Christmas F-ckin' Day

(Sharing one of my personal favorite Christmas rap albums, and even a surprise comeback. Youtube version is here.)

Malignant Graffiti!

(Youtube version is here.)

Pick It Up Pick It Up

(Youtube version is here.)

Poison Clan Appreciation Week, Day 8: Home Team

Ok, so the original line-up of The Poison Clan was DeBonaire and JT Money. Deb's little brother Drugz was loosely down, too (he speaks briefly on the first album and has a skit on the second album called, "Drugs Bullshittin'." After the first album, DeBonaire quit The Clan to form Home Team.

In 1992, they put out one album (Live Via Sateliite From Saturn) and the hit single "Pick It Up" on Luke Records. JT talks about the split in this Murder Dog interview, "I never knew to this day really why. He just wanted to do what he wanted to do. Maybe he felt like he wasn't doin the typa music that he wanted to do. Cause remember when he went and did Home Team with his brother, they did 'Pick It Up Pick It Up,' when I was doin 'Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya.' But we were always tight, we still tight."

In 1993, they followed that up with this second (and unfortunately final) single, "Back To the Bronx," produced by DeBonaire himself. It's the Home Team formula at its best: a classic old school beat and familiar samples retooled to boom even deeper while the MCs kick ill freestyle verses. They're not really saying much, though there's a few clever rhymes; but it's mostly all about their use of dozens of short, clipped staccatto rhymes, their voices kicking almost like another set of drums. The actual drum track is a short loop that's continually re-scratched in (ok, the scratching is probably looped, too... but it still sounds great); and the hook is nothing but them letting the beat roll in silence until one of the MCs grabs the mic again for another crazy verse.

Then once again, regular Poison Clan contributor Frank Ski is back on hand to issue another exclusive 12" remix, the "Blunted Remix." He's added a bunch of new vocal samples (mostly on the hook, but really throughout) and an extra-old school hand-clap track to the original, unchanged instrumental. It downplays the bassline, which dominated the original, and plays up the snappy percussion. It's hard to pick a favorite - both versions are dope for different reasons.

The b-side is "Reminiscing," the final song on the album that stood out as the only one where they completely changed their styles. Instead of just fun freestyle rhymes, they stick to straight, simple topic-driven rhymes, reminiscing (natch) on their high school days in Brooklyn:

"Combination locks,
They got broken with a hammer.
The classroom was boring
Like they threw you in a slammer.
Girls that wanted to wear them bamboos,
They got them yanked out;
Brothers that was illin' gotta fight
For gettng ranked out.
Teachers couldn't stop us
When we roamed the whole buildin';
We had a crazy fat mob
When we was in Tilden.
We used to go up to the mall
They call The Kings Plaza.
Kings Plaza was kinda cool;
I think it has a
Macy's, maybe JC Penny, and some others.
We used to boost the gear
From out the store with other brothers.
If you was a sucka
And you wasn't actin' proper,
You would get a hundred stitches
From somebody's chopper;
Or maybe I should say a shank,
A razor, or an axe.
We used to wear the funky outerwear
and sport the backpacks.
People got robbed
For stuff like Polo gooses;
People carried handlers,
Knives and deuce-deuces.
We used to cut school
And go up to the ball court;
Slap-boxin' everyday
Like every day we fought.
I really can't forget
How we made the rap tapes,
Then brung them up to school
And let the suckas catch the vapes."

It's also produced by DeBonaire, and uses the same piano loop The Geto Boys used on "Six Feet Deep" the same year. The 12" also includes the instrumental version of "Reminiscing."

Home Team were all set to drop a second album, Malignant Graffiti, but Luke never put it out. I've blogged about that here; there's even an image of the cover. The Poison Clan have also talked every so often about reuniting - first on Luke Records (one reunion song, "Movin' Along," was featured on Luke's third solo album, which I've already blogged about here). But then Luke's label went bankrupt and all that got shelved... They talked about it again years later. In the interview I quoted earlier, JT had this to say on the subject, "We're gonna do an album. I went and talked to him a coupla months ago. Like right when I get this out we're gonna put this thang down. He's just waitin. He's still doin his music, but he ain't did no deals or nothing. He might be waitin on his boy, might be waitin till I come back to the hood." Most recently, in March of '08, they had a Poison Clan reunion concert that featured JT, Deb, Drugz and Uzi.

