Chino On Metro

So I thought I'd follow-up on my recent Chino XL post, about his brief stint on Warner Bros with this one about his one 12" on Metro.  So, like I said then, Metro is the indie label he wound up putting his second album (I Told You So) out on after Warner Bros, well, changed their minds.  Essentially, Metro didn't bother with any singles for that album, since Warner Bros had already done that job for them.  They just released the CD.  But there was this one, little promo 12" for "What You Got."  And the B-side?  "Let 'Em Live" with Kool G Rap again.  What makes this 12" interesting, besides being the only way for serious Chino fans to get "What You Got" on vinyl since I Told You So was CD-only?  Exclusive remixes.  But before yo get too excited, let's have a closer look.

I'll start with the A-side, since A comes after B, even though I'm sure we're all much more interested in "Let 'Em Live."  But "What You Got" is actually a pretty fun track.  It's just Chino going off showing off his skills in full braggadocio freestyle mode, naturally packing in as many punchlines as he possibly can.  Yes, that gets a little corny.  "Give ya more blood clots than two Jamaicans arguin'," "what I do to push your hairline back Rogaine won't help," "I'll turn on channel 2 if I wanna see B.S.," etc.  I mean, that last one might get a pass in some kind of politically minded song where he was actually commenting on the media; but here it's just a cheesy pun that has nothing to do with anything, thrown in because he fills his music with every pun he can think of.

Despite that, though, it's actually a pretty good song.  Like "Let 'Em Live," the beat is again created by Nick Wiz without any instrumental samples.  I specify instrumental samples because the hook actually makes use of some great vocal samples from Carlito's Way, which is a huge part of the song's appeal.  The rest of the track is carefully constructed studio sounds.  It's got more of a catchier, upbeat feel than "Let 'Em Live," but it's the same kind of thing.  And that upbeat feel might throw you off at first.  It sounds like something better suited for a junior member of Terror Squad to boast about his bling on than a battle rapper like Chino.  But I kind of like the unexpected merger of a hardcore rapper over a poppy beat; like Yah Yah with 5th Lmnt.  A pop rapper over a pop beat is crap; but there's a cool contrast on songs like this, with Chino flowing ruthlessly over the track, both elements feeding energy into the other.  It works.

It's obvious why Warner wanted it to be his next single.  I mean, I'm not sure it would've been a great idea even if they had done it.  Putting Chino on more of crossover track would smell like mainstream appeal to a corny label exec, but I think a more savy Hip-Hop A&R would realize the two elements would probably cancel each other out commercially.  The kids who were making "Wobble Wobble" and "Whistle While You Twurk" the #1 rap songs of the year weren't going to latch onto Chino XL rapping about how, "at a lynching I smile, cut myself down, murder your guest list."  But the whole thing's too damn jiggy for the underground screwfaces and purist backpackers who would've been interested in listening to complex battle rhymes.  Especially with that music video.  No wonder why Warners quickly drew back like whoa, we made a mistake with this one.

Oh yeah, did you know there was a music video?  As far as I know, it never aired, but it was included as an Enhanced CD bonus on Chino's next album, Poison Pen, which came out in 2006 on another short-lived indie label, Activate Entertainment.  I got the autographed "2 DISC COLLECTOR'S EDITION" there (sorry, the shiny silver lettering doesn't scan very well), but the video is on disc 1, so even if you've just got the standard release, you've got the video.  And by the way, I've got a lot of shit to say about Poison Pen, but that's a whole 'nother blog.  So for now, just take a look at this video:

And yeah, that image is the full picture quality.  We're talking about an mpg hidden as a bonus track on a music CD in the year 2000, so it's relatively decent.  But the actual video?  It's clearly where all the label's budget went instead of clearing samples, with a dozen bikini models dancing in sandals around a rented mansion's swimming pool and driving around Miami in a company sports car.  Who would have listened to Here To Save You All and thought all it needed was a "Pumps and a Bump" make-over to blow up?  Well, somebody did.  It ends with a giant "© 2000 Warner Bros Records, Inc" screen, making you wonder if it was even legal for Activate to put it on their CD.  Probably not.

