Dirty Jersey Week, Bonus Day 8: Razzle Dazzle, Old To the New

Okay, I had a whole other post lined up to round out Dirty Jersey Week, but I actually got put on to today's release as I was writing this series, and I had to include it.  I won't mention who got bumped because I don't want to break any hearts.  😄  But this is somebody I've been meaning to cover on this blog for a while, and he's just come out with a brand new reissue of his classic album with all new bonus tracks... of course I couldn't resist!  I'm talking about the limited edition CD release of Scott Lark's underground Jersey classic Razzle Dazzle.  If you missed it, check out this video interview I posted with Scott a couple years ago.

You're going to see some recurring themes here if you've been following Dirty Jersey Week: Tony D, Contract Recordings, and these cats like B-Fyne again.  Scott Lark is another one of those underground Hip-Hop acts Tony D was working with for Contract Recordings, just like Blaque Spurm, Wise Intelligent and his own breakbeat compilations.  But Scott Lark didn't fit in with those cats or any of the other typical, "random rap" NJ hardcore 90s groups.

Scott Lark has a very west coast influenced, laid back stoner vibe going on, with a smooth but very fried voice.  It's the kind of style that requires some very strong production to work, and so it's lucky for everyone that Tony D handled his entire catalog in this period.  So it doesn't sound like a west coast album, and Lark's lyrical enough that it doesn't sound like mainstream fare.  It's kinda unique.  It's got a great cool-out vibe, with Tony giving it a lush, robust sound-bed.  You'll recognize some samples here and there, but they've been given a very new context here.

And some of Scott's lyrics feel like they're written freestyles conceived while completely under the influence.  Songs like "I Killed a Hoe" and "The Movie," will definitely have you pausing like, wait, is he saying he smoked a bomb with Saddam Hussein on his plane and "he had a jacuzzi with five groupies holdin' uzies?"  Yup, and the story proceeds, "that chick Suzy, she said, hey ain't you that rapper? She slapped me in the face and called me a chick basher.  She stuck her gone in my nose; I froze.  Made me lick her toes and her asshole!  I couldn't do it.  I had to do it."  He always lives up to the backpacker standards of "lyrical" in his construction, but content-wise, he could get very stream of consciousness.

Now, Scott had two 12"s on Contract in '95 and '96, "Insight" and "Razzle Dazzle."  Both of those, including all the B-sides and everything, then wound up on his '96 full-length, Razzle Dazzle.  In fact, it's almost more of an EP than an LP.  The original cassette version, which is what I've always had, is eight tracks deep.  The two 12"s had seven songs between them, so it really only added one new song ("Stomped" featuring B-Fyne).  Apparently there was a CD version, too; but I'd never heard of it until it got listed on discogs many years later.  Anyway, the CD doesn't add anymore songs, but fills up the disc with the instrumentals and radio versions from the 12"s.

This new CD dumps the old CD's filler, returning to just the core eight songs... and adding three unreleased tracks!  One of them is a brand new remix of his debut single, "Insight."  It's produced by The Custodian of Records, and it's really good.  It almost rivals the original, although the vocals do feel like they're mixed a little low and get lost behind the instrumental.  But that's no reason to kick it out of bed; it's got fantastic horn samples and a killer bassline; you'll definitely be impressed.  Then the other two songs are vintage unreleased cuts from Lark's crew before Razzle Dazzle called Unfound with three other MCs named Drunk, Draz and Gee Cope.  And one of these two songs is a posse cut with The Funk Family.  So that tells us these were probably recorded around '92.  Lark does sound younger.  They're rawer, higher energy songs and yes, Tony D produced these, too.

This CD is limited to just 100 copies.  I know Scott Lark's not exactly MC Hammer famous, but I think they're underestimating heads' interest in this one.  It's being released through Cha-Ching Records; Tony D's old label, but now shipping out of Germany?  (shrug)  Anyway, it comes with some new liner notes and the bonus stickers you see in the photo above.  Not the cassette, though; that's just my old tape.  Here's their BigCartel.  I hope we'll see a lot more of Tony's unreleased catalog coming soon.

Dirty Jersey Week, Day 7: Tony D's Eminem

I've covered the most recent Shawn Lov projects before, but this is the perfect Week to go back and look at his most recognized record.  If you go through his catalog now, it's not his first release, but basically any of the earlier stuff is online-only material that most fans have been discovering in retrospect.  This was his vinyl debut, produced by Tony D in 1999 on his own Cha-Ching Records label.  And this is really when he started appearing on diggers' radars, in no small part because it had a real Eminem vibe just as the Eminem craze was blowing up.

