Blackface In the Crates

This is the kind of shit I don't write enough about.  What I have for us today is a tape I'd long forgotten about until I was just aimlessly perusing my own collection.  It's a single I bought in the 90's for a pretty simple reason: Fat Joe and Showbiz's names on the cover, especially since this was back before Joe started doing all those jiggy club records in the 2000s.  In fact, flipping it over, we see that Showbiz produced their track, too.  So okay, I had no idea who this Blackface was, but it was still a no brainer.  At least back then.  I wouldn't buy a tape (or record or CD) for just a guest spot now, as a wise and wizened adult.  But I was more reckless and naive back in the 90s.

Anyway, it worked out, because Blackface is pretty dope.  He's actually a Florida artist (his label here, Backstage Records, is based in Miami) who had an album and a couple singles through the late 90s.  But somehow he wound up connecting with the DITC guys enough to get a feature on his debut 1996 single ("from the South Bronx to South Beach").  They didn't do anything else with him.  The rest of his album and other singles all seem to be by the one producer, Hugo Boss, who also did the A-side, "Cornbread."  But dude is definitely on the NY tip; this isn't like if Showbiz and Joe teamed up with Dem Boiz to perform another "How Much Boodie."

But let's start with "Cornbread," because it is the A-side, after all.  On the album, the title is extended to "Cornbread Style," and it's just a colorful way to announce he's from the South, coming "cornbread style, collard greens style."  Still, though, he's got that NY style, and Boss provides him a pretty unique, head nodding sample to rock over.  This really sets you up for something like Down South's "Southern Comfort," but it's just hardcore battle rhymes with some pretty clever rhyme schemes:

"I have you all leapin' like frogs.  I'm sayin', dog, why ya got to be a playa hater?  Let me be a playa now, and nigga, hate me later.  I'm a greater nominator with bites of an alligator.  You need some seasonin', playa, your style got no flavor.  I thought you woulda followed that recipe that I gave ya, ya non-writin' rhymer, ya damn two timer.  I'ma beat ya bad, beat ya bad, beat ya when I find ya.  This flow is for my shitty niggas that understand.  If you don't like it, I don't give a jigga-jigga-damn.  Slammin' punk niggas on the hard concrete.  I got more rhymes than the whole world got crimes.  I break mics, rappers, bones and even back spines.  A nigga's gettin' paid and it's about time."

I seriously was not expecting this guy to come that nice.

So now let's hear him rockin' over some Showbiz.  On the album, by the way, "Sessions" title is shortened to just "Session."  Anyway, it turns out the front cover is a little misleading.  Showbiz doesn't feature on "Sessions;" it's just Joe and Black.  Although yes, he does produce.  It's got some nice drums and a simple but catchy piano sample.  Blackface handles most of the verses, with Joe coming nice and hard on the hook ("yo, black, pass me the motherfuckin' heat!") just the way he sounds best.  He talks some crime stuff and even a bit of a serious message, "ain't no secret I won't tell about night fall, the black ski mask I keep is raw.  Like creepy critters huntin' for food in the dark, gun shots ignite the flame the metal sparks, like fireworks, but it's not the fourth of July.  Every second, every minute, one of my peoples die."  But Fat Joe comes in at the end to kick a solid, tough verse repping Terror Squad and "New York, New York, the big city of dreams."  Lyrically, Black owns this song, too, but Joe's voice sounds great on this track, so I'm glad he showed up for more than the hook in the end.

Together, both tracks add up to a surprisingly dope single.  Now, as you can see, I have the cassingle.  There is a proper 12" that comes in a full color picture cover with a couple additional versions: Instrumentals, a Radio Edit, even a remix of "Session."  That's the preferable version for sure.  But I'm good with the Showbiz version of "Session," so I've never bothered to upgrade.  But going back to this tape does have me wanting to cop his album and maybe some of his later singles.  I can see why Blackface never got much recognition, coming out of left field like he did, and without a major label to push him into everybody's face.  But it's too bad, because if that happened, I think a lot more people would've started checking for this guy.  Blackface did not get his due.

Shaq Chino and Pun

So Chino XL's new album just came out. It's actually a double CD (no vinyl, naturally), called RICANstruction: The Black Rosary. The caps are there because otherwise you'd never get the pun. I'm me, though, so I had to check it out immediately. There I was, listening to the sound clips on ughh, and I see that one of the songs features Big Pun. I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you reading this that Pun died twelve years ago. I got to interview him right before he left us; he really was a Hell of an MC. So immediately, the instant I see that, my heart jumps a little and I'm wondering: wow, has Chino sat on an unreleased Big Pun collabo all these years? After all, he said exactly that when he was promoting this album back in 2009 ("I do have a project that everybody is about to hear with him. ...it is vocals [from Big Pun] that no one has ever heard."). This could be some crazy, ill... But my brain doesn't even let my heart finish that notion. Don't set yourself up for the world's most predictable, crushing disappointment, dummy. Give it a listen, and it's gonna be some old Wake Up Show freestyle or something that you already have.

