Random Rap 3! The CDs

(Youtube version is here.)

The Purple Tape... On No Limit Records

Apparently, when you crazy kids today talk about "the purple tape," you're thinking of some funky ol' Raekwon thing glued together out of left over Cella Dwellas plastic. But I'm an old school cat. When I hear "purple tape," I go back even a little further... to Sonya C's Married To the Mob.

Married To the Mob dropped in 1993 (two years before OB4CL2 if you're keeping score) on In-A-Minute Records. No Limit, at that time, was really more of an imprint that went through In-A-Minute for the distribution, 'cause they could get albums like these out on CD and (purple) tape into stores all across the country when No Limit was just up and coming.

Sonya C, it's worth noting, is really the first female rapper on No Limit. Apparently, Mia X likes to make that claim, but she didn't drop anything on No Limit until much later. And while Mia was a member of TRU for a while, Sonya is a founding member from back in the days when they were still going by their full-length name, The Real Untouchables. This is back when No Limit was representing CA before signing all those New Orleans acts; and Sonya was all over their debut album in 1992, Understanding the Criminal Mind.

And even before the TRU album, she'd appeared on Master P's very first albums, Mama's Bad Boy, Get Away Clean, The Ghetto's Trying To Kill Me... She wasn't just a member of his crew, in fact. She was his wife. Yes, that means she's also the mother of Lil Romeo and Young V. In fact, I'd just like to take a moment to point out that she named her three sons Percy Jr, Vercy and Hercey, which is downright silly.

So, anyway, what about this album? Well, since it's still in No Limit's CA days, the majority of it is produced by EA Ski & CMT, with a few tracks produced by Master P himself.

In fact, the first song (after an intro) is produced by P and it's the strongest. It sounds great because it heavily, heavily samples Betty Wright's "No Pain, No Gain" - not just the break, but the vocals and everything. They use Betty's crooning as an excellent backdrop for Sonya to slow it down and give a somber, autobiographical story about her own life. Unfortunately, on the other hand, Sonya's flow is pretty horrible on this, kicking the kind of rudimentary delivery, struggling to stay on beat, that gave No Limit such a bad name on the east coast. It almost feels like one of those stories you used to see on television where some chintzy producer would got to a halfway house in an inner city and get them all rapping as a exercise in self esteem. But damn if the music isn't effective. Couple that with how earnest Sonya sounds, and you've got an effective song that's managed to stick with me since high school - analytical criticism be damned.

The rest of the album is, thankfully, substantially harder and Sonya's flow - while never amazing - gets stronger along with it. Following a skit where a bunch of guys see Sonya and approach her on the street, "yo, Sonya, what's up?" "This what's up, mother fuckers!" she yells and it ends in machine gun sound effects. And EA Ski and CMT are acknowledged masters of gangsta rap production. There's a host of recognizable, funky samples, which help a lot - the groove of "Bitches Die In the Dope Game" is great, and the clever collection of vocal samples on the hook are really fresh. The Untouchables also drop in a couple appearances, most notably on the posse cut finale, "I Ain't To Be Fucked With," but not so many that they overshadow Sonya's solo endeavor.

Unfortunately, one downside is that this album feels like an EP they stretched out to full LP length. Half the songs on this album are skits, and one of the tightest beats on this album, "Gankers," is just an instrumental. A full-length instrumental song might fit in on a DJ Shadow album or something, but on a gangsta rap tape? It feels like the engineer just lost the vocal track. You also get two versions of the title cut, "Married To the Mob Part 1" and "Married To the Mob Part 2," but really "Part 2" is just a radio edit of "Part 1." You really only get six proper, full songs; the rest is all filler.

Bottom line, this is a dope tape if you like these kinda albums, but if you think all that No Limit-type shit is straight garbage, nothing here's gonna change your mind. These are not the kind of MCs who were ever going to elevate the art form or flex freestyle skills. But if you just want to shed your backpack and listen to some pure early 90's gangsta rap, this tape delivers. And it's purple.


P.s. - If you can't quite make out that message written underneath the Parental Advisory sticker on the album cover, it reads, "This Album is Proof, it's no honeymoon being married To The Mob. Cause Sonya C is quick to get the gat peel your cap, Miss Alcapone."

Mo-Fo Nu-Sounds

(Youtube version - staunch, true and reliable - can, as ever, be found here.)

Come On, Come On and Scream!

