Natural Elements, Perfectly Aligned

So here I am posting some grouchy, miserly comment about not needing anymore new music in my life when Natural Elements go and drop a new album.  The universe knows how to shut me up fast, alright; and I couldn't be happier to eat those words.  Alignment on Fat Beats Records is seventeen killer tracks, no skits or filler.  A good half is produced by our man Charlemagne, with the other half by the UK's IG Nexus (he's done a couple other tracks for NE in the past) and 1 track each by relative newcomers Real 6 (he's got some Creative Juices credits) and Bearfakts, both of whom do a great job making tracks with that classic NE feel.  It helps that, except for a lady named Janay Saxon singing the hook one on track, it's just the three core members featured on every song with no guests to dilute the mixture.

It's all brand new material here, except "Infinite Shine," which is a lyrical remix of their 1996 classic with all new verses.  No Essence this time around, but she makes a cameo in the music video.  The instrumental's a bit lusher, but I wouldn't quite say this version merits replacing the original.  But it's not like we're forced to choose.  I recommend playing 'em both in a row to form a proper monster jam.

But this isn't a nostalgia trap; they're not afraid to try experiment with fresh ideas.  "YKTK" (You Know the Vibe), made a track out of Andre 3000's 12-minute new age flute jam from his New Blue Sun album.  Then  Swift goes super backpacker on "Time Doesn't Exist" to a degree only rivaled by Sir Menelik in his Dr. Octagon days: "I wake up and meditate daily, which regulates my blood pressure to one ten over seventy.  Box breathing calms my energies and any negativity.  E equals MCs to the third, which is the Natural Element theory of relativity.  Unidentified anomalous phenomena of, near and around nuclear facilities defining man made constructs of space time.  The universe has a pretty face and waistline.  It's both a gift and a curse existing with a great mind.  Mind you, I've been on some higher consciousness, but I find it hard to convey the words for it.  Sippin' ayahuasca tea with a shaman, god, theorizin' time is timeless in the mind."  Hmm, maybe psychedelics explain what was going on in the writing of Dr. Octagon, too.

The production and flows are consistently on point.  Mr. Voo sounds as crisp and on point as ever, and Swift and Butta are as cool as their 2Face days - wait'll you hear A-Butta's verse on "Cosmos Is Calling."  Tracks like "Three Cards Monte" and "Nile Is Flowing" can be transferred directly to their All Time Greatest Hits album: "the Nile river flows from the South to the North.  I'm mouthin' off but I sound like a mafia boss.  That means I hardly raise my voice but you know what I'm sayin'.  When we ask where you at, that means you owe us a payment.  And if we audit you, you gotta show us the statement.  No Zoom conference, we pull up to your boat in the Caymans, or to your Poconos basement; I know the location.  Home invasions 'cause we know when you go on vacations."  All the beats here sound perfectly in keeping with NE's past music yet - apart from "Shine 2" - fresh and new.  Apart from the occasional Rakim vocal snippet, Dave Chapelle clip or classic drum sound, the only sample I really recognized was on their somber, reflective track "Alive and Well," which uses the same main loop as X-Clan's addictive "Ooh Baby."  Otherwise, it's all uncharted territory.

My only qualms with the album lie in two of the seventeen tracks.  "Whole Foods of Rap" and "Book Smart Street Smart" are both kinda corny, though even then, the samples and the way they ride the groove is tight.  "Book Smart" feels like it was ripped from the pages of Tiger Beat magazine with each member detailing how they like their women: "these the type of women that listen to Natural Elements: free spirited and quick-witted, can geek out to Star Trek and Jeopardy trivia.  Explicit images sent, it can get intimate.  Exotic Spanish goth chicks?  Yeah, I'm into them."  Then "Whole Foods" actually sounds fantastic in terms of the production and how they ride over it.  It's just too bad they're trapped inside this cheesy concept where yes, they explain that they are indeed the "Whole Foods of rap, some they don't know what to do with that.  Low-gluten snacks and groceries for the juicin' cats.  Whole Foods of rap, organic and holistically.  Whole Foods of rap, no ham on the rotisserie."  It's just silly and doesn't jive with the atmospheric instrumental.  But both songs will still keep your head nodding along with the rest.

Alignment is available on double LP in a black and white picture cover, as you can see above, with a limited edition of 100 copies on white (white) vinyl, and the rest on classic black.  CDs and cassettes are also available, so go nuts.

