Biz Week, Day 4: Biz Markie & DJ Polo

Imagine if things had gone a bit differently, and instead of Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, the pairing was with another Juice Crew All Star, Biz Markie.  We've been given a quick glimpse into what that reality might've looked like thanks to a 1998 song called "Calander[.sic] Girl."  Of course, this isn't the first time the two collaborated, with Biz famously appearing on Wanted: Dead Or Alive's "Erase Racism."  But here we finally get the two alone, to see what sort of music they might've created if left to their own devices.  Or maybe not, but it's still an interesting curiosity to add to your Biz collection.

The only worse solo breakout than Eric B from Rakim has to be Polo's from the Kool Genius.  At least Eric stuck to trusty soul grooves and Freddie Foxxx as a ghost writer.  DJ Polo decided to hitch his wagon to porn star (and now alleged sex offender) Ron Jeremy?  But actually, listening all the way through his 1998 album, Polo's Playhouse, it's not all bad.  He has a nice scratch intro and does use a few familiar grooves, like Eric B, though this time recycling some of his own hits by reusing the classic beats to "Road To the Riches" and "Talk Like Sex."  And he has some good guests, including Roxanne Shante, Melle Mel, Scorpio and yes, Biz Markie.

Actually, I want to talk some more about this project overall, because it's weird.  First of all, just like when Eric B went solo, Polo also became the lead MC on his project.  If you look at the list of guests, you could be forgiven for thinking he's just the producer/ DJ/ host of his album, but no, he's the lyrical front-man now, too.  One of his most prominent seeming guests is Ice-T, right?  But actually Ice just ad-libs a few words between Polo's verses.  And my god, what is up with that MSPaint album cover?

It also has to be pointed out that there are two versions of this album.  Polo's Playhouse only came out on CD overseas, via the German label Black Jam Records (the same label that put out the alternate version of Big Daddy Kane's Veteranz Day).  In the US, we got a couple singles, with the lead Ron Jeremy track "Freak Of the Week" getting the broadest distribution, plus the music video and everything.  But we didn't get the full album until the early 2000s, via Bunny Ranch Records, when it was reworked, losing a few songs and gaining a few.  These CDs are fairly rare, as you pretty much had to order them via snail mail through the Bunny Ranch website, though CDBaby handled the digital distribution and may have sold physical copies through their website at some point, too?  I'm not 100% sure on that.

Anyway, this one's been retitled Bunny Ranch Volume 1 (there has yet to be a Volume 2), and all this Bunny Ranch stuff is about a Nevada brothel that was featured for a time on an HBO series called Cathouse.  So this album drops a few of the more street-sounding songs from Polo's Playhouse and replaces them with more goofy party sex songs featuring Ron Jeremy, plus some radio guys named Budman and Boomer.  See that woman on the left?  That's Madame Suzette, apparently a prominent feature on the HBO show, and she actually has a solo song on this version of the album.  She's as awful at rapping as you'd expect, but I don't imagine we're meant to take this whole project too terribly seriously.  I mean, I hope not, because Ron Jeremy fucking sucks as an MC.  The only credible addition to the roster is Greg Nice, who appears on "Goin' Down On the Bunny Ranch" along with Polo and Jeremy.  It doesn't appear to be online anymore, but there was actually a music video for that one, too, which I downloaded back in the day.  Anyway, it's the worse version of the album, but it's the rarer, so you might want to snatch it up if you come across a copy in the wild.  But either will net you the Biz, because "Calander Girl" is on both.

You probably noticed from Biz Week, Day 3 that a lot of peoples' big idea to make use of Biz Markie is to have him sing old songs.  I guess comically.  We'll see more of that in Day 5, too.  And yes, "Calander Girl" is a modern day Hip-Hop remake of the old 60's Neil Sedaka song.  But in a happy surprise, Polo doesn't have Biz sing that song for the hook.  Instead he samples it and mixes it into a funkier Hip-Hop track, reminiscent of the kind of song Mr. Mixx would produce in his prime, and actually lets Biz rap.  But not first.  Polo takes the first verse, doing a seemingly deliberate (since he even name drops him) Fresh Prince impression.  He actually does a decent job capturing that playful kid-friendly style, and then comes back at the end of the song for a more natural, smoother verse.

But Biz steals the show with the central verse, which is by far the best.  The song's got a really cool bassline and catchy sample that anyone could sound good over, but Biz's personality and humor shines doubly through:

"What's your name?
It's Biz, I film my TV shows in Cali;
Still meetin' girls like When Harry Met Sally;
But I never met a freak this fly
As a calendar, calendar girl, who represented in July.
I met her at this club and she couldn't dance,
But her implants made my bulge jump in my pants.
I wanted to take her home and kick it solo,
But she had a friend so I called my man Polo.
Ooh! You shoulda seen how we did it;
Those two freaks of the weeks, they be wit' it.
The lovin' and bonin' and hittin' the skins.
Well, these are a few of my favorite things.
Yo, we took 'em home, you better believe that it was cool;
We did the wild thing, drinkin' Snapple by the pool.
The calendar girls got busy for a while,
As me and Polo did it (How'd ya do it?) New York style."

Even thought his song was recorded for and included on the 1998 version of the album, you can see that Bunny Ranch material was already ingrained in that original version, and Biz was happy to play along.  It's certainly a novel glimpse into the far more playful alternative universe where Biz and Polo had made their albums together.  Their sensibilities seem much more aligned than the mafioso direction G Rap wanted to go in, though maybe Biz would've wanted to keep things a little cleaner than dirty-minded Polo here.  The song even has girls (presumably some of the "bunnies" from the ranch, but who knows?) providing sexy ad-libs throughout the whole thing.  Unfortunately, this song wasn't included on any of the singles, because its one of the few highlights really worth owning.  They should've made a little "street" vinyl EP with the Melle Mel, Shante, scratch intro tracks and this song.  But oh well.  You can usually find the Black Jam CD pretty cheap, and it's still worth it for the highlights, especially this song.