So, finally what we're really here for: the exclusive remixes!  Both songs feature Beat Shop Mixes in addition to the Album versions ("What You Got" also has the Instrumental), and despite the billion and one "Let 'Em Live" remixes I talked about last time, these official remixes aren't online anywhere.  Beat Shop is an alias a producer named Taurus occasionally used around that time, and he produced some stuff for guys like Guru and B-Real, so I assume he did these remixes.  Here's the thing, though.  They use the exact same instrumentals (and vocals, naturally).  Basically, they just beat juggle a little bit.  Like at the end of "Let 'Em Live," when they're saying, "knock 'em out the box, Chi?"  Well, now "Let 'Em Live" has about twenty seconds of that at the intro before going into the first verse, too.  That's the only difference.  It's maybe a one percent improvement for "What You Got," and I actually prefer the album version without that bit on "Let 'Em Live."  So don't all rush out and track this 12" down for the exclusive remixes.

The only other thing on this record, is at the end of side 2, is a short track called "Beat Shop Samples."  It's just little vocal soundbites that you used to see on those DJ battle tools records.  Like, a line from South Park and the sound of a gun shot.  None of these samples were used in the Beat Shop Mixes of the two songs or anything; they're just a random little bonus tacked on at the end.  So, all in all, an interesting footnote of a record, but not much more.  I don't know; it might seem like I'm bagging on Chino a lot here and last time, but I enjoy his stuff.  I bought his records for a reason.  Maybe I've grown out of them somewhat;...I think the whole genre's grown out of that jokey punchline simile style; but I wouldn't be going back to these records if I wasn't enjoying it.

Chino XL vs. Kool G Rap

Alrighty.  This 12" has been high on my "to write about" list since I started this blog over ten years ago.  But I just keep putting it off and pushing it back in favor of something else.  Why?  Because I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this record that I've still never fully settled.  And if you can't tell from the picture, I'm talking about Chino XL's "Let 'Em Live" featuring the great Kool G Rap, a 12" single from 2000 on Warner Bros.  After his time on Ill/ Def American, Chino was very briefly signed to Warner Bros.  There was the white label of "Last Laugh" and this 12", both singles for his upcoming album I Told You So.  But he was already dropped by the time album came out, which wound up being a CD-only release on a little label called Metro Records.  So mainstream audiences that weren't copping promo vinyl wouldn't have even seen it, but there was a hot second when he was on Warners.

So we've basically just got the one version of the one song on here, which is the same as what wound up on the album.  I mean, yeah, we get Instrumental, Acapella (which is why there's so many amateur remixes of this song on Youtube) and all that.  But just the one set of vocals over basic instrumental, produced by Nick Wiz.  And the beat is... ummm... not amazing.  I like Nick Wiz.  Hell, everybody likes Nick Wiz.  And on one hand, I do like this track.  It suits the high energy battle rap style these guys are kicking, and it's got some dark atmosphere I know both of these MCs like.  But it's also that kind of sample-free, stock sound effect, big horn stab track that you expect to hear terrible rappers use in a Youtube battle.  Wiz is talented enough to lay some nice touches underneath it all to hold everything together and blend the vocals to the track.  So it pulls you into the lyrics, which is great.  But this is never a song you'd play because you want to hear that instrumental.  So yeah, I'm a little conflicted about it.  I guess, at the end of the day, it's a track I'd concede in any debate isn't very good, but I still kinda like it.

But that isn't the half of the conflict I feel over the record that's made me keep pushing it off.  It's the lyrics.  Kool G Rap unquestionably kills it on here.  I mean, I know some people are sick of the gangster topic from him, and in that regard, this is absolutely more of the same.  He raps about a mugging, gang warfare and the glittery drug life.  I get it if you've had enough of that.  But if it doesn't matter that he does it spectacularly well, I don't know what to tell ya.  On a technical level, on a delivery level, in terms of cleverness... I could listen to his half of the song all day.

