One of my pet theories I've developed during the years of writing about music is that we tend to get hooked onto artists as fans; and then it's easy for us to be lead astray. By that I mean, we use our full judgement at first; we can be resistant to embracing an artist, and hem and haw over whether their latest record is really all that good, etc. But once people cross the line into becoming a fan of someone, they start accepting a lot of BS and letting some pretty mediocre stuff slide. You know, like every post-Marley Marl Juice Crew All Star project.
Or, for a really on the nose example... Pretty much every discerning Hip-Hop head basically had to be a fan of Kool Keith in the heyday of the Ultramagnetic MCs; but how long did it take most of us who came up with him to question his new material? I remember being super excited for the Ultra and Sex Style albums, or listening to him on Chino XL's album just thinking how great it is he's on there being super eccentric. It wasn't until, like Matthew that I finally started questioning: do I really need to be spending money on this? If some new jack had come out with those albums, I would've casually passed on it right away like, "nah, I'm not feeling it," but because it was Keith, I needed to unlearn. Anybody with I Am the West or Tical 0 in their collection knows what I mean. It's hard to let go.
So when I came across this one in my crates the other day, I immediately got on my own back. Ah, you're such a Rakim nerd you even had to buy this totally excessive, mainstream crossover remix. I mean, what corny outsider label exec thought it was was a wise idea to pair Rakim up with flavor of the month Texas gangsta rap beats? Dumb idea, and dumber me for lapping up whatever they dumped in my lap. But I figure I own it; I might as well revisit it.
And hey, you know, it's actually not that bad. It obviously doesn't stand up against the original, but that's because the original is a killer DJ Premier track by the man at the peak of his career. But this version's surprisingly effective. The synthetic sound effects of the Suave House don't come off so well in direct comparison to the musicality of Premier's mix, but this is a darker track that actually suits Rakim's vocal stylings quite well. The bassline draws you in, and it helps a hell of a lot that they left Premier's cuts in for the hook. And it did get fairly popular; it wound up being included as a bonus track on most versions of the album. But if the first version didn't exist to overshadow it, and this was the only version of "It's Been a Long Time" on the market, I think this would be more critically regarded in Rakim's canon as well.
Also, because it's a big international label, the artists don't have much to do with each other. New York legends, west coast gangsta rappers, Twista and Crucial Conflict out of Chicago, Tracey Lee out of... where ever he was from. It's a real random, disparate grouping. Of course Rakim is rapping over Suave House beats on this album.
But it's interesting because just about everything on here is exclusive. It's a lot like a Hip-Hop soundtrack album, I guess. A bunch of songs by big artists you can't get anywhere else. That Crucial Conflict song was never on any of their albums. Psycho Drama, Mafia and Rex Freestyle teemed up to create an original song just for this compilation. Eightball and MJG have an exclusive remix of "Middle Of the Night," with Twista. And I imagine "Take the Train" would've been featured on The Reepz' album if the label had ever put it out. They had a video for that song and everything, and yet it's only on here.
Some of it ain't really so exclusive, though. They threw on that crazy Canibus/ Lost Boyz/ A+ song "Boyz 2 Men." I've always really dug that one, despite A+ brandishing some of the most obvious ghost-writing in the genre's history. But it wound up being included on his Hempstead High album. Plus they couldn't resist including Canibus' "Second Round K.O." since it was their hottest single at the moment. And other songs were made to look like exclusives, but are really just deceitful retitlings of mixtape freestyles that had already been widely released (just like that shady Big L compilation). "It's Logic" and "Shout Out To the Lost Boyz" are just the famous Canibus freestyles from Tony Touch's and DJ Clue's mixtapes, respectively. McGruff's, Tracy Lee's, and Panama PI's are just freestyles, too. They're dope, so I can't complain too much, but sticking new titles on 'em made fans buy the tape hoping for new material, then finding out it was just stuff they already owned.
Anyway, getting to that Rakim remix. This time they remixed "Guess Who's Back," and by they, I mean Jermaine Dupri. That one was a nice Clark Kent banger, but this time it doesn't just lose by comparison to the original; it's a loser on its own merits. We just get a cheap, chintzy beat that doesn't have a moody atmosphere or addictive bassline to pull you into Rakim's rhymes. Plus, Jermaine adds two weak little verses of his own. He also leaves the scratches on the hook, they don't connect to the rest of the instrumental, and instead just come off like two different sounds playing at the same time.
So, I guess at the end of all this, I'm not really mad myself for picking up either of these singles. They're kind of excessive, because none of the remixes could ever replace their originals; but they're alright. You can't go wrong putting any Rakim 12" in your crate. Except for that single with Linkin Park. If you bought that, jeez... Even I'm not that big of a Stan.
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