Fatal Thoughts of Spurmacide

And speaking of Jersey Hip-Hop, here's a recent, slept on release.  It's an unreleased B-Fyne album called looked If Lookz Could Kill from P-Quest Revivals and Nustalgic Records.  B-Fyne is the guy from Blaque Spurm/ The Funk Family and other projects I've covered on this blog.  But this is his first solo project, an album recorded from 1996-1997 with Joe The Butcher when he was working at RuffNation Records.

It's entirely produced by Tony D, except for one song by YZ, and jumps in with an immediate head nodder that you'll want to put on repeat.  This sets up a tight, unified tone of somewhat smooth, modern-sounding beats across the whole album.  Some of the punchlines ("flows hard like silicone titties," "suffering from WackMCitis") could've been left behind in the 90s, but for the most part, the lyricism is still appealing.  There are some lines just for us New Jerseyians, like "find me in NJ, the Turnpike way, stay off Exit 8, one before Great Adventure, what you get into if you choose to enter my zone."  We'll make the immediate "Exit 7A = Great Adventure" association, but nobody else will.  "Real Kadeal" starts off sounding pretty flat, but once the hook stops and he starts flowing over the track, and then the cuts come in, it really takes off.

The album does start to run out of steam a little bit in the second half.  "Plot Thickens" is kind of a silly sex narrative rap, along the lines of Cella Dwellas' "Perfect Match" or an early Fresh Prince record without the wit.  "Pretty MF With the Dread" also suffers from a clunky hook, despite having a really fresh track which makes great use of "Who Got the Props" and a jazzy sax sample.  And it's not like the other half is bereft of highlights; "Buttascotch" is a tight duet with his little brother, Baby Chill.  And speaking of guest verses, the next track features YZ and Blaque Spurm fellow Papa Doc.

This is a CD-only release right now, though I can't help but notice that the slightly short track-listing (nine songs, and one's a short outro) feels ideal for a single LP.  Like all of P-Quest's Revivals, it's a properly pressed CD, though, not a CD-R.  It's limited to only 100 copies, the first 20 of which came with a promo card; but those are long gone, so if you're interested, don't wait too long.

Although that's not to say there are never any second chances.  You may remember I wrote about Baby Chill's unreleased album Wake Up Call coming from P-Quest and Nustalgic in 2016.  That was limited to 100 CDs, too, and sold out ages ago.  But now it's back, reissued in 2019 with new artwork and three additional bonus tracks.  Two of them are just radio freestyles, which aren't as exciting as complete songs, but still pretty cool.  He definitely impresses with his calm yet confident flow over "My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me" and Nas's "Halftime."

But the third bonus track is a complete, never heard before song, produced by Tony D in the early 90s.  It's called "Nut Junkie," and yes, it means what you think it does: a bit of a reference to his Secret Squirrels thing, but mostly it's about nuts of the busted variety.  It's a tight, busy track, with two sung hooks, one by a female R&B singer, and then a reggae guy chanting about being a "junkie, a junkie, a punanny junkie.  Me no thing for sensei, 'cause me a punanny junkie."  As you can guess, it's pretty all pretty irreverent and honestly one of the best songs on the album.

This one's also limited to a 100 CDs.  I don't know if the bonus tracks make it worth double-dipping if you already copped the 2016 edition.  But they definitely take the sting out of being stuck with a second pressing if you missed the first one; and the important thing is that more music is being restored and finally released to the fans.

Dirty Jersey Week, Day 6: The Lost YZ/ Shaq Collaberation

Here's an interesting limited vinyl (and CD) release I almost passed over: the unreleased EP by The Rat Pack called Porno Stars From Mars.  Okay, but who the heck is The Rat Pack, you ask.  It's a crew YZ put together in the late 90s.  It's four up and coming (well, at the time) MCs, specifically Delowe Marshalis, Sean Pender, The Third aka Boo the Product and Canon, with YZ producing them.  Can YZ even produce?  Has he done it before?  Well, he's had co-production credit on a lot of his earlier work, so maybe?  Surely we'd rather he rapped, but well, let's find out.