Poison Clan Appreciation Week, Day 4: The Good Luke Songs

There's a reason most Luke albums are the stuff of dollar bins and rarely even find their way online. They're bloated and about 50% skit. And Luke doesn't even pretend to be a rapper and adopt a rudimentary flow - ever - he just talks on half his songs and does hooks only on the rest. I mean, he's had some short-term successful singles with his shout and call songs, with good reason: he had some great in-house producers (even his biggest detractors can't really front on the instrumental to "Breakdown"). But I could still sleep peacefully at night if all of those songs were wiped from existence tomorrow.

But, there's one reason to own them all: The Poison Clan!

All of his albums before Luke Records self destructed (post label destruction his albums changed and aren't really relevant to the discussion) were worth picking up because, naturally, Luke used his albums to promote his artists (and help deflect the fact that he was putting out rap album after rap album without being able to rap). Each of his albums have some great songs; all featuring The Poison Clan. The rest of the albums you could throw away. So, let's look at all of those now:

From I Got Shit On My Mind:
1) "Fakin' Like Gangstas" - This is essentially a JT solo joint, although Luke adlibs ("I still don't know the fuck nigga that I was shootin' at!") on the hook. It's a solid cut, with JT using a simple flow over a nice beat, speaking out against everyone he thinks is faking being a gangsta. It's the song that made Snoop and Dre turn around and diss Luke on "Dre Day," and would be a solid entry any Poison Clan album.

2) "Pussy Ass Kid and Hoe Ass Play (Payback Is a Mutha Fucker)" - This is great. A raw, hardcore beat with JT and the underrated Bustdown just trading verses dissing the hell out of Kid & Play. The beat switches around and there's some nice scratching on the hook; but Bustdown really steals the show. JT is as dope as ever, too. Luke riffs a bit at the end, but he doesn't really add anything.

3) "Head, Head and More Head" - At first this sounds like just another of Luke's shout and call songs, with him shouting out various dirty phrases to an audience that enthusiastically shouts back over a hype track with an ill guitar lick. But then JT Money and Jiggie Gee get on the track, spitting sexual diss verses at each other. It's a fun battle-of-the-sexes joint, though Luke's parts feel a little protracted.

From In the Nude:
1) "Bad Land Boogie" - I forgot about this when it was new, so it was a really nice surprise when I went back to my old Luke tapes in the 2000's (even more surprising, Luke included this on his greatest hits CD years later). This is a Home Team joint (just in case anybody's joining us late, both Home Team members were down with Poison Clan; Deb Rock was a founding member), and in classic HT tradition takes a well-loved old school beat and adds some deep bass and samples, and the duo take turns kicking ill, bugged verses. This is really the only proper Home Team song besides what's on their album, so fans should definitely snag this - you won't be disappointed!

2) "Cowards In Compton" - I just did a video blog about this yesterday, so refer to that. Suffice to say: it's dope, and the only noteworthy Luke track that he released as a single.

3) "Head, Head and More Head part 2" - This is pretty self-explanatory; Luke clearly wanted to recapture the success of the first one by barely varying from the first one at all. JT and Jiggie are back over the same beat and Luke is doing the same thing over the hook. The only change is that JT and Jiggie have some new verses... but, really, what more do you want? These are definitely the least of the songs I'm highlighting, but they're still fun.

4) "Freestyle Joint" - Now this is what it's all about. JT, Deboinaire, Clayvoisie and Fresh Kid Ice of the 2 Live Crew make a posse cut over a really nice track. Everything about this song is just right, the beat is fresh, the samples are cool and everybody sounds good with their verse... like when Deb gets on the track, his voice sounds perfect. Even Fresh Kid Ice's hardcore boasts ("fuck with Chinaman and ya die!") work when they shouldn't. I don't think you can even be a hip-hop fan and not enjoy a song like this. The two concepts just can't occupy a human brain at the same time.