So I play it and it's a new song, called "Kings," produced by a guy named Focus, who I think was one of the many younger producers on that DoItAll album. Anyway, it's a duet. Chino brags about it on the hook: "this collaboration is biblical, mythical, insane... Chino and Big Pun, a true lyricist dream." And for some reason, the DJ feels compelled to make a thing about the fact that both Chino and Pun have referenced Nat King Cole at some point in their careers[oh, and that's why this song is called "Kings." I honestly just got that this second. Oy vey], by cutting up both of their old lines in the hook. Well, regardless, Chino makes no bones about the fact that he wrote his part long after Pun had passed on, saying, "Big Pun's in Heaven making angels sing; Chino is still in the physical, making your name ring." Predictably, though, Pun's verse is hauntingly familiar.

I just couldn't quite place it. We're now past the point where any teeny, tiny piece of me might still be holding onto the hope that we've been given a killer, unreleased Pun verse. Now my brain just wants to label it as a part of whatever song it's from and file it away forever. Fortunately, this is the internet age, so instead of spending all night dwelling on it, I just google a couple of Pun's lines and see that they originate from a song called "BX Niggas," which debuted in 2008. Apparently it's an epic, unreleased track discovered by the filmmakers of a retrospective Pun documentary called Big Pun: The Legacy; and to hear it all, you've gotta buy the DVD.

Bull shit on that. I recognize this Pun verse, and I've never heard of this screwy doc before. I reviewed another, quite good documentary on Big Pun; but this ain't that. This is something I feel confident calling screwy even though I've never seen it because they're advertising some tired, old Pun material as a special unreleased exclusive for their movie.

So back to Google. Now I'm getting results that say it's a part of some song "The Bigger They R."  Apparently it's an unreleased song from the 90's that we're only getting to hear these days because it's been leaked onto the internet by producer Domingo. But, no, damn it! Whatever song this verse is from, it's something I own and have had in my collection for years. Long enough, at least, for me to have completely forgotten what the heck it is. Get out of here with your phony Youtubian "internet leak" mythos. Whatever I've got, I know it's not called "The Bigger They R." But, looking at these later listings, I come upon the piece of the puzzle I needed to put it all together.

This song features Shaq. Yes, that Shaq, the only Shaq. It also features Fat Joe, but that doesn't narrow anything down when it comes to Pun. Shaq, however? I have every single record by Shaq ever released. I don't just mean the full-length albums; I have all the 12" singles, guest appearances, the soundtracks, the multiple promo EPs of his unreleased Superfriends album, the picture disc that looks like a basketball, the greatest hits, the German 12", Kazaam. And in return for me sharing that last little piece of information with you, all I ask is that you never ask me why. I just have it.

And now I can picture the record sitting right there on my shelves, with a bright, blue label and their names running along the top. Pun has only appeared once on any of Shaq's projects, and it's this 12"! It's called "Shaq Crack and Pun," and it's a dodgy white label (well, it has blue labels, but you know what I mean) release claiming to be from "Avalanche Recordings," and the track-listing is all screwed up. It lists a Dirty Version on one side and a Radio Version on the other; but just looking at the wax, you can plainly see there's four versions on here. One's an instrumental and one's a TV Track or something. But hey, it's "Shaq Crack and Pun!"

The track's nice and hard... I'm assuming the internet's right about Domingo having created it, because it sounds like his work, and an excellent example of it at that. Of course Pun steals the whole show and there's really no reason for anybody else to touch the microphone after him; but Fat Joe manages to come with some slick rhymes too. And Shaq? Well, he just kinda bounces around from one silly reference to another (he is, after all, the world's only graduate from The Fu-Shnickens' school of MCing), mashing up the English language to force multi-syllable rhymes and concepts that don't really exist: "movin' like the predator, camouflage injectorer, rhyme wreckerer." You can tell exactly the kind of fast-paced, rugged, mind blowing bars he wanted to deliver here. But hey, I bet Joe and Pun wouldn't've looked too impressive on the basketball courts either. Life has a nice way of balancing everything out.

As for "Kings?" It's got an all new beat (for that matter, "BX Niggas" seemed to have an original instrumental, too) which is pretty bombastic and pulls you along with it. And this is hardly the first time a deceased rapper's material has been recycled so a newer MC could make like they were collaborating with one of the greats. It's not even the first time it's been done to Big Punisher. The practice has become so common, it doesn't seem to even trip radars anymore. Notice how I'm the only blogger talking about this. But - and I'm not being entirely facetious when I say this - I think I would've enjoyed this even more if Chino had left Shaq on there.

Fat Joe da Gangsta

It's DITC Week over at Diggers With Gratitude, where each writer is reviewing a classic DITC album. Mine just went up today... an album I hadn't played in a while, but enjoyed going back to: Fat Joe's Represent.