Summertime With Unagi

Discussing Unagi's last album, I questioned whether his use of dated references and old school punchlines was an ironic evocation of one of the album's running themes of an older head out of his time or just his tastes.  Well, with the arrival of Western Mass Hysteria, his second fully vocal album but his fifteenth(!) in total, I guess I have my answer.  Because he hits us off with a slew of dad joke similes right from the jump: "Unagi is my moniker, my non de plume.  Down like Short Round from The Temple of Doom.  Transform chrysalis, Cocoon, Hume Cronyn.  Stay legendary like the 47 Ronin."  So calling it old school might be a little unfair; he mixed a little hashtag rap in there.

Now, regular readers will probably know by now that this is one of the easiest ways to make me "nope" right out of a song.  Pop culture references that seem to just be there to endear the listener through fond recognition ("hey, he said "The Temple of Doom."  I liked that movie!) or twee cutesiness, as opposed to making a worthwhile point about it ("Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me, you see? Straight-out racist that sucker was, simple and plain.  Motherfuck him and John Wayne, 'cause I'm black and I'm proud!  I'm ready, I'm hyped plus I'm amped.  Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamp" has weight) or just being genuinely clever.  With that cocoon stuff, I get the movie reference, but I guess he's just saying that he's grown into a beautiful butterfly in terms of musicianship?  And I've hated the hashtag gimmick since "Supa Dupa."

And the album continues like that.

So it is a testament to the man's abilities that this album recovers.

Unagi manages to tap a very unique vein that doesn't always work; but it often does, with his signature, laid back, easy listening energy, with a tongue-in-cheek attitude.  The best way I can describe it is to say: imagine if Tribe plateaued at "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo."  Yeah, that means no Midnight Marauders or anything that came after; but you can't say you didn't enjoy "El Segundo" when it came out.  So applying that notion to Unagi, first of all no, the dad jokes and celebrity name-dropping doesn't stop (don't get me started on "Favorite 80s Ladies").  But some of them were eliciting genuine smiles, like the "AARP, yeah, you know me" hook for his song about getting old.  And things feel considerably more robust as we pass the first couple of tracks and hit more conceptual songs.  "Small Town Style" is a cool summertime groove; and "Just Another Bank Robber" goes back to being silly, but it's smart and fun in a way that's impossible to grimace at.

I likened Unagi to the Peanuts and Corn crew before, and that comparison totally still stands.  How you feel about one will surely determine how you feel about the other.

And given that this guy's first thirteen albums were instrumental projects, it makes sense that the production does a lot of the heavy lifting.  His ode to his wife, "Date Night," might be a little corny, but the instrumental is great.  The MCing will prove divisive for those who check this out (the next 36 Chambers this ain't); you've really got to be in the right mood.  But you can't front on the beats.  The samples throughout WMH are so smooth and jazzy.  And the scratch breakdown on "Flyin' High," by DJ Toro Bravo is brilliant.  I absolutely will be revisiting it over the years, and this is coming from a guy who has amassed enough records and tapes over a lifetime to literally bury a whole family.  I've reached that stage where I honestly don't need anymore new music in my life... I figure playing everything from beginning to end one more time should take me to my grave.  But I'm gonna be making room to play this some more.

So like his last record, this is available via his bandcamp on vinyl as a single LP, limited to 200 copies, in a full-color picture cover that does a pretty good job conjuring up the album's the tone (all it needs is a Fozzi Bear somewhere in those trees).  And as you can see above, it also comes with a color insert depicting his complete discography and all the WMH lyrics (break our your magnifying glass!).  There's also an even smaller run (100 copies) of CDs available if that's more your speed.

Red Guerillaz Fam

Today I want to talk about the Red Guerillaz.  Nobody ever talks about them, but pretty much everybody who was paying attention at the time thinks highly of their record.  They're like an underground one-hit wonder.  They came out hot in 2000, but no follow-up and the question never even gets raised.  To be fair, though, I can see why.  Their record is a 2-song 12" and both songs feature Lord Digga, and one also features Lord Have Mercy.  Everybody bought the record because of them, and it's easier to think of this as a Lord Digga and Friends record.  But it's not, and damn it, I'm curious about the RGZ.