Kurtis Mantronik's always been a guy who went back and forth between hip-hop and European-style club music - even when he produced for T-La Rock and Just-Ice, they were more electronic or experimental beats than you'd expect from those guys. So, you have to be prepared to leave your comfort zone a bit, as a hip-hopper, to appreciate Mantronix; and this single is no exception. I mean, is MC Tee wearing a pink scarf there? lol And I won't even show you guys the pic on the back. But not just the superficial image, even musically he walks the line... and eventually he went so far, he left us completely. But I don't think any head who appreciates production and original, innovative hip-hop can front on Mantronix's early material that influenced even the hardest of hardrock records over the decades.

Now, "Scream" was a banger of a dance number off Mantronix's second album, Music Madness. It featured Kurtis's progressive beats, a super funky bassline, distorting breakdown, Tee's loquacious rhymes (seriously... anybody who wasn't impressed with Tee as an MC, just compare him to his replacement, Bryce Luvah) and a simple 80's keyboard melody that'll stick with you for decades. If you gave fans a heads up that you were planning to remix it for the single, they'd've screamed at you to leave it alone. It's perfect as it is; you can't make it better; just remix another track.

But they did in fact make it better.

Firstly, wisely, they kept all the instrumental elements that made "Scream" so appealing on the LP. Same drums, same bassline, and yes, that signature keyboard riff is right here. In fact, for the first twenty or thirty seconds, the differences may sound inconsequential... the funky snare gets to play solo a bit, things are rearranged. But it's all the same elements that sound the same when they finally play together. There's a little extra, almost go-go pattern added to the drums, but you barely hear it with all the other funky percussion going on.

Then a new layer of keyboard horn stabs come in, and they sound fresh. The bass is played a little softer, giving the song a lighter tone... The breakdowns are different, with a funky whistle sample, that then flips backwards. And most importantly, on this one, Kurtis get busy on the turntables! You won't believe this shit is from 1987 - it sounds like some turntablist DMC champion from the 90's got on the record via a time machine, just to spice things up. If you ever assumed his skills were all relegated behind the boards, he shows and proves here.

In fact, I was so impressed with that when I first got this record, it took me multiple listens to realize that this is a lyrical remix, too! Tee's first verse is the same, but on the Radio Version, Tee replaces his second verse with a whole new one. And on the extended Club Version, he kicks both verses from the original and the new one.

Flip it over, and you get a funky Dub Version, which is more than just a barren instrumental, but an excuse for Mantronik to play around and bug out over the beat, bringing in all new cuts and samples, and even a crazy Martian voice effect applied to one of Tee's verses. It holds up just as well to casual listens as the vocal mixes.

And finally, for the purists, this 12" concludes with the original LP Version. Just looking at the track-listing, you might not've expected anything new here at all: Club, Radio, Dub and LP Versions - "who needs it? I already got the album." But actually, this 12" is pretty sweet.

Now the Introduction: It's Kool Chip, Bronxwood Productions

Everybody who was down with hip-hop in the 80's knows Kool Chip from his killer '89 album with DJ Chuck Chillout, Masters Of the Rhythm. And serious collectors also know him for his subsequent, and now super-rare indie follow-up in the 90's, as Dope and a Gun. But while Chuck Chillout had a high profile history, as a member of The B-Boys, and even more-so as a famed hip-hop radio host alongside (or against) Red Alert and Mr. Magic; Kool Chip has a bit of a recorded origin as well.

Before the famous duo was formed, Kool Chip came out on 4th and Broadway with his own 12", "Jazz It Up." If you've seen this and had any question of whether this is the same Kool Chip, just a few short seconds will prove that it undoubtedly is - his unique voice shouting out Bronxwood with his signature, simple but forceful delivery.

And with the same thumping, programmed drum style, this could easily have taken off Masters Of the Rhythm. That follows, as it's produced by David Burnett, who'd also worked with Chuck Chillout before - it's likely that Chuck and Chip got a lot of their production chops from this man.

Now, granted, this isn't as straight-up a hardcore anthem as most of the tracks on Masters were. It's an ode to smooth, jazzy rhythms with a female singer (Toni Smith, who's had an interesting career of collaborations - even The Fat Boys' Crushin'! - and 12" singles herself, well worth looking into) on the hook. It's certainly more in line with "No Holding Back" and "The Mic I Grip;" but it really doesn't betray Kool Chip's later established sound. It's got a little more instrumentation, which is actually pretty cool, and parts of this record actually manage to echo "Buffalo Gals," but it's still not that far removed. I could understand anyone being hesitant to pick this one up - just looking at the label, it reads like a dangerously misguided crossover attempt or something painfully cheesy - but if you're a fan, you won't be disappointed.