Porno Stars From Mars is an EP worth of material: six songs and a skit from 1998.  And actually the production's pretty solid.  The opening track in particular sounds hot, with a great chopped piano loop over some crispy drums, and the smooth vibed "Supa Shine."  With four MCs you've never heard before, I can't say any of them really distinguish themselves; only the guests do.  And this EP has some noteworthy guests: Taji from Souls of Mischief, Keith Murray who sounds really good on here and, yes, Shaquille O'Neal.  He sounds like his usual clumsy self, "The conceitedness of Brick City's Wells Fargo.  Get it, motherfucker?  'Cause I got a lot of dough.  And all y'all hatin' ass niggas, y'all be makin' me sick.  But since y'all pussies, squeeze your balls and cut off your dick."  Um, okay.

Overall, it's a pretty solid EP.  The production's better than I was expecting, and you definitely won't be able to listen to some of these tracks without nodding to them.  But I really wish YZ was rapping on here.  These guys are on a cool, hardcore tip, but sometimes their content's a little too basic.  The EP's limited to 500 copies, the first 100 of which come in full color picture covers pressed on translucent red wax.  Both the vinyl and CD also come with a photo postcard of the group (the one pictured above), and you can also buy a bundle which includes a T-shirt as well.  This is all on the Nustalgic record label, with all the B-Fyne material I covered on Day 1, which brings me to some other CDs they have on there I want to touch on briefly.

There's another group on there, who you've probably never heard of anymore than The Rat Pack, called Good Biz.  Well, Good Biz is actually a project B-Fyne was doing around 2010, basically a pair up of him and a guy named KP.  There's also sometimes a third member who sings some of the hooks; I think she's part of the group like Miss Jonez was part of The Get Fresh Crew.  But she did make it onto two of the covers.  Anyway yeah, they have a bunch of material: two EPs (Principles & Interest and Checks & Balances), a CD single ("Mr. Original"), and a full-length album (Sound Investment), plus another digital-only remix EP (Soul Proprietor) and KP solo album (Slaps).

I've been going through their stuff, and it's good but not great.  B-Fyne is a better MC than KP, and a lot of their production sounds kind of cheap.  But some tracks stand out with richer production, and there's some very interesting guests interspersed, including YZ (on a couple songs), Crusaders For Real Hip-Hop's Rahzii Hipowa, UGK's Bun B, Cool Nutz (remember, B-Fyne has a Texas connection) and Brother J.  Some of the more noteworthy songs are "Mr. Original" with YZ rapping about sneakers and B-Fyne doing a little Special Ed homage, and of course the song with Brother J.  A lot of the production is by The Are, who they say is "of The Track Masterz," but I'm pretty sure The Track Masterz consists solely of Poke, Tone and sometimes Frank Nitty.  I think this might actually be the guy from K-Otix.  Some of these tracks also have some nice, subtle scratching on them, which is a plus.

Anyway, it's good to hear more material from B-Fyne and YZ.  It shows they've still got it.  But I also actually kinda hate some of the music here, like "Y'all Can't Ball" and "One For the Money."  They've got the kind of roster I love to cover on this site, but musically, I'd say it's better to pick through this material than go nuts and buy everything.  Most of the digital versions of the Good Biz projects are free, so you can download all that, and see if any of it inspires you to throw a CD in your cart while you're picking up some of the bigger ticket items, like the Blaque Spurm and Rat Pack.

Dirty Jersey Week, Day 1: The Blaque Spurm Catalog

It's Dirty Jersey Week, folks!  I'm celebrating my home state with a week's worth of posts of underrated NJ Hip-Hop.  I've doing old stuff, I'm doing new stuff and I'm doing new releases of old stuff, like today's entry.

Blaque Spurm is some deep, underground Jersey legacy.  I first discovered front man B-Fyne on the Crusaders For Real Hip-Hop album.  Actually, I probably heard him first on the Fu-Schnickens first album, but I didn't pick him out as anybody of note until I started digging deeper into Tony D's career in the late 90s/ early 2000s.  Like, I grew up on YZ's first album, but I had no idea B-Fyne is the guy he was talking to on "Back Again," even though he clearly says his name.

Anyway, B's crew, Blaque Spurm, were briefly signed to American Records/ Ill Labels back in 1994.  Like every Hip-Hop act on that label, it was a short lived association, and they released their only other record on Tony D's indie label, Contract Records, the following year.  And apart from a couple other guest appearances and some self-released stuff you probably had to catch them at a show to cop, that was all they put out.  Two slick, well regarded underground 12"s.

