I Shouldn't've Left You

What's up, guys?  I've missed y'all!  I mentioned it in my last video, but if you missed it, I've been busy with my last semester of grad school, so I took a step back to keep my grades pretty.  But now all of that is over and done with, and I'm back with a thematically appropriate record to talk about today: Rakim's "It's Been a Long Time."  But not that "It's Been a Long Time," I wanna talk about the Suave House Remix 12", also from Universal Records.

One of my pet theories I've developed during the years of writing about music is that we tend to get hooked onto artists as fans; and then it's easy for us to be lead astray.  By that I mean, we use our full judgement at first; we can be resistant to embracing an artist, and hem and haw over whether their latest record is really all that good, etc.  But once people cross the line into becoming a fan of someone, they start accepting a lot of BS and letting some pretty mediocre stuff slide.  You know, like every post-Marley Marl Juice Crew All Star project.

Or, for a really on the nose example...  Pretty much every discerning Hip-Hop head basically had to be a fan of Kool Keith in the heyday of the Ultramagnetic MCs; but how long did it take most of us who came up with him to question his new material?  I remember being super excited for the Ultra and Sex Style albums, or listening to him on Chino XL's album just thinking how great it is he's on there being super eccentric.  It wasn't until, like Matthew that I finally started questioning: do I really need to be spending money on this?  If some new jack had come out with those albums, I would've casually passed on it right away like, "nah, I'm not feeling it," but because it was Keith, I needed to unlearn.  Anybody with I Am the West or Tical 0 in their collection knows what I mean.  It's hard to let go.

So when I came across this one in my crates the other day, I immediately got on my own back.  Ah, you're such a Rakim nerd you even had to buy this totally excessive, mainstream crossover remix.  I mean, what corny outsider label exec thought it was was a wise idea to pair Rakim up with flavor of the month Texas gangsta rap beats?  Dumb idea, and dumber me for lapping up whatever they dumped in my lap.  But I figure I own it; I might as well revisit it.

And hey, you know, it's actually not that bad.  It obviously doesn't stand up against the original, but that's because the original is a killer DJ Premier track by the man at the peak of his career.  But this version's surprisingly effective.  The synthetic sound effects of the Suave House don't come off so well in direct comparison to the musicality of Premier's mix, but this is a darker track that actually suits Rakim's vocal stylings quite well.  The bassline draws you in, and it helps a hell of a lot that they left Premier's cuts in for the hook.  And it did get fairly popular; it wound up being included as a bonus track on most versions of the album.  But if the first version didn't exist to overshadow it, and this was the only version of "It's Been a Long Time" on the market, I think this would be more critically regarded in Rakim's canon as well.

Plus, it ain't the worst, incongruous cross-coast remix of a 1997 Rakim comeback single Universal put out.  There's another one you've probably forgotten, found on this oddball little Universal Records sampler album, U.N.I. Vs. All.  I mean, first of all, it's just odd to imagine anybody being psyched for a compilation unifying around one of the most ugly, corporate conglomerate record labels in history.  Like, listen to the intro, with some guy screaming, "it's you and I verse all!" against lightning and thunder sound effects.  I don't know whatever happened to that dude, but I bet he's not associated with Universal anymore than any of the "soldiers" on this roster that got chewed up and spit out.

Also, because it's a big international label, the artists don't have much to do with each other.  New York legends, west coast gangsta rappers, Twista and Crucial Conflict out of Chicago, Tracey Lee out of... where ever he was from.  It's a real random, disparate grouping.  Of course Rakim is rapping over Suave House beats on this album.

But it's interesting because just about everything on here is exclusive.  It's a lot like a Hip-Hop soundtrack album, I guess.  A bunch of songs by big artists you can't get anywhere else.  That Crucial Conflict song was never on any of their albums.  Psycho Drama, Mafia and Rex Freestyle teemed up to create an original song just for this compilation.  Eightball and MJG have an exclusive remix of "Middle Of the Night," with Twista.  And I imagine "Take the Train" would've been featured on The Reepz' album if the label had ever put it out.  They had a video for that song and everything, and yet it's only on here.