Not that there's a lot of information to be found; this is going to be a fairly shallow dive in that regard.  The Red Guerillaz are from Brooklyn, obviously, and when their record dropped they were marketed as extended family of the Flipmode Squad camp, which would explain the LHM appearance.  Honestly, most of what I've been able to glean about these guys just comes from having the record and a brief mention in his One Leg Up interview, where Digga explained he was an "honorary member" of the group.  Unfortunately, he doesn't elaborate much, because the question wasn't really about them.  So what can we tell from the record itself?

Well, first of all, it's obvious there are two MCs rapping on these songs besides Digga and Mercy, and there's their producer Steamrolla.  This is his only record, so I'm assuming he was a member and not just someone who happened to produce their record.  I'd say I'm surprised he didn't do more, because this again, this is a hot record, but apparently he's had trouble staying on the outside.  He's back now, though, making beats and AI graphic design under the name Menace.  And now, if we look at the writing credits and remove the three names we recognize, we can deduce that the two MCs real names are A. Rose and R. Antonine.  That's about all I got about them (though I did check, and no, they're not in the list of names that went down in Menace's 2018 crack dealing ring), so let's talk about the music.

I like that this 12" comes with two approaches.  The opening track is just a hardcore banger, playing up the homophone of guerillaz vs gorillas.  "King Kong Niggaz" is just boasting how hard they are while working that gorilla metaphor: "cock back biscuits, murder off diskettes, something that you never forget like Joe Nam' in the '69 Jets.  We the best, place ya bets, fuck the rest.  If we ain't steamin' trees, we're beatin' on our chests through our vests; you can't test."  But the best part is heralded by a vocal sample of Roddy McDowell in Conquest Of the Planet Of the Apes (that's Part 4 for you normies) teeing up Lord Have Mercy to drop one of the best appearances of his career.  His deep, gritty voice is just perfect for this track, which is a sharp contrast between high strings and deep, thudding bass notes, not to mention this aggressive gorilla grunting, which I'm pretty sure he's done himself on another track.

So that's the crowd-pleasing introduction, then follows that up with some more serious social commentary.  "Rosewood" is surely inspired by John Singleton's then recent 1997 film, though it actually opens with a vocal sample from Menace II Society.  It has a more orchestral loop and makes a simple metaphor to compare modern day New York to the infamous massacre of the 1920s: "for this paper we thirst, and name brand labels printed on our shirts.  Bitches in short skirts and niggas that don't wanna work.  Life is full of hurt.  If you ain't runnin' from the Ku Klux, niggas'll stick you for two bucks.  In this land, nobody gives a fuck 'cause we killin' over paper, but in God we trust.  And it makes no sense: the root of all evil gave birth to jealousy that has spread throughout my people, divided us in half, and now we not equals."  Come on, how did we not get anymore records from these guys!?

If I was running one of those Hip-Hop Enterprises labels, I would reach out to Menace and see if he's got anymore unreleased Red Guerillaz recordings, or even any other vintage Brooklyn rappers he might've worked with.  But at least we've got this one single.  It comes in a sticker cover, and includes Dirty, Clean and Guerillamental versions of both songs.

The Original Nerdcore Rapper?

(Let's look at a sillier record than usual for April Fool's Day: "What Is Love" by Mac the Rapper.  Youtube version is here.)

Come On, Toots, His Name Is the Prince!

(Why yes, I did call the DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince 900 number as a kid!  Youtube version is here.)

Professor Griff Vs. Cult Jam

Today's record - or in this case, cassingle; but there is a 12" version, too - is "Jail Sale," by Professor Griff from 1991.  It's the lead single off his second album on Luke Records, Kao's II Wiz *7* Dome.  I've always been a fan of Griff as a rapper ever since he was under-utilized in PE.  Chuck had his distinctive, booming vocal tone, and of course Flav was doing whatever it is that he does.  And that combo obviously worked like gangbusters, but sometimes I felt the need for just a regular voice in the mix.  So when they'd briefly slip him onto "Night Of the Living Bassheads" or something, he sounded really dope to me.  Then, when his first album came out, he stepped aside so much for his Last Asiatic Disciples that it felt like the label was signing him for the controversy and association with PE, but were concerned rapping wasn't really his strong suit.  So it was really satisfying when he finally came back with a proper solo album, and nailed it on this single.

