Biz Week, Day 1: The Diabolical Vs. Humpty Hump

Every post in this series is dedicated to the great Biz Markie, who we just lost this weekend.  And instead of just repeating the typical biographical details every news site is busy copy & pasting from wikipedia, I've decided to take a look at some of the many overlooked Biz Markie B-sides and guest appearances that even some of you dedicated fans may've slept on.

This is a tragedy compounded by the recent loss of another Hip-Hop giant, Shock G, who also just passed this April.  So when I was putting together my list of the tracks I wanted to tackle this week, this one jumped out at me right away: "The Odd Couple" from Digital Underground's 1998 album, "Who Got the Gravy?"

I feel like most audiences kind of wrote Digital Underground off when they got dropped by Tommy Boy (sales numbers seem to demonstrate that pretty definitively, anyway).  But Shock's skills never waned, as proved by the number of highlights that pervaded on the later, indie albums.  Albums which, frankly, might outshine the last Tommy Boy LP, despite the absence of some of their secret weapons like DJ Fuze or Saafir.  2Pac, obviously.  In fact, the first thrill of opening any DU album was racing through the credits to see who the collaborators were this time.

So the elevator pitch for "The Odd Couple" is that it's a battle between Biz Markie and Humpty Hump.  Obviously, this is a written together, all in good fun kind of "battle," more along the lines of "The Sugarhill Gang Meets the Furious Five" or "Kid Vs. Play" than anything you'd see in 8 Mile.  But that's exactly what you want in this scenario, a play fight between two of the purist spirits in our genre's history.  They're going back and forth dissing each other, but it's all in fun: "2Pac is the only one that was livin' large, and Humpty, your nose is like a two-car garage.  I know you got soooouull!  I heard you don't eat pussy, you be eatin' bootie hole."

Yeah, it's silly and guileless, but it's not scrubbed clean for the whole family.  There's an Explicit Lyrics sticker on that cover for a reason, and it's sometimes surprising where the two of them take it, "no, my nose be in her bootie; my tongue be in her vertical smile.  I heard your sister had sex with Gomer Pyle."  And the first time you hear a Rodney King line, it comes off as a little edgy, and maybe of questionably dated taste.  But as they keep bringing him back up throughout the song (the chorus even), you start to realize they're slipping in something a little subversive under the radar.  And there's more going on than just a play-fight to keep the kiddies amused, "yeah, that's cool; y'all doin' your thing.  But look what they did to that man Rodney King.  They beat 'im and stomped 'im like a bunch of grapes.  When I seen him he looked like The Planet Of the Apes. / Yeah, you're right, police don't act tight, but in the riots, yo, California niggas wasn't scared to go at po-po."  Like, whoa, they got serious on us all of a sudden!

And the production couldn't be better suited.  It's got that slow, chunky kind of groove that plays right into Biz's delivery like "We Write the Songs," but with sparse horns and a slightly funkier, flusher tone that's, of course, classic D-Flow.  Seriously, I think a lot of heads would be surprised to hear a track this killer on a post-Tommy Boy album, but here it is; Shock and the gang never lost it.  This is some of their best work from both of these guys, and it's on an album people hardly check for.  Well, if there's ever been a time for rediscovery, this is it.  Get the whole album, because while it was released on 12" (as a B-side for "The Mission" with Big Pun), that single's only got the clean versions.  And these two don't keep it clean on this one.