Some of it ain't really so exclusive, though.  They threw on that crazy Canibus/ Lost Boyz/ A+ song "Boyz 2 Men."  I've always really dug that one, despite A+ brandishing some of the most obvious ghost-writing in the genre's history.  But it wound up being included on his Hempstead High album.  Plus they couldn't resist including Canibus' "Second Round K.O." since it was their hottest single at the moment.  And other songs were made to look like exclusives, but are really just deceitful retitlings of mixtape freestyles that had already been widely released (just like that shady Big L compilation).  "It's Logic" and "Shout Out To the Lost Boyz" are just the famous Canibus freestyles from Tony Touch's and DJ Clue's mixtapes, respectively.  McGruff's, Tracy Lee's, and Panama PI's are just freestyles, too.  They're dope, so I can't complain too much, but sticking new titles on 'em made fans buy the tape hoping for new material, then finding out it was just stuff they already owned.

Anyway, getting to that Rakim remix.  This time they remixed "Guess Who's Back," and by they, I mean Jermaine Dupri.  That one was a nice Clark Kent banger, but this time it doesn't just lose by comparison to the original; it's a loser on its own merits.  We just get a cheap, chintzy beat that doesn't have a moody atmosphere or addictive bassline to pull you into Rakim's rhymes.  Plus, Jermaine adds two weak little verses of his own.  He also leaves the scratches on the hook, they don't connect to the rest of the instrumental, and instead just come off like two different sounds playing at the same time.

That remix was also featured on some of the 12"s (though not all versions).  The "Guess Who's Back" 12" remixes also include another Suave House remix, which is interesting with a more upbeat, almost 80s pop R&B vibe.  There's a Buckwild one, which is cool and more understated, as his production tends to be.  And there's a Prophecy Entertainment which was pretty mediocre.  That Clark Kent version was really distinct, so I don't think any of the other versions really hold up, but the Buckwild's pretty good on its own terms and the Suave House was... interesting.

So, I guess at the end of all this, I'm not really mad myself for picking up either of these singles.  They're kind of excessive, because none of the remixes could ever replace their originals; but they're alright.  You can't go wrong putting any Rakim 12" in your crate.  Except for that single with Linkin Park.  If you bought that, jeez...  Even I'm not that big of a Stan.

Rakim's Three Gunmen

In 1993, Rakim released his debut solo single without Eric B. Their last record together came out in 1992, so this was pretty quick, and fans were obviously anxious to hear him come back after the controversial break-up. It was produced, surprisingly, by a Danish production team called Madness 4 Real. They'd already made a dent in the US end of the industry producing some of Eazy-Es and MC Ren's post-NWA material, though, so it wasn't so far out of left field. It was more surprising just because you'd expect Rakim to have come with a heavier hitting producer like Large Professor or somebody. Anyway, this came out on MCA Records, not because he'd just signed with them as a solo artist, but because this single was for the Gunmen soundtrack, a presumably cheesy action movie (I never bothered to actually see it) pairing Christopher Lambert with Mario Van Peebles.

Now, the cassingle version pictured here features two mixes: the main version and The Wiz Mix, produced by Gary G-Wiz. G-Wiz is one of those guys who wound up joining The Bomb Squad later on, but wasn't part of the original line-up, and was a member of one of Chuck D's pet projects, Hyenas In the Desert. He has co-writing and production credits on some heavy jams, though, like "Know the Ledge" and "Nuff Respect." Who's hard to call who's really responsible for what in situations with group credits (Hell, he can't even trust solo credits all the time), but I think he earned his right to be producing for Rakim's solo debut, and seemed a more fitting selection than Madness 4 Real.

G-Wiz certainly came with a funky bassline, nice cuts, a dusty horn look for a hook, cracking drums and a nice little piano loop. A solid mix. But surprisingly, those Madness guys handily top it. They've got a lot of the same elements, which I guess makes sense since they made the track and G-Wiz was just remixing it. But their bassline is so much deeper and jazzier on this version. It just sounds more raw, tough, and exactly what you'd expect Rakim to come with in 1993. In fact, it fits in perfectly with "Know the Ledge" and the musical style Eric B & Rakim were coming with on their fourth album. And the G-Wiz mix is upbeat and bouncier by comparison, feeling like he tinkered around with it way too much. I mean, he doesn't ruin it, it's a cool variation; but it's clearly inferior.

But disappointingly, neither of the two 12" pressings of this single feature both mixes. And worse, they don't leave off the remix, they leave off the original! So they only have the G-Wiz mix on it - what? Admittedly, you could get the original on vinyl by getting the Gunmen soundtrack album, but that only had three original hip-hop songs on it, and a Young Black Teenagers track taken off their second album. Not too enticing. One of the other songs was by Frost, which was pretty boring and released as a maxi-single anyway. And the other one is really the only other song that's actually worth caring about, "Gunman" by Big Daddy Kane. And there's actually a 12" of that with a superior remix, too. So it's kind of a waste buying the whole soundtrack just to get the one Rakim song on wax.