Unfortunately, he's only on half, or even slightly less, of the track.  And that brings be to Chino XL's part.  I've been a fan of his, too; and a hardcore battle rap track over a Nick Wiz beat?  That's his home court right there.  But god, his punchlines can make you cringe.  "keep shit in a bag like a colostomy; I'm pro, you're junior varsity," "you'll retire like Seinfeld, waiting on titles that I've held.  Rock and roll like Dennis Leary, blastin' assassins sent to kill me," "more Colt 45 than Billy D collectin' disability, I'll shoot out with Bill and Hillary, still won't run out of artillery."  Those are just a couple of examples from a single song ("Nunca," also off I Told You So).  I don't even get that last one.  Is there any reason to throw in the Clintons' names besides the fact that they're in the zeitgeist and Hillary rhymes with artillery?  At least Jerry Seinfeld had recently retired from his show at the time.

G Rap's verses are very clever in terms of grammar and construction, but they never get corny like that, full of gags and arbitrary pop culture similes.  To be fair, though, I was grabbing examples from another song because I think Chino realized you don't get that jokey on a duet with Kool G Rap.  And when it comes to sick wordplay, Chino can spit with the best of them.  Here's a little taste of his actual bars on "Let 'Em Live:"

"Universally disperse a cursed verse, controversial;
Illest on earth so,
Out of this world like Captain Kirk's ho.
Get Patty Hearst dough;
Commit you to the dirt slow.
Even worse, though,
High yellow Chino'll leave you needing what a nurse know."

Okay, wait.  There's like three jokes and two celebrity name drops in there, too.  But all those lines at least kinda work, and the fact that they're embedded in a wild rhyme pattern really helps sell them.  But compare that to G Rap's material, where his rhyme scheme is just as mind blowing, coming up with ingenious ways to rephrase ideas we've heard in a million other rap songs to make them fresh, and yet none of the shtick:

"I spit my shit like a flame thrower,
The frame blower.
Came with the brain exploder
Inside the Range Rover.
Load the six-stain holder;
Lay you and your dame over.
Banging your main soldier
'Till my aim strain my shoulder."

And those are just from his quick introductory bars.  Also, just as a fun fact, it's also not his only reference to Range Rovers in the song.  I guess he just likes the way the phrase sounds over this beat, because he also has the line, "one hundred and twenty five grains rearrange your Rover."  And sorry to go off on a tangent mid-point, but that brings me to something else about this song: they're hard to catch.  I looked up the lyrics on OHHLA, and it's chock full of errors, most of which I think I'll be happily able to correct for you today (fairly certain it's not, "one hundred and twenty five grange we arrange the rover").  Rap Genius's take is barely any better (they clearly scraped OHHLA), and the only other version I found was even worse, but I won't link it 'cause I think English wasn't their first language anyway.

So like, Chino's line in his first verse should probably be, "start kneelin' and pissin' in bed" not "start nailing and pissing in bed," and in the chorus, I'm sure he says, "you'd be holding your breath forever tongue kissing a fish," not "your fist."  And I've got some other corrections I'm dropping in the quoted verses.  But it's tough.  For the life of me, I can't figure out what the last line of G Rap's first verse is, though I'm sure it's not, "nigga trade ya rover for the redrum stains you sober."  So if anybody can figure that one out, please post a comment.  It's been driving me nuts for years.  Oh, and the only other line I can't quite figure is Chino's, "blow dinero like Ferrigino?"  There's a reference I'm not getting, but I'm sure it's not "blow Deniro like oregano," as was previously guessed.  I'm certain he's bragging about spending money, not giving sloppy oregano-flavored oral sex to the star of Meet the Fockers.  😂

So where was I?  Oh yeah, so Chino spits pretty hard, but doesn't quite manage to avoid the one-liners.  And to be fair, that's what he's known for, and a lot of his fans would be disappointed if he left them out.  And I'm not mad at all of them.  I'm good with "the best MC's always float to the top unlike the son of John F. Kennedy," because it's just so cold.  I respect that.  His closer, I'm more of two minds about: "catch a L in the circle like a fuckin' Lexus logo."  Like, that's really clever, and I know it's one of his more popular lines.  I wouldn't've ever come up with it.  But it's still pretty contrived.  At the end of the day, I'll take it, but you can see why half the time I could just listen to an edit of this song with just the G Rap parts, right?  You have to be in a certain mood to play a song where the MC suddenly sings, "Dah da na na na - watch me change to Super Niggaro!"  But you don't have to be in any particular mood to be blown away by G Rap's verses:

