LA's Finest Dopest Rhymers

Oh man, you have no idea how excited I was when I came across this one!  A split 7" of rare and unreleased LA Rap on a small subscription service label called Ximeno Record Club run by Danny Halloway.  Meaning, you can only get one of these records by subscribing to the whole run, or as in my case, finding someone willing to sell their copy second hand.  But I think your odds for that may be better in this case as it's the only Hip-Hop record in the line-up, which is otherwise comprised of all funk/ soul and reggae stuff from the 60s and 70s.  So I imagine there were several collectors who were happy to dump "the rap one."  Or maybe the label itself is just selling overrun spares.  Either way, there are copies online as of this writing, so you better jump on it or you'll be kicking yourself.

Side A gives us "On the One" by legendary Project Blowedian Medusa.  This is her first vinyl release since the "Fiend and the Fix" 12" with Nobody in 2000.  Produced by Evan V with some fresh cuts by DJ Drez, originally appeared on her rare 2012 CD-only Whrs the DJ Booth? album on Jthesarge's label, One Wise Studios.  You can tell Halloway was choosing a favorite on the first listen, because song stands out with its upbeat blaxploitation-style funk guitars and catchy horns.  Medusa is in full force with her clever, deep-voiced lyrics, "first of all, I don't speak in no whiny tone. What I wanna do that for?  Bitch, I'm grown.  Diamonds?  Nah, leave well enough alone.  Stylish and classy, ain't nobody like me.  Men find me sexy, women exciting.  They stand on by me, just in the Walmart tampon shopping."  Then, as she's wont to do, Medusa goes full R&B to sing the hook with Drez mixing up some "Mona Lisa" and "Public Enemy Number One" behind her.  It's one of those songs you want to replay as soon as it hits its last note.

But I was even more amped for the B-side, the never before released or heard anywhere "In My Niggahood" by Vooodu.  The label tells us this one was recorded in 1993 during his ferocious True Sound stint, which of course was Halloway's label.  This is something a little more serious than the fast-paced battle rhymes he was spitting back then.  He slows down Chic's "Good Times" just enough to give it a creepy, ominous vibe with a patchwork of other samples slipping in and out, all to match his own sinister voice as he kicks some street stories about his youth in South Central.  Vooodu was a master, and it's a crime so little of his work has made it out of the vaults, making this record essential.

According to their website, Ximeno is gearing up for another year ("Series 2") of releases starting this month.  Let's hope they take the opportunity to crack open the True Sound vaults of classic unreleased LA rap once again, and we Hip-Hop heads can get our hands on a few copies.

Western HemisFear Classics

(Youtube version is here.)

Vooodu Is Not At Home To Guests

To true rap lovers, the internet provides. I'm sure you've been there, too. You hear a really impressive, underground MC on a freestyle or guest verse, and then spend years seeking after everything they've committed to vinyl or CD... which turned out to be not much at all. A 12" or two, another guest verse... and that's their whole legacy. Until you got online, and started finding out about indie comebacks under new aliases, white label singles you never knew existed, unearthed demo tapes and obscure regional collaborations. And even when you've been on here for years and years, and you think you've plumbed the full depth of knowledge, discovering every release there is to discover, the internet shows you another one.

Arrived in my mailbox today is a 90's 12" single by an R&B singer I can't say I remember named Elisha La' Verne, called "Elisha Is Not At Home." I pretty much stopped buying R&B music since high school (although I did recently fill a gap, picking up Keith Sweat's "I Want Her" :-D), but obscure 90's rapper appearances? I'm all over that. And this, my friends, is the final guest appearance by Western Hemisfear's own Vooodu. 

Like his last release, the "Confessions" single, this came out on Sony/Epic in 1999, so surely that's how this pairing happened. It's a respectable, if by-the-numbers R&B vehicle built on the same Brick sample Akinyele used a few years earlier for "Put It In Your Mouth." The basic premise is that Elisha's not answering her ex's phone calls, and the hook is her answering machine. Then Vooodu comes in for the final act with the prerequisite rap verse as the ex who doesn't appreciate being put off.