From Freak for Life 6996:
1) "That's How I Feel" - This is a cool, Mike McCray produced solo joint for JT, with a fresh MC Lyte sample cut up for the hook. Luke adlibs a bit on the breakdown but again, his input is irrelevant; it's just about JT, the beat and the DJ. Good shit.

2) "Represent" - This is sort of like "Freestyle Joint" part 2. The beat is different but still tight... it's rawer (there's even a Big Daddy Kane sample saying "get raw" on the hook) with whining horns, and the MCs on this posse cut get a little more lyrical. There's even a human beatbox on the track! This one features JT, Verb (of The New 2 Live Crew who tried to bring an east coast lyrical vibe to the group), Fresh Kid Ice and Drugz.

3) "Movin' Along" - We end with a nice track but an unkept promise - a Poison Clan reunion track! It's just credited as being PC, but it's JT and Deb as a pair again. It's a slow, smooth cool-out rhythm and features Luke's in-house reggae artist Likkle Wikked (who sounds dope) on the hook, along with a soulful, vintage vocal sample. It's all about hearing each of them ride the groove, with a collection of old school funky guitar samples, including one which is clearly a deliberate call back to the Poison Clan's first album. It's painful to imagine all the nice material we'd've had if Luke Records didn't have financial problems... damn.

So, anyway, that's it. After that, Luke lost all his good acts and his subsequent guest stars were all lame or outside his camp (a la his stuff with Doug E Fresh and Biggie). It's probably hard to justify picking up crap albums for an average of three good songs; but considering how cheap you can get them now, it's like buying three sweet singles of just the tight songs (and, like I said, at least the rest has some good production). So to me it's worth it: classic Poison Clan material.

Keep Hope Alive

I have dubs of Freddie Foxxx's Crazy Like a Foxxx and Young Zee's Musical Meltdown, and even Crustified Dibbs' Night of the Bloody Apes. I have original CD copies of 8-Off and Champ MC's albums, an EP of tracks off Omniscience's Elektra album, and I was able to download SuperNatural's Natural Disasters off of emusic.com. DWG Records pressed up classic, unreleased material by Phill Most Chill and Godfather Don. Ill Bizkits, Mikey D & the LA Posse and Ultimate Force's old albums eventually got released, only a decade late. Even Serch finally released (albeit as mp3 only - boo! Hiss!) the tracks he recorded with Pete Nice for the unfinished Ichibod's Cranium record... So, why couldn't it happen?

That album cover scan you're looking at ran in February 1995, claiming to be available on Like Records through Red Distribution. Home Team's (the ultra-backpacker duo that put out the delightful Live Via Satellite From Saturn album, original Poison Clan member Debonaire and his cousin Drugz) infamously unreleased Malignant Graffiti. The copy reads, "Pick it up! Hometeam is back with their new album 'Malignant Graffiti'." The catalog numbers are XR-213-1 for the vinyl, XR-213-2 for the CD and XR-213-4 for the tape (kinda makes you wonder what XR-213-3 was meant to be, doesn't it?). It's listed with a bunch of other Luke Records projects, all of which were released right around the time of this ad, though some - like Christmas At Luke's Sex Shop - were rather limited. This suggests to me that the album was finished and just about to be released before it was pulled (it shows up in various music catalogs all the time, but of course stores can never fulfill the order... go ahead and try it. I have; it's fun); so there has to be a copy out there somewhere. Something stored in Luke Records' vaults if not actually distributed press release copies. So, come on somebody. Dig it out and leak it, already!

...By the way, the entire page is black and white, so it's reasonable to guess the proper album cover would've actually been in color.

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind stumbling upon however much was recorded for Biz Markie's Remember Me? on Tommy Boy and Craig G's Return Of the Seventh Letter on Scotti Bros. Records either. And on yet another related note, have a look at my old post on Pudgee's King of New York album, and scroll all the way down to the bottom. I just uncovered a little bit more info and updated the post today.

Tags: Home Team