"Yo, don't fight the heist if you treasure your life,
'cause my trife is measured in ice;
Put your wife at the edge of my knife.
And it'll be my pleasure to slice;
The bitch'll be forever with Christ;
Get hit twice with this real nice
Berretta device,
Nickel plates to your North Face
Put feathers in flight;
Let my lead strike and sever your life,
Leaving you red and wet in the night;
Head bright from infrared sight;
Cock back, squeeze and let it ignite.
Placing your body where the bedbugs bite.
Baby you thug, right?
A slug might open your mug like
I'm checking your blood type.
The drug life,
We hop in the Rolls,
Shoppin' for clothes,
Rockin' our foes,
Put you in a coffin with the top of it closed, you know?
Put a fuckin' glock to your nose!
Run up in your spot for the O's of blow;
Shove cock in your ho.
We 'bout to blow,
Nothing stopping the dough;
Most popular flow;
Like ice, I'm at the top of the globe."

And seeing them typed out doesn't even begin to do justice to the way he says them.  Like, when he comes back to, "put feathers in flight" you're like, holy cow, is he still knocking out that first multi?  He never lets up.  It's almost always a bummer when MCs recycle their own material and spit the same verses on more than one song.  We've heard guys like Common and Krs-One do that, and it's disappointing when you bought a record 'cause they're on it only to realize you already own those raps.  But in this case, I really wish G Rap would take what he wrote for this collaboration and flesh it out into a full song.  Because that shit would be incredible and I'd always be in the mood to hear it.

But that said, I'll always keep this record.  Because sometimes I definitely do want to hear what all three of them - Chino, G Rap and Nick Wiz - created on this record.  And since I Told You So turned into a CD only once it went indie, this 12" is a great way to have it on vinyl.  Comes in a sticker cover to boot, and since Warners made it, you know they pressed a ton and you can cop it dirt cheap.  You can even use the acapella and make your own remix.  Although, after having just gone on a jag listening to about twenty of them on Youtube, I'll advise you right now, don't mix your main sample so loud it overshadows the vocals.  Just about all of those cats did that, and it's wack.  Really, if you want to appreciate Nick Wiz's work a little better, just listen to everybody else fail to make the track work like he did.  Although, admittedly, some of the weirder ones, like the G-Funk remix, were dubious ideas that I think were doomed to fail from the start.

Anyway, that's "Let 'Em Live."

Shaq Chino and Pun

So Chino XL's new album just came out. It's actually a double CD (no vinyl, naturally), called RICANstruction: The Black Rosary. The caps are there because otherwise you'd never get the pun. I'm me, though, so I had to check it out immediately. There I was, listening to the sound clips on ughh, and I see that one of the songs features Big Pun. I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you reading this that Pun died twelve years ago. I got to interview him right before he left us; he really was a Hell of an MC. So immediately, the instant I see that, my heart jumps a little and I'm wondering: wow, has Chino sat on an unreleased Big Pun collabo all these years? After all, he said exactly that when he was promoting this album back in 2009 ("I do have a project that everybody is about to hear with him. ...it is vocals [from Big Pun] that no one has ever heard."). This could be some crazy, ill... But my brain doesn't even let my heart finish that notion. Don't set yourself up for the world's most predictable, crushing disappointment, dummy. Give it a listen, and it's gonna be some old Wake Up Show freestyle or something that you already have.

So I play it and it's a new song, called "Kings," produced by a guy named Focus, who I think was one of the many younger producers on that DoItAll album. Anyway, it's a duet. Chino brags about it on the hook: "this collaboration is biblical, mythical, insane... Chino and Big Pun, a true lyricist dream." And for some reason, the DJ feels compelled to make a thing about the fact that both Chino and Pun have referenced Nat King Cole at some point in their careers[oh, and that's why this song is called "Kings." I honestly just got that this second. Oy vey], by cutting up both of their old lines in the hook. Well, regardless, Chino makes no bones about the fact that he wrote his part long after Pun had passed on, saying, "Big Pun's in Heaven making angels sing; Chino is still in the physical, making your name ring." Predictably, though, Pun's verse is hauntingly familiar.