Now, interestingly, the label actually credits a remix by Dancin' Danny D. But that remix is not in fact on here. It's only on some UK pressings (and actually, Danny is best known for his exclusive UK remixes, from everybody to Kid 'N Play to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince) - but the remix credit is for some reason on all pressings. This original US pressing just features the main version on side A, and the dub on side B. But really, that's all you need. It's a funky little precursor to a great album.

Pick It Up Pick It Up

(Youtube version is here.)

The D.O.C. Gets Busy In the House

Have you ever been listening to The D.O.C.'s fierce, hardcore masterpiece, No One Can Do It Better, and think to yourself: the only thing that could make this better is some upbeat, poppy house rhythms? Of course not, no one in the whole country has ever thought that. But over there in England, it's a different story. UK remixer extraordinaire CJ Mackintosh not only had that thought, but convinced the gang back home at Ruthless Records that they needed to come together to make this idea a reality!

That's right, arguably Dr. Dre's best hip-hop production work of his career got the hip-house make-over, not just in Europe, but on the domestic US single as well.

What I have here is a promo (obviously originally sent to a radio station run by somebody who likes to write on records), but there's also a commercial version with a regular Ruthless labels, a picture cover and the whole nine. But the track-listing is the same regardless: a pair of remixes of two of The D.O.C.'s hardest tracks from the album. No instrumentals, LP versions, etc... just one song per side.

The D.O.C.'s fast-paced lyrical slaughter "Portrait Of a Masterpiece" is now a house song. And a happy, cheerful one at that. The light piano riff sounds like something Mr. Lee would play, and are more than a little bit reminiscent of Kid 'N' Play's "Energy." The bassline would match perfectly with a kiddie rap about ninja turtles. The keyboard flare sounds like something Tiffany would take off her record for sounding too soft, and the drums... well, all house drums are pretty much exactly the same: "Emph, pop!, Emph, pop!" ad infinitum. His fast flow actually matches perfectly with the flow, and The D.O.C.'s enthusiastic ad-libs sound as if they were recorded specifically for this mix (they weren't though; they can be heard on the original).

It actually... kind of works, in a crazy way, if you can get over the sacrilege. It's even fruitier than regular hip-house records. But if you can appreciate hip-house at all, and if you're the kind of person who can get open to a L'Trimm record, then I daresay you should actually enjoy this.

That's the B-side. The A-side is actually remixed by Dr. Dre himself. He takes his dark and atmospheric "Mind Blowin'" and kinda smooths it out. It's interesting - it has a fresh siren sound loop and some "Buffalo Gal" vocal samples. The bassline is cool; not smoothed all the way into G-funk territory, but it definitely plays more relaxed than the original. I still prefer the first version, but both are funky and worth having in your collection.

As for the house mix? Well, I guess it depends how open-minded and eccentric a hip-hop head you are.

Let's Not Wake the Hurricane

So, now that I'm back online following Hurricane Irene, I thought I'd do a post on Hurricane G, because I'm a simple sort of blogger, and basic word associations rule my life. But, looking through my collection, I found out I actually don't have that much Hurricane G (and, let's face it, all DJ Hurricane records are boring), so my selection was limited. I could just find this one cassingle of "Somebody Else," her attempt at a crossover single.

This dropped in 1997 on H.O.L.A. Records, a small label devoted strictly to Latino (the "L" in H.O.L.A. - can you guess the rest?) acts. It's the main single off her limited release, CD-only album, All Woman. I believe she'd already split from the Def Squad at this point (though she did a song with Hit Squadians Das EFX for her album, probably as a final "fuck you"), so she wasn't in the best place career-wise. And this was her bid at a broader audience. She actually put out a couple singles for All Woman, but this is the only one that got mainstream distribution (i.e. you could buy the cassingle in NJ shopping malls when I was a kid). And it wasn't a good look.

First of all, let's examine this cover, shall we? It's a pair of eyes - her eyes, presumably - floating over a wing, some coins, a wooden X... what? This cover must've been made using the free stock images that came with PaintShop 2 or something. What is all that random, monochrome junk? I think there might be part of a model train and some bottle caps on the back. You guys click on that image, blow it up to 100%, and see if you can figure out what it all is.