Fortunately, there's a promo-only 12" to save the day. It features the Album Version, the Wiz Mix, an Acapella, a Noise-A-Pella (the acapella with some of the sparser instrumental bits in the background), and the Wiz Mix Instrumental. And it's also got a third remix, exclusive to this promo, called the One For the Bronx Remix. It's also produced by G-Wiz, but makes the effort to stay harder and darker, like the original. It's not as good, though. It's mostly got kind of a dull, filtered bass sound and a couple samples used in the previous versions. It's mostly boring and sounds a little unfinished, though it's not bad and does manage to recover some of the mood. It's worth having, but again, nothing tops Madness 4 Real's original mix.

I think some heads only caught the G-Wiz mix (because, again, that was the only version included on the commercial 12"s), so they weren't quite as impressed with this single as they should've and would've been had they heard the original mix. Again, it really maintains the sound Rakim had on his previous work, which is more than you can say for pretty much any of his solo work after this. It would be several years before he'd actually get signed and come with some albums, and he had a couple strong singles in that mix. But "Heat It Up" really should've been the lead in to a killer album showing he hadn't missed a step after the split. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and he did wind up missing some steps. But do yourself a favor and at least get this 12", which despite outward signs is actually quite good.

Rakim's Buffalo

Malcolm McLaren's released a bunch of albums, singles and compilations, all built around very few actual songs. And of all the songs he's remixed and re-released over the years, the most egregious example is easily his biggest hit, "Buffalo Gals." There's about two dozen 12" pressings, plus it was featured as a B-side on his other singles "Double Dutch," "Hobo Scratch" and "Would You Like More Scratchin'." And there were a couple different mixes on those 12"s - like the awful Trad. Square Mix, which basically turns it into a straight out and out country square dance tune [seriously, avoid that one], the Special Scratch version, and even the song "Hobo Scratch" itself made liberal use of "Buffalo Gals."

On The World's Famous Supreme Team's classic "Hey DJ" Divine sings the chorus to "Buffalo Gals" until Just stops his partner, saying, "no, no, no! See, man, That's our last record. That's already been a hit!" How ironic; they clearly had no idea what was in McLaren's future. He featured it on his main album Duck Rock, which you'd expect, but then he also included another version called "Buffalo Love" on his second album Swamp Thing. He reprised it some more on 1986's "Duck Rock Cheer" and on his third album, Round the Outside! Round the Outside!, he made "Buffalo Gals II (Remix)."

Finally, by the mid-90's, he seemed to have worked it out of his system. He was releasing orchestral jazz music in France, singing [terribly] in a mix of French and English; and the words "buffalo" "scratchin'" or "World's Famous Supreme Team Show" were nowhere to be heard. He didn't have to keep recycling the same song - he finally had a new thing going on.

But those albums didn't seem to really sell [seriously, it was his singing], and that phase eventually ended. He put out a couple little house records but I guess he eventually had to stop and ask himself: what will sell? "Buffalo Gals," of course! So in 1998, he signed to Virgin Records and put out this record. "Buffalo Gals." Updated again.

But if you want to sell a sixteen year-old song to a modern audience, I guess the move is to enlist the artists who are hot at the time. And Rakim was pretty hot. He was right at the peak of his post-Eric B solo career, having just released The 18th Letter and The Master just around the corner. "Guess Who's Back" drummed up a lot of fanfare and "It's Been a Long Time" was killing it on the radio thanks to DJ Premiere. Even Suave House put out their own version. Rakim was the man to get and McLaren got him, not just as an MC... but as a producer?

Yeah, Rakim raps on AND produces "Buffalo Gals (Back To Skool) (Rakim Mix) [two sets of parentheses?]." And you'd be right Rakim had never produced anything up 'till now. I mean, yeah, he's credited as a producer on "Juice (Know the Ledge)," and you might well say that's more than enough credential; but we all know The Bomb Squad (who're credited as remixers) made that track what it is.

But, with that said, it's not bad. It's remaking the original, so naturally much of the work was already done for him, as a lot of the major instrumental elements are carried over. What he mainly does with the track is slows it down considerably and lays in a thick, smooth bassline and some subtle, background keyboard tones. In other words, he turns it into the kind of beat you'd expect to hear Rakim on. Even the hook features cuts of his own voice from "Eric B Is President."

