Ridin' the Underground Railroad with Big Nous

So, ok, silly rap has its place. But I think I've done enough Tricky Nikki and Fila Fresh love songs for a little while... it's time to just do a post about something dope. Something recent, something hardcore, non-commercial, and something almost all of you have probably slept on.

This is the new single from Big Nous. Well, I say "new," but I guess technically it first surfaced in 2006. But considering its utter lack of promotion or distribution, most people are still only just now finding out about it for the first time. Catacombz carried it for a little while - that's where I got mine - but they had problems getting copies themselves. It took me about 6-7 months to get my copy, with the owner of the company eventually mailing me his personal copy (thanks! I finally got it!). So, yeah. It's pretty underground.

So, yes, this is the same Big Nous from The Hobo Junction. Apparently he's moved to Mount Vernon, NY now (look up Heavy D for us!), but he still represents the Junction and his style hasn't changed... a bit. Honestly, this sounds like it could have been lifted directly from the original Hobo Junction EP from '95. Production, voice, flow... it's all here: classic Big Nous. It only took 11-13 years.

And while this is dubbed a "maxi-single" on the cover, I'd have to say this is at least an EP. The cover lists 7 tracks, but there's actually twelve. First, you've got the main track, "The Outcome," in four versions (street, radio, instrumental and accapella). It's kinda short, essentially two brief verses over a slow rolling, deep track with a couple sample layers. It's pretty serious in tone and subject matter, with Big Nous telling a moral warning of a narrative about the effects of street violence:

"Seein' niggas her man didn't get along with,
Sayin' to herself, 'this shit is far from over.'
It's devastating.
Working hard but hard to unwind;
A single parent with murder on her mind.
Watching her sibling up close but from a distance,
Too young to feel the stress
Of this crab-in-a-barrel ghetto existence;
Allowing him to do what he feel,
Even though shit is real...
In the killing fields.
When will this vicious cycle end?"

Next up, you've got two more tracks, "Warnin Shots" and "Devils." Again, if you heard any Big Nous tracks in Hobo Junction's heyday, you know how this sounds. If anything, he's perfected this style a bit more, sounding more natural in his voice and flow. The tracks here are all slow, with distorted horns, really deep bass notes, banging drums a lot of snare and strange samples (birds chirping, race car engines passing by) mixed into the track.

Most of the tracks are pretty short, though "Warnin Shots" lets the beat ride for so long, it's almost like you've got the instrumental version right after the full version on the same track... sort of like MC Lyte's "Paper Thin," but without the ad libs.

Track seven on the cover is said to be "Mount Vernon," but I don't think it is. Tracks seven and eight are two instrumental songs that feature extended vocal samples (scenes from a movie, I guess, but I don't know what it is... the accents sound African). Then track nine is actually a fast-paced track with Big Nous freestyling, just showing skills.

Finally, on track ten, I believe we've got "Mount Vernon." At least that's what he's rapping about on this song... it's cool. Maybe slightly more east coast sounding, but just barely. Although, really... I don't know if any of this sounds particularly west coast-ish. I think it's just that it's Big Nous's style, and since the west is where he and any artists he produced for were from, he just personally defined it as being a west coast sound.

Track eleven is another, back to his normal pace, freestyle song. This one feels written, essentially battle rhymes that twists into a metaphor of a gun runner for a bit in the middle, "Take more than 600/ men to get with me/ in the zone/ kill or be killed/ unarmed men/ prone to hard labor/ waitin' on a savior/ one man holding down a village/ with fully loaded weapons/ making sure everything honky dory/ under control/ up on you since birth/ goals: to wipe the war monger off the face of the Earth." Well, it's tempting to just go on and on typing out his lyrics, but yeah. You can see it's the partly advanced, partly hardcore, partly trippy, partly abstract kind of flow we'd definitely dub "next level" back in the 90's.

Finally, the last track is an outro, with Big Nous doing some shout-outs and talking over another of his beats. He tells us to check out his album, all new cuts, called The Illness, due out in June (I guess he means of '07). It hasn't come out yet, but hopefully it's still on its way. "It'll be in all the black-owned stores, the barber shops. I don't need to get signed," he says. Hopefully it's still coming. On his myspace (you knew that was coming, didn't you?) it says the album's coming in December, along with another album of instrumentals called Music to Study to Volume One: Winter Solstice ...though he apparently hasn't logged into it since Nov 6th. You can hear one track off The Illness album, one instrumental off Winter Solstice, and two off this single, including the title track and "Warnin Shots" (though here it's titled "Speak the Truth (Revisited)"). Finally, he has another myspace page here, but that seems to be just a rough precursor, redirecting you to his other one.

Anyway, find this single if you can - it's worth it for sure.

Tags: Big Nous, Big Nose, Hobo Junction, Bignous

Junction Funk part 3

Here's another rare, self-produced cassette from The Hobo Junction. This one came out in '95, right around the same time as their original vinyl, Hobo Junction E.P. The two main tracks off this single have been released elsewhere, but it's the "Intro" to this one that's the exclusive treat. Unlike the one on the "Dirt Hustlin'" tape (see: Junction Funk part 1), this "Intro" isn't just a brief instrumental; it's a full (albeit kinda short) song, featuring Eyecue, Saafir and I think the third MC is King San... could be wrong about that one. Courtesy of Junction producer J-Groove, there's a hard drum track, wailing samples and a looped piano riff that sounds like someone just banger their arm down on all the lower scale keys. Eyecue starts it off:

"Straight, direct, and uncut
Out the lab.
I wanna give you a tape,
But then you know I need the cash.
The whole world
Is gettin' strangled by the balls...
Fuck the studio!
Bored out the house, straight breakin' through the walls."

