Further Around the Outside

I didn't really tell the whole story in my last post. That Rakim mix of "Buffalo Gals" was followed up by a full-length album, chock full of remakes and sequels to Malcolm McLaren's hip-hop work, including yet another "Buffalo Gals" remake. It's got a couple interesting names lined up, including Krs-One, De La Soul, and of course Rakim from the single we already looked at. But it's mostly handled by unknowns (who remained unknown after this project) and lots of filler.

It's hard to decide where to begin with this album. Like everything McLaren's released, it's a total mixed bag that at least manages to keep you guessing. It's 23 songs long, but a good half of these are skits.

There's basically two kinds of skits on this album. One is an interview with McLaren, broken up into a bunch of short audio clips spread throughout the album. He talks discovering hip-hop in the Bronx, meeting Afrika Bambaataa and wanting to make the first record where scratching was the lead emphasis. It's all set to music, which mostly just serves to cover up background noise, because it doesn't sound like this interview was recorded for this album, but instead is some found footage recorded out on a city street someplace with lots of traffic noise. But I'm not knocking it. It's a compelling story, told succinctly by the man himself. The only problem is that - as with almost all skits - once you've listened to the album through the first time, you're not going to want to hear it again and again. Interviews don't work like songs where you want to keep replaying them. So you wind up having to keep your finger on the skip button or just endure them.

The other kind of skits are proudly proclaimed right on the back cover: "clips from the legendary radio show WHBI. 105.9" (meaning the World's Famous Supreme Team Show, of course). That sounds pretty neat. Until you realize that the clips from the show are the same clips McLaren sampled and put into his songs back in the 80s. And since the original songs AND their remakes are present on this album, you wind up hearing the same soundbites over and over again. I can only assume somebody was deeply confused when assembling this album.

And did I mention the original songs are on this album? Yeah, this album is 50% new album and 50% greatest hits compilation. Like the 12" included the original "Buffalo Gals," this includes that plus "Hey DJ" and the rest. Of course, McLaren didn't have all that many hits, so space is further filled up by including the instrumental versions. And again, when you include the skits, it's really more like 33% greatest hits and 33% new album.

So never mind the bollocks, let's get to the new stuff! Well, after the first interview skit, the album starts off with the world's most boring spoken word piece, by a guy named Da Boogie Man, that basically just strings along a series of old school names and catch phrases. Then, after the Rakim mix, there's the first proper new song, called "Bring It Back" by Soulson. I've never heard of him before or since, but his name's all over the album credits here, so he was clearly an integral part of this project.

It's a bid for credibility, actually. He name drops everybody from Grandmaster Caz and Grand Wizard Theodore to 2Pac and Biggie. He talks about "old school pioneers" and "true MCs" while dissing "fake gangstas" and "culture vultures." Really, this song is the thesis for the whole album. McLaren and co. are legends who really want you to respect them. That's why McLaren tells his origin story in skits throughout the album. That's why half this album is a greatest hits collection. That's why they hired the big names to cover their material. It's all to say, "we are important!" So, okay, point made. Otherwise, the song's just okay. The production is decent but a bit cheesy, with a girls chorus in the background that sounds like it something from a Conan soundtrack, and the MC dropping corny lines like, "you feel me like double Ds." But, the beat's alright, and he's got a decent flow and voice in general. It's nothing to run out and buy this album for, but it gets by alright.

But, oh boy. Talk about corny lines. After another skit, we get "Off the Top" by Hannibal Lechter. It's the most original song on here - pretty much the only one that has nothing to do with McLaren's old school hits. It's just a jokey freestyle session with this guy who songs like a cross between Doctor Ice and MC Paul Barman, if you can imagine that. Every line is delivered like a Catskill comic's punchline, and he's not credited, but Soulson appears on this one, too. It actually kinda works, in a weird way. The beat is kinda funky and head-noddery, Lechter has a ton of enthusiasm... the only problem is that so many of the punchlines are so corny, it winds up being the kind of song you'd be embarrassed to be caught listening to ("like playgrounds, I swing," "get up in you like vaginas," "squeeze me just like Charmin, I be harmin'" etc etc etc).

What else is on here, let's see... another boring spoken word song by a guy named T'Killa, which covers a lot of the same territory as the first one, and there's a musically set shout outs track by McLaren and two guys named Burn One and Forrest Gump. Let's skip to the big name stuff.

Krs One drops a song called "Let it Flow (Do You Like Scratchin'?)" The name implies that it's going to be an update of McLaren's original "Do You Like Scratchin'?" which is basically just a dub mix of "World Famous." And yes, the original versions of both those tracks are on here. But anyway, interestingly, Krs's track seems to have no connection to "Do You Like Scratchin'?" besides the title. The instrumental is completely different. Krs doesn't mention scratching or McLaren or the Supreme Team Show. It doesn't even have any scratching in it, nor does he bring up the concept. It's basically just Krs freestyling over a bass-heavy beat similar to Rakim's "Buffalo Gals." It's got a cool breakdown where he stops rhyming to kick a short spoken word segment which is actually really dope. It's just a good self-produced Krs 90s track. I actually wondered if maybe they just purchased an unreleased Krs track from his vaults, but he does shout out McLaren at the end, so he was genuinely involved.

