Master P Vs. King Tee & Ice Cube

(Youtube version is here.)

Hidden Breeze

Man, I can't get me enough Breeze! You may remember his slick, underrated album T.Y.S.O.N. on Atlantic Records from 1989, or maybe you just remember him from his cameos on all those King Tee albums. He was the best rhymer in The LA Posse; but he never quite broke through the music industry. He was signed to Def Jam, but they never released any of his material (labels, how can we make that happen??), and eventually wound up on an indie label that put out a cool, underground 12" in the early 90s, but never managed to release that long-awaited second album... which was to be titled, appropriately enough, Blackballed.

So, starved for Breeze records, I picked up his one cheesy, crossover-attempting single, "Great Big Freak." The video played on Yo! a couple of times, and it's not bad or anything. It uses some chunky funk samples and the Posse were pro producers. Furthermore, both Breeze and guest/ fellow Posse member Big Dad have kick some fly deliveries with an emphasis on fast, multiple rhymes to keep their core fans happy. But let's face it; a song about girls and excessive instrumentation really isn't the kind of song we wanted to hear from Breeze.

But this 12" has an exclusive remix on it. And like I said, until someone raids the Def Jam vaults, we're stuck with a dearth of Breeze material, so I picked it up. And the remix is pretty good. It uses a lot of the same instrumental, but adds even more. New samples, deeper bass thumps, a nice change-up for Dad's verse. At times it's almost too much and feels sloppy; but for the most part it succeeds in turning it into a more creative, energetic street mix. The idea seems to have been to a put a little more hip-hop back into the song, and it does... but at the end of the day, it's still "Great Big Freak." I recommend it for anyone who legitimately considers themselves a Breeze fan; but if you're just passing through, I'd suggest picking up literally any and every other Breeze song before copping this one.

The B-side, "T.Y.S.O.N." is much more in line with the kind of Breeze we want. A harder track with Breeze just flexing skills and battle rhymes, with these really awesome Muhammad Ali (no, not Tyson) vocal samples comprising the chorus. It's great. But, of course, it's just an album track. Hell, it's the title cut. And nobody should be checking out "Great Big Freak" unless they've already got the much stronger LP, so it's kinda pointless.

Rounding out the 12", we get the Instrumental for "Great Big Freak" on the A-side, and the Censored Version of "T.Y.S.O.N." on the B. So there you go, something even less desirable than a regular album cut. But if you were bored and and desperate enough to play the Censored Version anyway, like I was, you stumbled onto a pretty awesome surprise...

It's actually an exclusive remix! Yeah, they weren't lying about the "Censored" part, and that's definitely annoying. But this was Breeze in 1989, there's not a lot of cursing to cut out. So after the intro, it basically plays through unhindered. He just says "fuck" once in the first verse; and amusingly, they kind of miss the mark and censor more of the word after it than the "fuck" itself.

And the remix? It's dope. I mean, the original is already killer, so it doesn't need any improving on. But this is definitely a hype alternative. They're actually using the same philosophy as the "great Big Freak" remix, where they use the same core instrumental, including all the signature sounds (and yes, vocal snippets); they just sometimes swap it out to add more funky samples into the mix. Some of it has more of a P-Funk mix, which you'd think would be a step down from the edgy, screechy feel of the original; but it actually comes together perfectly. It never dips into sloppiness either. It's just def! And if you've listened to "T.Y.S.O.N." a million times over like I did as a kid, this breathes all new life into it. Oh, and where the original version always fades out, this remix keeps going with some fresh cuts by Smooth the DJ - not really like attention-drawing fast DJ-slicing-up-the-wax kind of stuff, but just rubbing in all these great grooves.

So it turns out this is something not just for the serious Breeze fans desperate to squeeze every last drop of music from his too short career. This is a hot little 12" that, because it's so slept on, can usually be picked up out of the virtual dollar bin. As you can see from the scan, my version is the promo version, which just comes in a plain sleeve with one of Atlantic's infamous "When You PLAY IT, SAY IT!" stickers on it. But there's also a regular, commercial release version which comes in a picture cover and has the exact same track-listing, including both remixes.