"Jail Sale" is a pretty killer record about the prison industrial complex: "Brothers watch ya back; I'm tellin' ya, they after ya.  They sayin' you steal, but who stole you from Africa?  ...Justice has never been definable.  A brother with a mind will be locked up for simple technicalities.  Legality's one thing, justice is another; conflicts and complications always bar a brother.  Captivation, a lack of patience in relations to the Nubian nation; it's time for black legislation.  I'm locked but they still call me free; I got twenty-five to life for being a brother simply living life realistically."  Produced by Griff and his Soul Society, it's got that busy PE-inspired production style where a bunch of samples are mashed together, though that deep bassline is apparently being played live by someone named James Magnolia.  They're also constantly scratching up the phrase "call the cops," which was a recurring motif that ran through the whole album.

Famously, you can always get up Griff for a few of the things he says.  On this record he says "90% of the prison population is black," something he also ran in giant letters across the screen in the music video.  And that wasn't true then or now.  I believe that's what the kids today would call a "vibes-based metric."  The real numbers seem to be more like 46% in 1991 and 33% now.  So he's way off there.  But he's also right in the most crucial sense that 46, and even 33, percent represents a significant over-representation of African Americans relative to the US population, pointing to a serious anti-black bias in our criminal justice system, which is the whole damn point.

Anyway, the B-side is actually what got me thinking about this single again in the first place.  If you follow me on Twitter and/ or Bluesky, you know I recently watched Logic's debut film, Paradise Records.  And there's a scene where - actually 60-70% of the movie is - him and his buddy talking about he yearns to say "the N word" despite only being half-black, or as he puts it "incognegro."  When his buddy asks him what the heck that means, he's like, "it's actually this phrase I coined for a nigga who looks white."  And I was like you coined?  That's actually a whole-ass Professor Griff song!  Googling it, I see it's also the title of a DC Comics' graphic novel and a Ludacris album.  But Griff came first, and that's where I remember it from.  Although he actually spells it "In Cog Negrow," because in the 90s, the whole PE crew steered hard into titling everything in leetspeak (Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, Disturb N tha Peace, etc). 

The term meant pretty much the same thing back then as it does now, but Griff gives it a much more negative connotation: "ask a brother if his color's of pure mix, he's quick to explain how he's black but born mixed.  'Free Mandela' you yelled on the street blocks, fake ass faggot sportin' apartheid Reebox.  God will take the head of an Oreo.  Y'all snakes in black hidin' incognegro."  So it's tempting to joke about how we shouldn't leave Logic and Griff alone in a room together, but I think it's clear Griff is speaking about being impure on an ideological level, while Logic just means his literal ancestry.  Though Griff's still talking pretty wild on this one, don't get me wrong.  I don't defend everything the man says.

Anyway, "In Cog Negrow"'s kind of a slow track with a catchy but over familiar "Jungle Boogie" loop that ultimately makes it feel more like disposable album filler compared to "Jail Sale."  That makes the other B-side so much more interesting.

Actually, my copy you see above is the basic cassingle, but the maxi-single version, plus the 12" and CDS include an exclusive non-album B-side: the "Jail Sale (Dance Mix)" by Felix Sama!  Yeah, "Jail Sale" is just about the last song you'd expect to get an up-tempo dance extension, but here it is.  Lyrically, Griff is still going off on the "justified genocide," and he even ads some additional adlibs at the end, concluding with, "I want you all to know, the biggest jail cell is America, the United Snakes of America."  But now it's set to the instrumental of "Let the Beat Hit Em" by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.  It's got a cool "Looking At the Front Door" vibe, because both of those records use the same sample, but Cult Jam and Sama's usage is more on the club tip.  And maybe that's why this exists.  I'm sure Luke Records had a ton of connections with Miami DJs and promoters; I can just imagine them begging, "come on, Griff, we've gotta give these guys something they can play!"

But I love the fact that this doesn't compromise by cutting out any of verses or anything.  I would've loved hearing them drop that "handcuffs could never contain!" vocal sample in a nightclub in the '90s.  Obviously, I love the strictly hardcore, dirty street level shit, but there can be a real magic when raw Hip-Hip vocals are merged with poppier rap music.  You know, you've got Griff going off, "spendin' time writing appeals ain't nothing but pen strokes, and boot lickin' niggas are immitatin' white folks" over these MTV keyboards.  It's like when Lakim Shabazz made a house song or Yah Yah recorded with those 5th Lmnt dudes.