Speaking of wondering if he was genuinely involved, it also occurred to me to wonder if Malcolm McLaren was actually personally involved with this project. I mean, there's an awful lot of names in the credits of these songs (though the full-length's credits are actually rather lacking), with all the producers, MCs and writers creating this album. Even the back cover says, "made by the New York hip-hop community in dedication to the pioneers who made this possible." This could just be a tribute album, not one of McLaren's own projects. I mean, sure, he has a lot of writer credits here, but since everything is a remake already, it's hard to tell if his credit applies to the new stuff or just the old material. ...But, no. We do actually here some new vocals by McLaren. He did actually work on this album first-hand. It's as much a McLaren album as any of his others, which are also generally crafted by the teams he assembles more than himself.

Oh, so yeah. The De La Soul song. Eh. They remake "Hey DJ," down to covering the original lyrics. "Hey DJ" has been covered by everybody over the years, from A Lighter Shade of Brown to Zhane; and most of those at least came up with some new words. De La Soul slows the song down, just like Rakim did with "Buffalo Gals," but "Hey DJ" slowed down with De La vocals doesn't pack the same punch as a dark Rakim track. It's just boring. That's all there is to say about it.

Finally, what would this album be without yet another remake of "Buffalo Gals?" Yes, they've done it againnnn. This time it's called "Buffalo Gals (Back To Skool Part 2)." It's by - you guessed it! - Soulson. So, like Rakim's Back 2 Skool version, it turns it into a more traditional hip-hop song with full rap verses and less upbeat craziness. The most interesting aspect of this is that it actually uses a lot of "Buffalo Gals II" from 1990, using the awesome R&B hook by Seduction from that version. Unfortunately, Soulson's contributions, and the instrumental changes along with them, don't really add anything, and I can't recommend this one at all. Seduction still sounds great, but you should just listen to "Buffalo Gals II" where it all works better as a more enjoyable song.

All in all, it's not a good report card. But I still have to recommend this album if you don't already have many of McLaren's hits. Duck Rockin' really just had two good songs on it (both of which are also on here) and a lot of experimental non-hip-hop junk. But this complies the few hits, and throws in some random bonuses like the Rakim mix and the random Krs One song. The CD booklet comes with trading cards you can cut out of all the album's personnel; so that's kinda fun. I mean, look, The World's Famous Supreme Team's album is definitely worthwhile, but as far as Malcolm McLaren himself? His hip-hop legacy can really be boiled down to just a tiny handful of 12"s, and all those songs right here on this CD (I think there's also a vinyl LP), so this album is as good a way as any to cop that stuff. And like everything McLaren gets involved with, it has a bunch of added curiosity value to at least keep you engaged.

Rakim's Buffalo

Malcolm McLaren's released a bunch of albums, singles and compilations, all built around very few actual songs. And of all the songs he's remixed and re-released over the years, the most egregious example is easily his biggest hit, "Buffalo Gals." There's about two dozen 12" pressings, plus it was featured as a B-side on his other singles "Double Dutch," "Hobo Scratch" and "Would You Like More Scratchin'." And there were a couple different mixes on those 12"s - like the awful Trad. Square Mix, which basically turns it into a straight out and out country square dance tune [seriously, avoid that one], the Special Scratch version, and even the song "Hobo Scratch" itself made liberal use of "Buffalo Gals."

On The World's Famous Supreme Team's classic "Hey DJ" Divine sings the chorus to "Buffalo Gals" until Just stops his partner, saying, "no, no, no! See, man, That's our last record. That's already been a hit!" How ironic; they clearly had no idea what was in McLaren's future. He featured it on his main album Duck Rock, which you'd expect, but then he also included another version called "Buffalo Love" on his second album Swamp Thing. He reprised it some more on 1986's "Duck Rock Cheer" and on his third album, Round the Outside! Round the Outside!, he made "Buffalo Gals II (Remix)."

Finally, by the mid-90's, he seemed to have worked it out of his system. He was releasing orchestral jazz music in France, singing [terribly] in a mix of French and English; and the words "buffalo" "scratchin'" or "World's Famous Supreme Team Show" were nowhere to be heard. He didn't have to keep recycling the same song - he finally had a new thing going on.

But those albums didn't seem to really sell [seriously, it was his singing], and that phase eventually ended. He put out a couple little house records but I guess he eventually had to stop and ask himself: what will sell? "Buffalo Gals," of course! So in 1998, he signed to Virgin Records and put out this record. "Buffalo Gals." Updated again.