That is until their Spurmacidal Tendencies album, anyway.  This is a collection of their previously unreleased 1994 recordings collected onto one, full-length CD released by Nustalgic Records.  And yes, that includes all three tracks from their two 12"s as well.  A couple of the tracks are produced by unknowns (including one or two from their singles, so you know those are still dope), but the overwhelming majority is by Tony D himself.  The crew is somewhat hardcore, but definitely on some serious 90s backpacker shit.  Songs like "Nonoxynol Rhyme'n" definitely reminds me of the days of collecting tapes by crews him Masters Of the Universe or Living Legends.  But those guys never had the benefit of the rich, polished production Tony D provides.

Is this album dated?  Oh yes, and that may add to its charm or be a serious weakness.  Lots of easy pop culture punchlines "I'm like that purple dinosaur Barney; I'm large" and nerdy super scientifical lines like "I hover over tracks using levitational skills."  Young artists today would never write songs like these, and that's not me being an old guy shaking my cane at today's generation; that's a compliment.  But if you lived through that period like I did, it's going to nicely swan dive into nostalgia value.  But even if it doesn't and hearing that stuff just makes you wince now, there's still undeniable skill on hand here; and most young MCs who have the advantage of living in more sophisticated times would still be lucky to write a verse half as compelling as B-Fyne does consistently here.  Like check "Awh Fuck It;" it's like his "Greatest Man Alive."  He kills it (and yeah, even though it's a group album, B-Fyne is definitely the star, with several solo songs).  My only criticism is that Spurm allowed themselves to be too influenced by the trends of their time.  Now, this CD's kinda been making the rounds for years on the down low.  But this new version has an unlisted bonus track called "Nearing the End;" so if you never copped it before, now's the perfect time.

And that's not the whole story.  Before Blaque Spurm was Blaque Spurm, they were known as The Funk Family.  They even had a 12" out in 1992, which I'm not gonna front, I knew nothing about until recently.  And in addition to Spurmicidal Tendencies, Nustalgic has also compiled a full album of The Funk Family's unreleased recordings from 1991 to 1993, called Everything'll Befyne.  Yeah, guess who's the star again.  Again, he has a couple songs, and again, Tony D produced almost the entire album.  Two were produced by The Baka Boyz.  But there's a big difference.  Despite the small gap of time between the two periods, The Funk Family stuff is much hyper.  They're yelling over faster, high energy beats with crazy, fluctuating styles, clearly influenced by crews like Fu-Schnickens, Rumpletilskinz, Das EFX and LotUG.  Some songs are slower, but it's still a big jump from Blaque Spurm.  Both albums are dope; I'm not sure I have a favorite; but they're definitely distinct.

There are some weird moments, like when they group does a very disharmonious rendition of a Sequence routine.  And Tony takes the mic a couple times.  Disappointingly, this leaves off one of the four songs from their original 12"; and curiously, the previous version of this compilation had a very different track-listing, with a bunch of different songs.  I wish we could just get everything; but I guess they just have too much music from this period.  maybe they'll do a Volume 2 down the road.

And that's still not the end.  Nustalgic has one more CD: Wake Up Call by Baby Chill.  Baby Chill is a member of Funk/ Spurm and actually B-Fyne's brother.  He's tragically passed away, but this CD brings back a full album of material he recorded in 1993 with his Secret Squirrels crew.  Production is entirely by Tony D, so it has a real nice sound as Chill seamlessly transitions from smooth to playful to serious.  It's more in tune with the Blaque Spurm sound than the Funk Family; but it's definitely it's own thing.  Really good.  The album's thirteen tracks long and has been floating around the internet for ages; but now it's got an official pressing with a bonus track: the "Good Morning Vietnam" posse cut from Tony D's mp3.com album.

It would be nice if there was vinyl for all this; but these CDs are packed, so at best we could've probably just hoped for EPs missing a bunch of the tracks anyway.  The CDs also come with some stickers and postcards with group photos and stuff, but they've also added all this stuff to ITunes and probably some other mp3 outlets if that's more your thing.  Me, I still demand a physical copy for my collection, so I had to have the CDs; and it helped that they were on sale (still are as of this writing) from their official online store.