The good news is that this is a substantial verse from Vooo, and not just one of those quick, throwaway five-second numbers like, "this is Biggie Biggie, I'm down with Puffy and we cosign Mary. Peace out" (I may've paraphrased the "Real Love" remix just slightly there). I mean, no, it doesn't compete with his sickest Wake Up Show freestyles, but some time was clearly put into the writing and it's got some lyrical integrity. And he sounds good over a smoothed out "Put It In Your Mouth;" he's even got kind of a East coast, Biggie-ish vibe going here. Granted, it's just one verse tucked away on a 4 1/2 minute R&B song, but it's genuinely worth your while and a completely respectable entry in Vooodu's limited canon.

This comes in Street and Clean Video Edits ('cause Vooodu didn't hold back on the cussing just because he was on an R&B single), and has an additional remix called the "Nite Trip - What Is It? Remix." It's produced by a guy named Lumbajack whose specialty is hard house. It's a shame, because what starts out like it's going to be a cool, dark and atmospheric remix that puts Vooodu more in his element is quickly ruined by all the zippy trance synths and clubby drums. It also completely clashes with Elisha's seductive crooning style, ultimately leaving us with just an ugly mess.

So stick with the A-side. But this isn't at all rare or hard to find nowadays, so if you're still a Vooodo fan from the Patchwerk days, it looks like the internet has come through again.

But wait!  Even that's not the end of the story.  Elisha put out a Japan-only CD album in 2000 called Change Your Way.  And guess what?  Vooodu is back for another round.  The song is called "Don't Wanna Be Your Fool," and Voo has two verses on it.  A brief introductory one ("your attitude is ridiculous, why you think I'm being mischievous? Listenin' to rumors and stuff. Supposed to believe in us, because you can't have love without trust"), and a fuller one about two thirds of the way through.  He even sounds more Biggie-ish here, but it's still his undeniably distinctive voice.

As the intro made pretty clear, the song's about not wanting to be cheated on and the need for trust in a relationship; and the bulk of it is Elisha crooning over a pretty boring R&B track co-produced by Mark Lomax and Marlon L. McClain of the Dazz Band.  But Vooodu gets his part in, "why do fools fall in love like Frankie Lymon sings? Vooodu: ladies' best friend like diamond rings.  I knew you couldn't resist the kiss, or the Cartier I put on your wrist, so what is this?  You havin' second thoughts now, I'm lost now.  Relationship was even, now you say you wanna walk out, 'cause you think you made a bad decision.  But I only have eyes for you, not worried 'bout no other women."  This is bottom shelf Vooodu, and I wouldn't recommend importing the album for this one quick appearance (he's the only guest MC on the album).  But it's nice to discover that the well goes every little bit deeper.

Vooodu, Runnin' From My Magic

A couple years after Western Hemisfear split apart and Patchwerk closed its doors, Vooodu - who'd been killing it with hot Wake Up Show freestyles, some ill, atmospheric production for Ras Kass and his crew, and putting out a hot EP called Dark Regions, Vooodu seemed to disappear. It was definitely a loss to the underground, west coast scene.

But, actually, Vooodu put out one more project a few years later, though if you live in the US you probably never heard of it (unless you did some internet searching for Vooodu like I did). "Confessions" dropped in 1999... it's got a couple labels credited (Lavish, Epic, Diverse), but they all seem to be subs or at least associated with Sony's German division. To add to the confusion, a label called Superb Records made a webpage (which is still up, all these years later), claiming "Confessions" came out on Superb and Epic in 2002, and that he's working on his 2004 album for Superb, titled Dog Day Afternoon (which never happened). Damn, confusing European releases. :P

I asked Danny Halloway (see my last, also Vooodu-related post, Werner's Back With the True Sound) what happened to Vooodu - maybe his Sony deal tied him up, and kept his album shelved? But no, he said, "vooodu was very unique when he first came out and he worked very hard. then he got 4 girlfriends that did not know about each other and started having kids. soon, he didn't have enough time to concentrate on his music career. it's a shame coz he was spittin' fire in '92/'93."

