and smooth about being broke and struggling. The hook changes between each verse, which is cool, with lyrics like, "I feel the world's about to end because I see the devil's grin and my dead friends are laying on the ground." The beat sounds very Rap-A-Lot, too, and it ends with Father ranting a message to the government, followed by a scary voice which I think is supposed to be the devil himself, but who comes off more like Bushwick Bill or something. Definitely an unexpected conclusion to the album.


...So what have we learned? Well, we learned that, of the two, This Is 4 the Players is easily the definitive album. It has basically everything from Sexual Playground, plus a bunch more, including two of the singles (although the singles really aren't the best tracks at all). Sexual Playground only had some extra filler. But, the upshot is that all the best songs are on both versions, so you haven't really gone wrong no matter which version you have. If you have either, which you probably don't. :P

P.s. - Did you know, Father MC just dropped a new album, Fambody, on Itunes last August?