I don't mean to say that Shawn was like an Eminem clone; this is no Dasit situation.  Even in his super early stuff, Shawn was very much his own artist.  And I know there was a bit of a kerfuffle for a while about every white MC getting compared to Eminem and accusing them all of sounding alike, a la Asher Roth's "As I Em."  But first of all, Asher did come out with Em's sound, and secondly, that complaint is kinda B.S.  Nobody ever said Vanilla Ice sounded like The Beastie Boys or the Insane Clown Posse sounded like 3rd Bass.  In fact, at the time, Eminem was getting a lot of his signature style from The Outsidaz.  But ever since I first heard this single, you're going to have a hard time convincing Tony D didn't put Shawn on thinking he was catching a little bit of the Eminem wave with this kid.

And to be clear, that's not a bad thing.  When people were saying The Wizard of Rap sounded like Rakim in '89, that wasn't their way of saying, "waiter, take this back to the kitchen."  It was more of a reason why "you gotta get this record!"  Eminem is still one of the most respected rappers around, but there was no better time to sound like Em than '97-2000.  That was his peak.  Think about it: Tony D producing an indie 12" for Eminem back then, wouldn't you want to hear that?  Well, you almost kinda sorta can.

So let's finally talk about this record for a minute.  The first song "That's What's Up," is just a fun, punchline heavy battle freestyle rhymes over a bouncy beat.  And yeah he sounds like Eminem sounding like The Outsidaz... his voice with the higher pitch, the way he races from line to line, changing voices to respond to himself.  But then the B-side, "Respect This," is less so.  He sounds more like himself here, more natural.  The beat is heavier, too, and the rhymes are less jokey.  He's free of the influence, and actually I think this song has aged much better for it.  In 2017, this is really the song I mostly revisit the vinyl for.

But there's one more song, called "Pathetic," and I think this is actually his most Em influenced sounding of all.  Instrumentally, it's not.  Tony D lays down a cool and jazzy but very familiar track.  But then Shawn comes actually sounding like he's doing a deliberate Emzy impression on this song.  The way he packs syllables into punchlines, pitches up on the hook and again changes voices is all so much like "Just Don't Give a Fuck."  It's almost like Tony made a smoothed out remix with Em's Acapella.

Now, let's head over to Shawn's bandcamp page, because he wrote out some cool descriptions for all his back catalog, and I'm curious what he says about this.  The songs here were only physically released on this 12", but he has a whole mp3-only album (or maybe there was a rare CD?) of these sessions he recorded with Tony D called The G.O.D. LP, and all three songs are on it.  One quote from there kind of confirms my theory, at least partially: "Recorded in 1998... The G.O.D. was the album that was intended to introduce Shawn Lov to the Hip-Hop world at a time when there were no other 'White' Emcees with comparable talents."  Pay particular attention to the "recorded in 1998" part, because he also writes, "I'm Pathetic,' a self-deprecating song created a year before Eminem came along, who enjoyed global success using the same humorous shtick."  I'm glad to see this because it shows I'm not the only one drawing the Eminem connection.  But more to the point, the 12" was released in '99, but these songs were recorded in 1998.  Okay.  And what year did The Slim Shady EP come out and make the underground scene go crazy?  1997.  So my timeline holds up.

But "Pathetic" has a unique premise which is not out of the Slim Shady playbook.  It's basically a diss record directed at... himself.  Non-stop vicious and comic lines putting himself on blast, "I feel frightened and alone even when my crew's around, 'cause they don't even give me pounds," "I ain't got no rhythm, no soul, no breath control.  What I need to do is grab a control and start playin' rock & roll, 'cause I ain't nothin' but a wack-dressed crash test dummy.  I only lost my virginity 'cause this big bitch took it from me!"  It's a genuinely clever, original concept.  The only song I can think of that came close to that idea is Esau the Anti-Emcee's "Boo."  And since I've just been breaking Shawn's balls about timelines, I have to give him full credit and say this handily pre-dates Esau's record by 2-3 years.

All told, this is a cool slice of wax that belongs in the crates of any underground late 90s heads.  Of course, it's a must for Tony D collectors.  And ironically, most of us were checking for this back in the days because of the Eminem sound; but now the song that holds up the most is the one where Shawn steps out of his shadow.  The 12" comes in a sticker cover and features instrumentals, dirty and clean versions of the first two tracks.  Unfortunately though, "I'm Pathetic" only has a clean version, and it does include a few curse words which get silenced.  But it's not too distracting.

Oh, and by the way, Day 7 was naturally going to be the last day of Dirty Jersey Week; but tomorrow I'll be adding one more last minute bonus day.  And yes, I'll actually post it tomorrow-tomorrow.  😛

80s Jersey Trilogy

(Uploading is finally fixed - yay! Oh, and the Youtube version is here.)

Other People's O.P.P.

(Youtube version is here.)