This song uses a very familiar bassline from an old Jones Girls record you've heard on dozens of records; but this time they go whole hog, using pretty much the whole record including the hook and just making a rap version of it. This bassline works well on an upbeat, freestyle track, but here it feels slow, harder and murky on a poppy relationship track. It's produced by D-Moet, as in "King Sun and _-____," who was mounting a bit of a comeback as an indie producer in the 90's.

But it's not so much that this is a bad track, so much as it was a bad choice. Hurricane G came pretty tight, as a super hardcore, shrill, angry battle rhymer who patterned her sound pretty blatantly on the rest of the Def Squad, and did a damn fine job of it. Check out her single "Underground Lockdown" - she was one of the hardest female rappers out there. Thanks to her cameos on Redman's and Murray's albums, she was building a big buzz and people were curious about her - and this was the single with the distribution push that people would here.

Now, I can understand the logic at work here: get the most mainstream song out to the mainstream audience, and put out the underground gritty stuff on the underground level. Makes sense. Except, since this was her first outing and people were curious but uncertain, they wound up being presented with a really bland, generic song. This is like "Female Rap" taken out of any major label's home-starter kit for soundalike female rappers of the time. People heard this and were like, "oh, this is Hurricane G? I thought she was supposed to be some ill, crazy MC? I guess I must've been confusing her with Roz Noble." And close book, end of the Hurricane G story.

I mean, there are touches of her credibility trying to be hinted at in this song... she curses a lot (rendering the Clean Version confusing and unlistenable). But it's so generic and uninspired. She loves a guy, but he doesn't treat her well enough, so she's gonna go love somebody else. It doesn't even feel sincere, like she's experienced this. It's like she just listened to the song they were sampling and said, "I'll just some curses to those lyrics."

More than that, it doesn't feel quite finished. After her last verse, there's a long instrumental portion where she just ad-libs "ooh. Uh. Yeah. Uh-huh." for a minute or so. It feels like there was meant to be another verse in there and they cut it out at the last minute or something. The story - such as it is - feels incomplete. She loves the guy... he treats her bad... the end. It feels like there should be some sort of "punchline" verse, where she wraps up, telling him she found a new guy who's super awesome, or "ha ha, I'm a lesbian now!" or something, anything. Maybe she did say that and her managers panicked and had the label erase the final verse (lol there's an unusually high degree of speculation going on in this post).

I mean... there's sort of a punchline at the end. She says, "you're gonna make me turn into supe-supe-Supa Bitch!" ...Which would be funny if she sold it. But her delivery is so flat, you don't even realize that's what she's saying unless you're paying dogged attention. It's the kind of line Redman could say (and he almost did, with those Soopaman Lova songs) and make everyone crack up over. But Hurricane just sleepwalks through the whole song, and the beat is like, "shh! let's not wake her."

So, yeah, this is just the cassingle. It's got the useless Clean Version on the A-side, and the LP Version on the flip. The 12" adds an instrumental and acapella, and comes in a sticker cover. Give it a miss. But some of her other singles are worth picking up when you come across 'em cheap.

Deadly!

(And here's the Youtube version. Hey, it only took over 24 hours to upload.)

The Outsidaz' Idea of "Radio Friendly"

After The Outsidaz' killer EP, Night Life, they were making moves. their label was behind them, Eminem and Rah Digga were blowing up as solo artists, you used to see the Outsidaz van driving around NYC and even billboards. Now, you could blame the collapse of Ruffhouse Records on their fall from mainstream grace, and that was clearly a big part of the marketing suddenly drying up midstream etc. But really, the Outz were a large, ragtag collective (really, even The Outz themselves might have trouble naming all various members who came and left the group in a short period) of Brick City lyricists with a penchant for hard beats and sick (in all senses of the word) lyrics. Were they really built to compete in the post-Bieber hip-hop world?*

The advance version of The Bricks featured a different track-listing from the final, commercial version. And one song they added was this, their big, commercial single. This is the one they shot a video for. This is the song where they rap about relationships with an R&B singer on the hook with only their three, most recognizable members taking the mic. This is "I'm Leavin'," their radio single.