The Wind's Too Def To Die

There's a brand new review up at Diggers With Gratitude - here's a direct link. I decided to go with a nice, underrated west coast rarity this time. An absolute keeper if you can find it, and another tale of a tragically unreleased album. As always with my DWG reviews, sound clips are included. 8)

Where They Are Now

This Is It, Y'all. Mp3s have been floating around the 'net for a while, but the actual record finally just came out: "Where Are They Now," the remixes. In fact, it's a Japan-only limited edition 12" on Ill Will Records (Nas's sub-label imprint), so snatch it while you can.

So, what's the big deal about a remix 12" of a mediocre (at best) Nas song? After all, Hip-Hop Is Dead is just one more in an increasingly long series of dull and disappointing follow-ups to Illmatic, and "Where Are They Now" was one of the worst songs on there. The beat was dope, but very familiar: James Brown's "Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved," which has been used in about a bajillion previous hip-hop records, from Kool G Rap's "Poison," to the most similar that I can think of, Professor Griff's "Pawns In the Game" (let's face it: essentially, this is the instrumental to "Pawns In the Game"). It's still damn good, though; and this beat would be fine - one of Nas's best even, though that's saying very little - if it wasn't for the rhymes. Yes, "Where Are They Now" is another one of those boring, lifeless name-dropping songs; where an MC does nothing but list the names of other MCs in the hopes that some of their "street cred" rubs off on them. 2Pac did it, Big Daddy Kane did it, Bahamadia did it, Edan did it; everybody's done it. It's not original, engaging, entertaining or thoughtful; it's just... a list. It's like when hip-hop albums had those boring shout-out tracks at the end, only here they're right smack in the middle and the artists think it makes them cool or something. Who the heck wants a remix of that?

Of course, most of you reading this already know the punch-line... As I say, this has been on the internet for months. But now the actual record has been released. Why is this such a must-have? Because of the line-up!

"Where Are They Now (90's Remix)" features Redhead Kingpin, Rob Base, Spinderella, Father MC, Monie Love, Mike G of the Jungle Brothers, EST of Three Times Dope, Positive K, Krazy from Das EFX, Mr. DoItAll from Lords of the Underground, Chip-Fu from the Fu-Shcnickens and Dres from Blacksheep! Nas doesn't even rap on this; he just "hosts" it, saying a few words between every couple of verses. Instead he's just found all (well, not all... but a lot) of the MCs he name-dropped on the album cut and gave them eight bars each to shine on this new, massive posse cut. The instrumental keeps the James Brown track, but blends in the instrumentals form each MC's greatest hit - sometimes more than one, even - during their verse (most of the time it works really well, though a few times they don't gel together as well as the rest... for example, "Monie In the Middle" mixes in hot, but trying to get "I Got a Man" in there feels a little awkward).

So, you've got the 90's remix, plus the instrumental, then you flip the record over and damn! "Where Are They Now (80's Remix)," which is formatted the same way and features MC Shan, Raheem of the Furious Five, Doctor Ice and Kangol of UTFO, Kool Moe Dee, Sha Rock of US Girls and The Funky Four + One, Tito of the Fearless Four, Grandmaster Caz, LinQue, Dana Dane, Pebblee Poo (remember? She did "Fly Guy," the answer record to the Boogie Boys' "Fly Girl") of the Masterdon Committee and Just-Ice!

Then there's "Where Are They Now (West Coast Remix)," which gives up on the decidedly east-coast sounding James Brown foundation in favor of a more mellow track for the West Coast MCs: Breeze, Kam, King Tee, Candyman, Threat, Ice-T, Sir Mix-A-Lot and the Conscious Daughters. It's a definite head-nodder, but they've also forgone the technique of blending in each MC's previous hit(s) to the instrumental, which is a little disappointing. Guess they got a little lazy by remix #3, but it's still cool; you won't really miss it.

Now, I say how can you not need this record just looking at those line-ups? And most of the MCs come off well, too (even the ones that don't instill much faith based on their past output). Stand outs for me would be: Redhead Kingpin, Shan, Doc Ice, Kool Moe Dee and Breeze; but I'm sure everybody will have their own favorites. I made two previous posts (here and here), naming what I feel are the two essential, full-length albums of 2007 to date. Well, this would be one of the two essential 12" singles of 2007 (the other being Master Ace & Marco Polo's "Nostalgia;" except, lamely, it only features the clean/edited version), definitely a necessity.