I just couldn't quite place it. We're now past the point where any teeny, tiny piece of me might still be holding onto the hope that we've been given a killer, unreleased Pun verse. Now my brain just wants to label it as a part of whatever song it's from and file it away forever. Fortunately, this is the internet age, so instead of spending all night dwelling on it, I just google a couple of Pun's lines and see that they originate from a song called "BX Niggas," which debuted in 2008. Apparently it's an epic, unreleased track discovered by the filmmakers of a retrospective Pun documentary called Big Pun: The Legacy; and to hear it all, you've gotta buy the DVD.

Bull shit on that. I recognize this Pun verse, and I've never heard of this screwy doc before. I reviewed another, quite good documentary on Big Pun; but this ain't that. This is something I feel confident calling screwy even though I've never seen it because they're advertising some tired, old Pun material as a special unreleased exclusive for their movie.

So back to Google. Now I'm getting results that say it's a part of some song "The Bigger They R."  Apparently it's an unreleased song from the 90's that we're only getting to hear these days because it's been leaked onto the internet by producer Domingo. But, no, damn it! Whatever song this verse is from, it's something I own and have had in my collection for years. Long enough, at least, for me to have completely forgotten what the heck it is. Get out of here with your phony Youtubian "internet leak" mythos. Whatever I've got, I know it's not called "The Bigger They R." But, looking at these later listings, I come upon the piece of the puzzle I needed to put it all together.

This song features Shaq. Yes, that Shaq, the only Shaq. It also features Fat Joe, but that doesn't narrow anything down when it comes to Pun. Shaq, however? I have every single record by Shaq ever released. I don't just mean the full-length albums; I have all the 12" singles, guest appearances, the soundtracks, the multiple promo EPs of his unreleased Superfriends album, the picture disc that looks like a basketball, the greatest hits, the German 12", Kazaam. And in return for me sharing that last little piece of information with you, all I ask is that you never ask me why. I just have it.

And now I can picture the record sitting right there on my shelves, with a bright, blue label and their names running along the top. Pun has only appeared once on any of Shaq's projects, and it's this 12"! It's called "Shaq Crack and Pun," and it's a dodgy white label (well, it has blue labels, but you know what I mean) release claiming to be from "Avalanche Recordings," and the track-listing is all screwed up. It lists a Dirty Version on one side and a Radio Version on the other; but just looking at the wax, you can plainly see there's four versions on here. One's an instrumental and one's a TV Track or something. But hey, it's "Shaq Crack and Pun!"

The track's nice and hard... I'm assuming the internet's right about Domingo having created it, because it sounds like his work, and an excellent example of it at that. Of course Pun steals the whole show and there's really no reason for anybody else to touch the microphone after him; but Fat Joe manages to come with some slick rhymes too. And Shaq? Well, he just kinda bounces around from one silly reference to another (he is, after all, the world's only graduate from The Fu-Shnickens' school of MCing), mashing up the English language to force multi-syllable rhymes and concepts that don't really exist: "movin' like the predator, camouflage injectorer, rhyme wreckerer." You can tell exactly the kind of fast-paced, rugged, mind blowing bars he wanted to deliver here. But hey, I bet Joe and Pun wouldn't've looked too impressive on the basketball courts either. Life has a nice way of balancing everything out.

As for "Kings?" It's got an all new beat (for that matter, "BX Niggas" seemed to have an original instrumental, too) which is pretty bombastic and pulls you along with it. And this is hardly the first time a deceased rapper's material has been recycled so a newer MC could make like they were collaborating with one of the greats. It's not even the first time it's been done to Big Punisher. The practice has become so common, it doesn't seem to even trip radars anymore. Notice how I'm the only blogger talking about this. But - and I'm not being entirely facetious when I say this - I think I would've enjoyed this even more if Chino had left Shaq on there.