"I'm Leavin'" was produced by Hotrunner, a guy who's done a few other things before and since... nothing to get too excited about, but all of which sort of fits in that same weird gap of rappers not quite going commercial. The track is basically just a loop from a contemporary flamenco guitarist named Armik with the drums beefed up, which is effectively catchy in an offbeat way. It featured a hook by Kelis, who was just beginning her career, which includes a lot of hooks for a lot of rappers and a lot of terrible dance records (sorry guys, I'm not saying she isn't a good singer, but nobody should have to listen to "Blindfold Me" if they haven't committed some kind of awful crime against society).

But this single doesn't feature Kelis. No, she's been abandoned for the "UK versions," even on the US promo 12". Remember, by the time The Bricks was ready to drop singles, Ruffhouse Rufflife/ Ruff Wax was already dying. So here in the US, The Outz didn't really get any singles except a few promo copies. But Ruff Life UK hung on there a little more and actually marketed The Outsidaz over there, releasing this proper, commercially released single in the nice picture cover and all. And over in the UK, some girl group called All Saints was apparently semi-popular and one of its members, Melanie Blatt, was going solo. So they took Kelis off the track and gave the song a new hook by Melanie.

That may sound like a great injustice, and maybe it was to Kelis personally, and swapping out a black singer for a pretty white girl does reek of crass record label politics; but honestly, musically, the difference is pretty academic. They're both capable vocalists singing the same hook, which is a play on John Denver/ Peter Paul & Mary's "Leaving On a Jet Plane" (infamous in hip-hop circles more for its use in Stetsasonic's "Faye"). If you're not coming into this record as a Kelis fan (or Melanie Blatt fan), you're apt not to even notice the difference, much less care one way or the other. And apart from the hook, the song is the same. It's not remixed or anything... maybe it's mastered a bit differently, but it's the same Armik loop and all.

So this is what they made a video for (which you can see on the bonus disc hat came with Pace Won's debut, Won), sent out to DJs, etc. All upbeat and poppy for the soulless music directors, except... did they actually listen to this song? Young Zee spends his whole verse calling some groupie a nasty skank: "You're a virgin? You know you do this often. You're things so deep it could drown a school of dolphins." And there's a brilliant moment of unintended hilarity when they cut to Blatt vamping to the song, looking all cool, sexy and professionally model-y as Zee rags on the cleanliness of her vagina ("your things more dirty than the 'durty sowf'"). What a perfect music industry example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

And it gets worse! Zee at least keeps it to graphic sexuality, which often sneaks under the radar of commercial R&B and hip-hop. But look at Pace's verse:

"Yo, she fell in love with a star, the life, the car,
The Hu-Hu-HAAA!! had her goin'.
Open like: what? With a butt like Kim's.
When I seen it, made we wanna nut right then!
Yo, we got fly, she stopped by,
Spliffed the choc ty and passed it clockwise.
Let me knock the boots 'till I was cock-eyed;
And now she tryin' to act like she ain't got time?
I told her: think of this before you try to be foul:
There's chicks at the bar that could be buying me rounds,
And all type models that be eying me down;
I stay, and you say goodbye to me now?
Fuck that! Diss me, that's what's up here.
You better get yo' fat ass back upstairs!
And if you try to creep, I'ma tie you in the basement,
Catch your little boyfriend and beat is little face in!"

The music video censored the words "butt," "nut," "ass" and even the drug reference, but for some reason, stations still weren't giving this major rotations? What, they're not big fans of domestic violence? Gee, that really came out of left field. Hell, the music video cuts out Rah Digga's portion entirely, where she writes probably the first song in history about her an untrustworthy man cheating on her while in jail: "time to face the truth, when I really didn't wanna. How the Hell all these hoes keep getting my number? Who was it - a kissing cousin? Came to see you in prison, they sayin' you already had a visit! Leaving with these strangers, how do you explain this? Came this close to lettin' you put it in my anus!" This is meant to be their crossover song?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing these verses. The Outz kill it, keep it creative and edgy (although... Zee is capable of better), and manage to keep their integrity on what would normally be an embarrassing footnote in any other artist's career. I actually love this song! and while the video is censored to pieces (an exercise in futility), the 12"includes the Full Length versions, featuring all the curse words and Rah Digga's material untouched. It's also got the instrumental.

Being a UK 12", though... of course it also features some terrible, terrible dance remixes on the B-side. There's the Grunge Boyz Vocal Dub Remix, which is... well, I just can't believe anybody would choose to listen to this on purpose. Put it that way. Then there's the Oddsmakers Clean Remix, which is okay, but the vocals are drowned out by the overbearing samples. And it's not actually a clean edit at all (all the curses, etc, are present), which is nice. It doesn't compete with the original, but it's a cool extra to fill out our Outsidaz collections.