It's worth noting that the promo version of the 12" also has an exclusive dub and an additional radio edit of the Dance Mix, which edits it down by about two minutes, which is actually probably the ideal length, since the full length version is content to let the beat ride for some pretty long, boring stretches.  On the other hand, it edits out the small number of curse words from Griff's lyrics, so that's annoying.  It also censors the non-dance version.  And only the retail version (plus, as you can see above, the tape) come in the picture cover.  So it's a bit of a trade off.

Father's Deadly Venom

Another new year and time again to cover another exciting point in Father MC's career... but are there any left?  Man, you're ding-dong right there are!!  And today we're going to take it back to 1995, when he was simply going by Father and his Uptown days were a couple years behind him.  This is when he released those weird, dueling Sexual Playground/ This Is 4 the Players albums on different independent labels.  So this was easily the most high profile thing he did at that time: producing, writing and featuring on N-Tyce's single "Sure Ya Right."

So, a quick run-down of N-Tyce's career: she started out as MC Spice, dissing The Real Roxanne in 1989.  Then she changed her name to N-Tyce and released a series of singles on Wild Pitch Records, starting with the tight "Black To the Point" in 1990.  Unfortunately, after that, she softened up.  I remember thinking her single "Walk a Little Closer" sounded like a Monie Love crossover record minus the accent.  She got some attention in 1993 though with an early Wu-Tang collaboration on her single "Hush Hush Tip" which was produced by 4th Disciple, written by RZA and had Method Man on the hook just when everybody was super excited to hear anything from the Wu.

Then this single with Father was her final one for Wild Pitch.  The back cover promised an upcoming album called Single File, but that never came out.  But it turned out she was just transitioning to another phase in her career, because she parlayed that RZA connection into a full on membership to Deadly Venoms, the official Wu-Tang girl group, which struggled to really take off, but released some interesting things throughout the latter half of the 90s.  Nick Wiz later dropped a bunch of unreleased recordings with her from the early 90s.

Unfortunately, this record is still in her soft phase.  Father has looped up "Outstanding" after only a million other rappers had used it: Blvd Mosse, Alliance, Rich Nice, Rob Base, Ice Cube, Paris...  Look, I like that sample, but by the time Shaquille O'Neal had put out his "Outstanding," I don't think you could argue that it wasn't thoroughly played out.  Still, Father's like Rodney O & Joe Cooley, in that they're clearly lovers of the great soul records and love to keep making records out of the classics.  You can't be mad at it; they never fail to sound good even if they're not breaking any new ground.

So yeah, Father does the hook on here, like Meth did on "Hush Hush Tip," but in this case he also drops his own verse, "it's time to ease up, squeeze up, get my game on.  Ain't nothing wrong if we get it on."  And maybe that's the only reason he gets a writing credit on this, but I suspect he had a hand or more in N-Tyce's lyrics, too.  Partially, because they're just his type of bragging/ relationship raps, and because she drops a pretty pointed Father MC reference, "you want a one nite stand (nahh, baby)?"  And his own line about "I've been watching you" is surely a nod to his single with Lady Kazan, so that seems to be his overarching concept here.  Although some of the subject matter, like "I be the chick known to cheat," is also a callback to N-Tyce's own earlier material (that's what "Hush Hush Tip"'s all about).

Perhaps because that "Outstanding" loop was so old hat, this single includes a couple of remixes.  There are instrumentals, an accapella and a shorter radio edit, but then two proper remixes with all new instrumentals.  The L.E.S. mix, produced by Queens' DJ L.E.S., is a cool, darker track that harkens more towards her Deadly Venoms sound.  But unfortunately it totally clashes with the pop dating raps N-Tyce is trading with Father, so it really doesn't fit.  They also include the instrumental, so that's a nice little secret to keep in your crates if you're a DJ.  But as a version of "Sure Ya Right," it kinda blows.

Then there's the Eclipse Mix by, obviously, DJ Eclipse, and he shows he understands the nature of the project, delivery a more poppy, smooth track with a slick bassline and some catchy little horns.  Still, the original is better.  There's a reason Father sticks to the tried and true.  Eclipse tries to create something new, but it's hard to compete with giants.  So A-side wins here.  But, frankly, it's not all that in any variation.  N-Tyce was easily at her best when she wasn't writing for the mainstream R&B crowd, and I'm sorry to say it as a lifelong fan of his, but teaming up with Father was probably a mistake.  If she had shown some of that Deadly Venom flavor here, Single File probably would have turned up in stores nationwide.  But oh well, this was still an interesting and pretty high profile project for Father at the time.