The rest of the hook is Rakim updating the original "Buffalo Gals" chorus. He changes:

"It's a pity that you're so dirty;
You're only dancing just to be friendly.
So pretty you drive me loco.
You're so silly you make me blush so-oh!"

to:

"You dress jiggy and you're so pretty.
Are you dancin' just to get wit me?
You're so jiggy, your style's original.
You're so pretty, your style's addictable."

Somehow Rakim makes "addictable" work, even though he's making up a word just to force a rhyme. After all, this is the man who brought us the lyric, "hello, good lookin'. Is this seat tooken?" But that's entirely too much "jiggy," especially since he repeats the chorus a few times. 1998 WAS the year Will Smith released "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It;" but I was really hoping Rakim would've risen above it.

But once the first chorus is over, we can get to the rapping. Yeah, smooth beat, Rakim's deep, serious voice... wait a minute. That doesn't sound exactly like his voice. No, actually the first verse is by somebody else, and if you look deep into the fine print, underneath the credits for the engineer, mixer and assistant, you'll see there's rapper credited: Hassan 7. As far as I've been able to tell, this is his only project. Now, maybe I'm being unfair here; but I honestly suspect that they're seriously trying to pass this off as a Rakim solo song; and they've got this guy doing his best Rakim-like flow so you don't realize they only got Rakim for one verse. Serious fans will recognize it's not his voice, but I'm sure nine out of ten casual listeners have no idea that it isn't Rakim there, and I'm pretty sure that's the idea.

So Hassan's verse is okay, but never manages to reach interesting. And once Rakim comes on for the second verse, you can really hear the difference in quality. his flow, the way he parses his rhymes... he's not saying anything more than "I like to dance with girls," but he says it so damn well. He's a real pro and his verse here is actually tighter than a lot of his later material. The cuts, which aren't terribly athletic, but just a nice, simple blending of "Buffalo Gals" and "Eric B Is President," add a lot. I actually have to really recommend this track. I mean, you could totally skip that first verse; but overall this is worth seeking out.

Also on this 12" is the original version of "Buffalo Gals," which was nice to have on there just to catch up younger audiences who didn't already have it in their crate. And there's another new version - this one called ""Buffalo Gals Stampede B-Gals Stampede." This is a Eurodance mix by Roger Sanchez. It mostly uses the original, but does also bring in pieces of Rakim's version. It's pretty bland and forgettable except for one thing. It's got scratching my Company Flow's Mr. Len; and he's actually getting pretty busy on the tables almost from beginning to end. He really comes off nice on this, so I recommend you listen to this track at least once just for that. But you probably won't revisit it much after that, because it's still basically a boring dance mix apart from that.

Overall, it's a pretty weird release, flawed but not bad and surprisingly catchy. What else would you expect from Mr. McLaren?

Legends of Hip Hop

"LEGENDS OF HIP HOP describes a project that includes more than 35 hiphop legends from the first hour veterans to the recent stars. It includes names like Bambaataa, Melle Mel, Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, Ice-T... just to mention a few. The album was based on an idea to connect rap and hiphop greats from both the old and new skool[sic.] scene into one big project. The highlight of the album is the track 'The Fifth Element' which is performmed[sic.] by 34 hiphop legends."

That's the introduction to an album that I can't believe has somehow managed to be pretty much never written about. Legends of Hip Hop came out in 2002 on Absolut Records. Yes, like the vodka. A full-length album that features all original (well, almost... more on that later) material by such great big names in hip-hop that somehow managed to fly completely under the radar? How? Why?

Well, the album was put together by Kurtis Blow, in association with his Legends of Hip Hip old school tours. Blow co-produced all the music on this album with two guys named Informer and DJ Buck. They utilize a lot of live instrumentation, too... the liner notes credit musicians for guitars, trumpets, sax, a couple of violins and a viola. So, how is it? What exactly do we have here?

Ok, let's start with the "highlight of the album" (according to the liner notes quoted above... I actually disagree), the mega-posse cut "The Fifth Element." 34 hip-hop legends. That's pretty impressive, right? And the actual list will probably impress you more: Melle Mel, Ice-T, Flava Flav, Cheeks, Special K, Bambaataa, Run, Smooth Approach, Sha-Rock, Doc Ice, Busy Bee, Whodini, Raheem, Reggie Reg, Grandmaster Caz, DLB, LA Sunshine, Grand Puba, Pete DJ Jones, Kurtis Blow, Hollywood, Eddie Cheeba, Big Daddy Kane, Dano, Ceelo (as in Goodie Mob, yeah), Waterbed Kev, Speech, Kidd Creole, Grand Wizard Theodore, Dota Rock, Rakim & DJ Kool Herc. That's not a bunch of nobodies peppered with a few names, that's an incredible assembly of an all-star line-up!