So I recommend you ignore your impulse to skip right over the blatant radio single and add this one to your collections - despite outward appearances, it's another ill Outsidaz classic. Especially considering their catalog is disappointingly small, we can't afford to sleep on anything.


*The shame of it isn't that they didn't continue to blow up bigger and bigger, but that they didn't dust themselves off and continue ruling the underworld as an unfuckwitable collective after Ruffhouse.

Rappin' Is Cretaceous

Here's one of the jewels of my collection: "Ain't No Smoke Without Fire," the debut single by Rappin' Is Fundamental. This one's certainly rare - I've only ever seen it, or even heard of it, once - and that's when I bought it. This dropped in 1989, two years before they came out on A&M Records with their album, video and widely released single. Interestingly, this came out on Khafra Records, a super obscure west coast label, whose only other release was the debut 12" of Prodeje, before South Central Cartel and Havoc and Prodeje* even came out. That was their second and final release, and this is their first.

Now, the few of you who are as familiar with RIF's catalog as everyone ought to be (they are seriously under-appreciated) are probably saying to yourselves, "Ain't No Smoke Without Fire? I know that song!" Yes, "Ain't No Smoke (Without Fire)" was on their 1991, major label album. But this 12" features a different version. The lyrics and the primary looped riff of the instrumental is the same - plus Big Daddy Kane's uncredited cameo appears on both, though it's a bit shorter on the LP - but the vocals and the music are different.

You notice it instantly. Again, they're rapping the same lyrics over the same break, but the delivery is different and the mastering is different. JR sounds more laid back and the beat feels simpler. Even the ad-libs sound audibly more raw. And as the song progresses, the changes are more obvious - the first mini-hook, where RIF sing, "smoke, smoke, ain't no smoke" after JR's verse is absent, and instead the break is signified just by a subtle vocal sample of Kane going "Mm, mm, mm" from the intro to "Ain't No Half Steppin'." And the freestyle singing at the end of the song is completely different - at that point, they don't even sing the same words.

The album version has a whole just sounds bigger - they seem to have taken another pass at it to make it sound "more professional." The album version features some subtle "lead guitar" by one Shlomo Sonnenfeld. When I first read that in the credits, I thought, "there's guitar in that?" But when I played it back with my ear to the speaker, I was like, "ah, yeah, it's in there." Well, it's not in here, the 12" version.

So, the question becomes, "well, which is better?" It's hard to say, actually; it's going to just come down to the listener's personal taste. There's definitely something to be said for the epic feel of the album version, and the horns sound less chintzy. The 12" version, on the other hand, feels more natural, like you're in the same small jazz club with RIF as they rap and sing over a dope track. When you hear them both, you realize how much the album version's vocals have been processed, and the 12" version has a nice, organic appeal.

I say "12" version," but technically there are two versions on this 12" version. The Club Mix, and a shorter Radio Version, which shaves a couple minutes off the song's running time.

The B-side is another album track, "You Wanna Trip," and as with "Ain't No Smoke," it's another alternate pass at the A&M version, though the differences aren't so distinct. Where "Ain't No Smoke" has a remarkably different feel, the distinction here is more trivial; you mostly notice it in the background ad-libs, plus the extra drums that come in behind the chorus on the album version haven't been added to the 12" take. Again, it's essentially the same deal - the album version sounds more professional and polished, the 12" feels more low-fi and real. The differences just aren't so strong. Also, again, the 12" features two versions: The full-length Club Mix, and the tighter Radio Version.

But it's not just the alternate versions that make this 12" such a treasure (although they'd be enough), it's the fact that this dropped in 1989, showing that the guys who invented and their own musical genre, Doo-Hop, were even more ahead of their time than anybody realized. Heck, they'd still be ahead of their time if they came out today, considering still nobody else has been able to pick up their torch. And on an obscure west coast label? This record is some serious history.

And it's a treasure because, as you see, it comes in such a fantastic picture cover... although the designers went a little conceptually overboard by designing it to look like a picture printed on the cover of a book printed on the cover of another book (look closely - it's a mock, 3-d book cover on top of another mock, 3-D book cover lol). And as a bonus, my copy is signed by the group to a guy named Charlie. I don't know who he is, but i thank him for parting with his copy so it could wind up with me. =)


*No, there's no connection to Mobb Deep; it's just a strange coincidence.