Then Saafir comes in, with his booming voice, "Hobo Junction soldiers fresh out of boot camp; we take coupons and food stamps!" Definitely a banger.

Anyway, then you've got two tracks that are otherwise available. First there's, "Whoridin'" (spelled here as "Who Ridin'") by The Whoridas featuring Saafir and produced by Big Nous (spelled Big Nouse in the liner notes... guess it took him a little while to settle on a spelling), straight off the EP and later their debut album (also called Whoridin') on Delicious Vinyl.

Then you've got Saafir's "Just Ridin'," which is a vocal and instrumental remix that would eventually get released on vinyl as the b-side to "In a Vest" in '97. It came out again in 1998, as one of the bonus tracks on the Wrap/ Ichiban release of Saafir's Trigonometry album.

Tags: Hobo Junction, Saafir, Whoridas, Eyecue

Junction Funk part 2

This is the prerelease version of Saafir's second album, The Hit List, that was sent out promotionally a year before the official release. Now, The Hit List was certainly no Boxcar Sessions, but it still had its moments. And this promo version is notable (and worth tracking down) because it features three songs songs with fellow Hobo Junction members that aren't included on the '99 retail version. The first track is "I've Been Through It" with Eyecue and Mahasin. A slow, addictive piano loop provides the backdrop as each MC puts it down for a verse on their "victories through [their] trials and tribulees" over a smooth track.

Secondly, there's "Ridin' Hot," featuring The D.A. aka Daarina and Poke Martian. It's a bumping, faster track to go with the subject matter: "Ridin' hot, with heat between your thigh and the seat. With choppers in the trunk and the car four-deep. All you coke snortin' hoes and you ghetto freaks; ride hot, then, if you 'bout it... but don't sleep."

Finally, there's a nice duet with Eyecue called "Lost In Space." For all the critics who complained that Saafir was hanging up his creativity in favor of mainstream, gangsta rap cliches in order to appeal to a broader audience; this is exactly the kind of track they were missing. Broken flows, hard beats, sci-fi sound effects and off-the-wall metaphorical lyrics like:

"Dramatizations
Of how niggas is lost in space-
Ships with no stamina
In their retina
Parameter: amateurs who try to reverse
The game,
But can't play in the same direction.
Hoes keepin' their marks limp,
While they're constantly chasin' erections into my jurisdiction:
A NO-NO!
Which leads to instant friction;
Runnin' the diction
To you blind cats stuck with sea sickness.
You think you're running shit,
But you've lost the race.
You think the world is yours,
But you lost in space."

Four skits were also removed from the initial version... be thankful for that, at least. For the record, they're entitled: "Straight Slangin' Them," "Imagine That" (this one's actually kinda funny on the first listen), "Funkin' Wit Yo Broad" and "Socked Up."

On the other hand,Saafir did add a couple songs to the final version as well. There's the Clark Kent produced "A Dog's Master," which has some clever lyrics, "Pokerface," which is pretty decent, and most notably, his duet with Chino XL, "Not Fa' Nuthin'," which even wound up being released as a single. To be honest, all three of the new songs are pretty good, too; so I can't declare the promo copy as the *definitive* Hit List.

Tags: Saafir, Hobo Junction, Eyecue

Junction Funk part 1

This is a pretty rare cassette from the heyday of The Hobo Junction... specifically 1997, and it took me a while to actually track down a copy after I first heard about it. But it was definitely worth the effort, and it remains a nice rare, little jewel in my collection.

It starts off with a brief instrumental "Intro." Right away, you know this is going to be a classic example of the kind of hardcore, low-fi Junction funk you hope for whenever you pick up a Hobo Records release (as opposed to, you know, Saafir's last album): all hard beats, bangin' samples and heavy bass lines. It then rolls right into one of the earliest solo cuts from Eyecue, "Dirt Hustlin'," a phat, autobiographical track produced by Merg One (one of Saafir's aliases), about slanging hip-hop tapes directly to his fans. It's a kind of Hobo Junction anthem, directly relating their approach to the industry; and at one time Dirt Hustlin' was even going to be the title of the first Hobo Junction album (Saafir dropped the name in a few interviews). The song "Dirt Hustlin'" found its way on the Mary Joy Records compilation, Tags of the Times vol. 2, a couple years later... and made it as the b-side to one of the 12"s off of that album, on the reverse of Mr. No-No (another of Saafir's aliases)'s "Scan'dlous." That 12" came with packed with an instrumental version as well, which is not on the tape.

Then, on the flip, you've got "Fatal Thoughts" by Big Nous (it used to be spelled Big Nose, but he changed it early on). Did I say "low-fi" before? 'Cause, yeah. This is the kind of song that could only be released on tape. Definitely not the sort of samples you'd call "crisp" or "clean," this is the kind of bassline that was made to be heard thumping distorted through cheap speakers. Big Nous's distinctive voice fades in and out of the track as he raps about his subconcious; it's kind of a trip, but still straight up hardcore hip-hop, no Divine Styler album #2 pretentious arty crap here. And this time, an instrumental is included.

What are they up to now? Well, Big Nous is finally just about to come out with his debut solo release, called The Illness (and the first single, "The Outcome"). It's already up for sale at: legendaryentertainment.com and should be out already, but I recently contacted them (like, "where's my order?!") and apparently his release has been held up a little in the production stage. The Junction has a myspace page (they've got some nice, new tracks up on their player... definitely worth checking out), and Eyecue also has his own page, with his cousin and fellow Junction MC Rashinel. Saafir has one, too. Besides being Eyecue & Rashinel's label, Daywalka Entertainment now seems to be the official record label for the Hobo Junction as a whole, and their official site can be checked out at: daywalkamusic.com.

Tags: Hobo Junction, Eyecue, Big Nous, Saafir