Demo Week, Day 1.5: Chino XL

Ok, this is being billed as "Day 1.5" because it's a bit of an underwhelming entry. I almost didn't bother writing but, but I thought, what the heck. It should at least be of some nominal interest to the hardcore fans.

What we have here is a 3-song demo Dan Charnas sent me in advance of what would... eventually lead up to Chino XL's I Told You So album. I think I got this in '99 and the album came out in '01, so it was a long time before any of these tracks got heard by the public, but eventually they... mostly did.

Before I get to that, though; let me get the easy stuff out of the way. The other two songs on this tape, "Nunca" and "Chianardo Di Caprio" are the same as what wound up on the album, right down to the excruciating skit about Chino being visited by an angel in traffic. So nothing new there. These are "ruff" mixes, but there's no significant differences.

But the third song, "Papi," is essentially unreleased. I say "essentially," because he did eventually put it on his 2006 mixtape, The Definition of MC; but of course there it's marred with your typical radio blends and vocal tags being dropped over the song. So, it's kinda been released; but it's never been properly released.

It's a nice track, with a funky guitar picking sample and hard drums. Chino's delivery is nice, too; but the gimmick of his first verse, where he name-drops every Latino pop culture celebrity wears thin right at the first line, where he says he's, "in a kayak with Selma Hayak and Jennifer Lopez." He describes himself as "that lyrical Antonio Banderas," "pounding niggas like John Leguizamo" and so on. It gets better when he gets past that, but his need to turn everything into a cheesy punchline still weighs him down. But hey, the beat is really cool and his flow is engaging... it's better than a lot of Chino songs.

So, yeah. Pretty underwhelming. And that's why this is just "1.5." Look for Day 2 later tonight. :)

Cancelled Delivery

^Video blog!!
(More all-original content! ZOMG!!)

Update 8/28/08: Turns out Carlos Bess produced this O.G. version of the track; he sent me this message: "Wow! I produced that song Deliver by Chino Xl. Quincy did not clear the sample because of what chino said about Woopie Goldberg. Thats crazy... good find." And that Whoopie Goldberg line in the song ("Did I do that? Not Whoopie Goldberg or Steve Urkel but I'll leave ya grill the color purple"), isn't even a diss to her, just a play on words with the title of her film.

Tags: Chino XL

Chino XL On the Wake Up Show Worldwide, Y'all

Every so often, I get e-mails asking me if this EP really exists (it's listed on my Chino XL discography page); so I figured this'd make a good update. Yes, it's real; and it's also pretty good.

This came out around the time of the first 2 volumes of the Wake Up Show Free Styles double LP sets (which were really must-have classics of their time); which hardcore punch-line heavy friend of the show Chino XL was a perfect canditdate for. It starts out with an exclusive "Wake Up Show Anthem"... Free Styles LPs had a bunch of these... exclusive songs with various MCs name-dropping The Wake Up Show in their freestyles. In fact, it's worth pointing out that all the content on this EP is exclusive (or at least it was at the time... Wake Up Show put out a lot of LPs over the years, and I haven't checked every single one of them); none of this is featured on other Wake Up Show or Chino XL releases.

Then there's a very brief clip from an on-air interview with Chino, Sway and Tech introducing King Tech's "No Complex" remix. In case you missed it, King Tech is a really underrated producer, and for this version he's turned in a slow, rolling deep (almost Miami deep) basslined track that still manages to leave the emphasis on the vocals. Afterwards, we come back to the same interview about the remix, which leads into a freestyle consisting mainly of material from his first album. Finally, there's two more remixes of "No Complex," four Wake Up Show promos by Special Ed, Born Allah (another "friend" of the WUS who regularly turns up on their projects), the short-lived R&B group Stepchild, and Jurassic 5 (and they're pretty good; especially the J5 one; but I don't know how much replay value you'll find in some radio show commercials), and six break beats by Prince Ice, who DJ'd at the time on the WUS.

All three remixes are tight, and "No Complex" - Chino's first major label single and still one of his best - is an excellent choice to receive the deluxe treatment here. Even if you're not the most forgiving Chino fan, and steered clear of the Poison Pen album (he probably would've been better off releasing the actual, lost PP album than recording a new one and just recycling the title), you might want to give this one a listen.