Tony D, Redman, Meth, Pace Won and Young Zee

So, I've blogged once or twice before about how the US end of Ruff Life Records dropped the ball on The Outsidaz full-length, leaving all the 12" singles and what-not to their UK division. But they did get one nice 12" out of their doors before closing up shop - or two, strictly speaking. A limited edition (though I don't know just how limited... it doesn't seem to be that rare or hard to find all these years later) double 12" single of "Who You Be," The Outsidaz album cut featuring Redman and Method Man.

These were their big, heavy-hitter guest appearances (and you'll notice, they only let their biggest Outz members on the track, too; no junior members), so I'm not sure why they relegated this song to a limited edition vinyl only release, as opposed to a major single with a music video and what-not.  I guess they expected mix-tape DJs to blow this up a lot more than they did. Plus the record label was dying, so that might've been all they could afford.

Anyway, the first record focuses on the album version. If the song feels like a Redman track with guest stars, as opposed to an Outsidaz song (and it does to me), that's because it's produced by two of Red's regular producers, DJ Twinz (yes, it's really a pair of twins). It's a little soulless, but ultimately a pretty effectively head-nodder with a hook built around each member bigging themselves up. It's got a cool freestyle flow, with the MCs passing the mic back and forth, everyone getting the chance to rhyme more than once, so it doesn't just come off like your "plug in your guest's acapella here" collabo.

Interestingly, it's Pace Won who really shines here. I mean, they're evenly matched enough that fans of any particular artist will probably prefer whichever MC is their favorite.  But Redman seems stuck on juvenile blowjob rhymes, Meth kinda phones it in, just relying on his delivery, and Zee sounds like he's saving his best material for other album tracks with a bunch of obvious (and now dated) movie references. But Pace gives one of his best performances, hard and lyrical, the kinda shit you wish he'd kick more often. Everybody sounds good, though, don't get me wrong. These are pros, and it's evident.

So you get the full break-down, with Clean, LP, Instrumental and A Cappella versions. But, while it's cool that this track sounds like it's ripped right off of a Redman album (because Redman albums are good shit), but there's definitely room for instrumental improvement, especially if this is gonna be a single.

And that's where the second record in this set comes in. It's dedicated to nothing but exclusive remixes of this track. You've got one mix by Ruggedness, a Philly producer who presumably also produced that test press-only "Keep On" remix. It's a little more high energy, but still has that tacky, studio-made feel where all the sounds are clearly computer-generated. Still, it's well done and the fake horns will pull you in despite yourself. It also does a really good job of matching the vocals, punching in around their vocals in a way that shows they definitely custom-made the track for these verses.

The second mix is by Newark underground legend Gov Mattic. This is kind of a weird one. The vocals are sped up a bit so everyone sounds squeaky. This is definitely aimed at clubs, which is strange, because this is not a club song at all. And it's another sample-free artificial sounding beat (except maybe for the actual drums), but that's what club music is, so that fits here. It's well made; I just have a hard time imagining who's the audience for this version.

Finally, we have the Anthony Depula mix. I kinda feel this would've received more attention, at least among collectors and more serious fans, if he'd signed it with his professional name, Tony D. This is the most organic sounding of any of the versions, including the album version. It's built around an ultra-deep bassline thudding drums and an eery string riff in the background. It's still not among Tony's best work... I wonder if everybody working on this project was instructed by the label that they couldn't afford to clear any samples, so don't use 'em. But this mix has a deep underground, street feel; like the kind of shit you find when you dig up a super obscure indie 12" pressed in the mid 90s. A labor of love produced by a bunch of struggling cats with cheap equipment and undiscovered talent.

So, Tony's is the winner for me; but I can't help like feeling the definitive music for this song, the one that could've blown up, was never recorded. Because there's an A Cappella in this set, other producers have tried their hand online. There's a Madlib one floating around out there, which sounds promising on paper; but he doesn't pull it off either.

It comes in a solid black (meaning: without the standard hole cut) sleeve with a sticker cover. Perfect mix or not, this should be a crate staple for any Outsidaz fan.

New DWG Review

I just added a new review to Diggers With Gratitude - some dope Crusaders for Real Hip-Hop 12"-only joints that you'll surely want to pick up. Here's a direct link (all DWG reviews have mp3 audio previews, too; just fyi). 8)

Tony D In The Original

Update 9/27/11: The HHC site seems to be down, so I've posted the article below... Click 'em to enlarge 'em to a readable size.

The first issue of Hip Hop Connection's old school and golden era mini-mag, The Original just went up today. It includes my four-page tribute to Tony D... it was a little tough to write (you'll probably see why when you read it), but I think it came out right in the end. Let me know what you think.

This issue has some other really dope features as well, including:
A short piece on Kool Herc by T La Rock
An interview with Tony Buttons by James T McNally
A dope Kool Kim interview by Robbie Ettelson of Unkut
And a really in-depth article on the movie Breakin' by Richard Watson

So, yeah, check it out. It's all new, original content. It's up now on the HHC site, but the link's a bit tucked away there, so here's a direct link to the issue.