...But, wait. The song's only four minutes long. And it's got a recurring hook, which takes up almost 50% of the song. And, half those guys are DJs, how do they rap on this track?

Well, if you guessed that everybody is given about 6-8 words to perform, you'd be right! But you didn't guess that, did you? Because that would be so ridiculously wack, you ruled it out before the thought could even fully form in your mind, right? But it's what they did. Excited to hear a Rakim feature you never heard before? Wanna read the lyrics? Well, here ya go:

"Ya owe it to yourself; get your education."

...That was it. That was the entirety of his contribution. And his was longer than a lot of the others!

So, yeah. They call it the "highlight of the album." They even include two mixes on here, the original and "Beathoavenz RMX," which liberally samples some Beethoven. I call it a big, fat "who cares?"

But the rest of the album is much more interesting. Most (plus a few other dudes) of the artists featured on that silly posse cut turn up again on this album to perform all new songs. Most are collaborations you've never seen happen before and are pretty interesting. Raheem, Grandmaster Caz and Shinehead provide a song called "Be 4," Ice-T, Chilli Mac and Rakim perform "Game of Life," Reggie Reg, Skeeta Ranks, Jalil, Ecstasy and Doc Ice do "Shake Them Hips," etc. Here we actually get to hear these artists get a chance to do something!

Just for the record, the other artists who turn up on this album are: Thug Nation, Kurupt, Harry Balz (don't know who that is? He's the other half of One and One, who we last heard from on Next Plateau Records in 1997!), The Ying Yang Twins, Steph Lova, T.O.P., GQ, and Lovebug Starski.

So, how are these songs? Well, they're varied... there's some nice lyrical performances, a variety of concepts and a good mix of styles. The production team of Blow, Informer and Buck I'm sure doesn't have you at the edge of your seat, but they're at least attempting something creatively different that's still got a traditional hip-hop vibe. It's not a great album, but guys like Ice-T, Melle, Sha-Rock, Kane, and others do drop some head-nodding verses. Flava Flav provides an amusingly bugged hook to "Old School Ball," with a faux British accent. The live instrumentation helps keep things interesting and some songs have nice cuts, too. It's a mixed bag, certainly; but a lot of this is really better than you jaded vets would expect.

To add to that mixed bag feeling, though, we have to address why Eminem and Royce da 5'9's names are on the cover. Well, "Nuttin To Do" by Bad Meets Evil is on here. Yes, the song from their '98 12" in Game Recordings. Why? I dunno. More interestingly, though, is "Bad Meets Evil - New Shrooms Mix." Yeah, Blow and team actually do their own, exclusive remix of the song from the Slim Shady LP. It's, uh... yeah, it's pretty corny.

But except for those two tracks and one other - this album also features Justine Simmons' dance tune "Praise My DJ's" featuring Run that originally dropped in 2000 - this is all new, original material, reminiscent of the noteworthy Raiders Of the Lost Art compilation released in 1994.

Now, in addition to this album, there are three related releases you should probably know about:

1) A 12" release of "The Fifth Element," which includes the original version and the Beathoavenz Remix version that's featured on this disc, as well as four more remixes (specifically: Sleepwalker Remix, Efe & Leeroy Remix, Nasty Remix and the Double Remix). Interesting, but I never picked this up, because frankly changing the beat wouldn't fix what's wrong with this song.

2) Another, completely unrelated hip-hop compilation called Legends of Hip Hop, which is just a generic collection of songs by 2 Live Crew, Ice-T and The World Class Wreckin' Crew on a label called Blue Dolphin. They're entirely unrelated save for the coincidentally matching title, so you can go ahead and disregard it... just be careful if you're ordering online that you know which one you're getting.

3) A 2-disc version that was released in Europe. Disc 1 is essentially the same as the US version, except it's missing the Bad Meets Evil remix, and instead features the Sleepwalker Remix of "Fifth Element" (from the 12" above). The second disc is then just another generic compilation of pre-existing hip-hop songs, this time basically a greatest hits of rap, featuring stuff like "Express Yourself" by NWA and "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. Personally, I'd stick with the single-disc US version, since it has the exclusive Bad Meets Evil remix, and if you really want the "Fifth Element," remix you could get the 12".

So, yeah. It's not a great album, but it has some worthwhile material. And with all the talent involved, it deserves at least to be talked about.