So, anyway, this "Confessions" single is his last effort; and it's pretty disappointing after his previous releases... gone is the slick, hardcore wordplay. "Southern California Nights" was apparently the direction he was heading in after Patchwerk, and this goes further in that direction. It's got big studio production handled by a guy named Shiro Gutzie (who also does some instrumentation), studio R&B vocalists Al Berry and Niki Carson on the hook, and live strings by Johnny Todd.

The 12" has three mixes and the CD single has six. West coast producer M Boogie handles the "Act:2 - I Confess... Remix" and Vooodu gets behind the boards himself for the "Act:3 - V3 Hypnosis Mix." Two of the other mixes are just radio and TV versions of the main mix, but then the CD single also offers one more remix, the "Revenge Mix," apparently also done by Shiro (I'm assuming, since no other credits are given).

The singing isn't bad, but it's pretty damn cheesy. And the live instrumentation is nice in a way, giving it a little richer... it all sounds like something Nas or any mainstream NY rapper would do while we all wished they'd go back to working with Primo or Buckwild. Wisely, M-Boogie and Vooodu opted to replace the happy dappy singing with a spoken chorus by Vooo, but unfortunately, his delivery is kinda lifeless and flat; which makes the whole venture boring and entirely forgettable. M-Boogie goes for a kind of Alchemist-like beat, with short horn stabs and sounds; but never reaches those heights. And Vooodu loops these short guitar samples, giving the whole thing the atmosphere of a film soundtrack, which works with the narrative style of the lyrics... but it just isn't hot enough to really pop; and again the hook just falls flat. The "Revenge Mix" is pretty close to the original... it's a bit longer, and elements come in and out at different times, but essentially it's the same music, hook and vocals as the original.

The song itself is definitely on some crime story "Good Dwellas" type ish. He doesn't come off as impressively ill as his freestyle HemisFear rhymes, but he's still nice with his wordplay and is clearly a skilled MC who's mastered this kind of criminology material as well:

"We arrive at the compound;
Start the countdown.
You have orders to swiss 'em
If they hostile.
Tag 'em like Wild Style;
You know how it's done.
It's a quarter after one,
Time to tick it.
Six minutes for this mission,
Let's get this shit movin'.
I'm headin' for the safe
And the place they hide the rubies,
Just like the movies,
Tied everybody up.
Any talk, slap 'em with the burner -
'Shut the fuck up!'
We started fillin' the duffel bags,
Cleanin' 'em out;
Stacks and stacks of green,
You should've seen the amount;
After we got
Everything valuable.
Now back to you,
You took my niggas out,
Now take these two
To your think-tank.
Our steps they won't retrace;
Left the scene with the spree,
If you know what I mean;
And scorch the place.
What an expensive price
To pay for treason,
But fuck 'em,
They made it open season."

So, it's a decent song. Vooodu fans should be happy to find at least one more song they can add to their collections. But for all the different versions, even on the CDS, it still just needs one strong remix to get it off the ground. Someone like Nick Wiz could've really given it what it needed to catch on and be a worthwhile addition to anyone's collection. As it is, I'd say it's just for Vooodu fans... although casual fans might dig one or two of the remixes enough to pick it up if they come across it cheap.

Tags: Vooodu, Western HemisFear

Werner's Back With the True Sound

^Video blog!!
(Did I just cheese a blog post my linking some vid I found on Youtube? No waii!! This is all new, original content!)

And here's Meen Green's myspace page I mention in the vid - watch out, it's one of those browser-crashing ones with a bajillion pics and stuff.

Tags: Vooodu, Meen Green, Bird, Western Hemisfear, True Sound, Danny Halloway