But if you want to sell a sixteen year-old song to a modern audience, I guess the move is to enlist the artists who are hot at the time. And Rakim was pretty hot. He was right at the peak of his post-Eric B solo career, having just released The 18th Letter and The Master just around the corner. "Guess Who's Back" drummed up a lot of fanfare and "It's Been a Long Time" was killing it on the radio thanks to DJ Premiere. Even Suave House put out their own version. Rakim was the man to get and McLaren got him, not just as an MC... but as a producer?

Yeah, Rakim raps on AND produces "Buffalo Gals (Back To Skool) (Rakim Mix) [two sets of parentheses?]." And you'd be right Rakim had never produced anything up 'till now. I mean, yeah, he's credited as a producer on "Juice (Know the Ledge)," and you might well say that's more than enough credential; but we all know The Bomb Squad (who're credited as remixers) made that track what it is.

But, with that said, it's not bad. It's remaking the original, so naturally much of the work was already done for him, as a lot of the major instrumental elements are carried over. What he mainly does with the track is slows it down considerably and lays in a thick, smooth bassline and some subtle, background keyboard tones. In other words, he turns it into the kind of beat you'd expect to hear Rakim on. Even the hook features cuts of his own voice from "Eric B Is President."

The rest of the hook is Rakim updating the original "Buffalo Gals" chorus. He changes:

"It's a pity that you're so dirty;
You're only dancing just to be friendly.
So pretty you drive me loco.
You're so silly you make me blush so-oh!"

to:

"You dress jiggy and you're so pretty.
Are you dancin' just to get wit me?
You're so jiggy, your style's original.
You're so pretty, your style's addictable."

Somehow Rakim makes "addictable" work, even though he's making up a word just to force a rhyme. After all, this is the man who brought us the lyric, "hello, good lookin'. Is this seat tooken?" But that's entirely too much "jiggy," especially since he repeats the chorus a few times. 1998 WAS the year Will Smith released "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It;" but I was really hoping Rakim would've risen above it.

But once the first chorus is over, we can get to the rapping. Yeah, smooth beat, Rakim's deep, serious voice... wait a minute. That doesn't sound exactly like his voice. No, actually the first verse is by somebody else, and if you look deep into the fine print, underneath the credits for the engineer, mixer and assistant, you'll see there's rapper credited: Hassan 7. As far as I've been able to tell, this is his only project. Now, maybe I'm being unfair here; but I honestly suspect that they're seriously trying to pass this off as a Rakim solo song; and they've got this guy doing his best Rakim-like flow so you don't realize they only got Rakim for one verse. Serious fans will recognize it's not his voice, but I'm sure nine out of ten casual listeners have no idea that it isn't Rakim there, and I'm pretty sure that's the idea.

So Hassan's verse is okay, but never manages to reach interesting. And once Rakim comes on for the second verse, you can really hear the difference in quality. his flow, the way he parses his rhymes... he's not saying anything more than "I like to dance with girls," but he says it so damn well. He's a real pro and his verse here is actually tighter than a lot of his later material. The cuts, which aren't terribly athletic, but just a nice, simple blending of "Buffalo Gals" and "Eric B Is President," add a lot. I actually have to really recommend this track. I mean, you could totally skip that first verse; but overall this is worth seeking out.

Also on this 12" is the original version of "Buffalo Gals," which was nice to have on there just to catch up younger audiences who didn't already have it in their crate. And there's another new version - this one called ""Buffalo Gals Stampede B-Gals Stampede." This is a Eurodance mix by Roger Sanchez. It mostly uses the original, but does also bring in pieces of Rakim's version. It's pretty bland and forgettable except for one thing. It's got scratching my Company Flow's Mr. Len; and he's actually getting pretty busy on the tables almost from beginning to end. He really comes off nice on this, so I recommend you listen to this track at least once just for that. But you probably won't revisit it much after that, because it's still basically a boring dance mix apart from that.

Overall, it's a pretty weird release, flawed but not bad and surprisingly catchy. What else would you expect from Mr. McLaren?

Malcolm McLaren In 1990

I just found out that Malcolm McLaren passed away earlier today... He's not necessarily "a hip-hop guy," in that he's surely better known for his work with rock, punk and pop bands. But thanks to his involvement with The World Famous Supreme Team, he does share credit for some cornerstone hits in the genre, including "Buffalo Gals" and "D'ya Like Scratchin'." But instead of the obvious, I thought I'd take a look at one of his more overlooked hip-hop projects.

Now, it's not news to say that a Malcolm McLaren project is kinda weird, but this one is really weird. It's an album he recorded on Virgin Records in 1990 called Round the Outside! Round the Outside! It's credited to Malcolm McLaren Presents the World Famous Supreme Team Show he title is of course a reference to the chorus of their 1982 hit "Buffalo Gals:" "all buffalo gals go 'round the outside, 'round the outside, 'round the outside!" The title is a throwback and the reference to the WFST is a throwback; but the throwback content of this album is relegated to just two tracks that come towards the end of the album, "Buffalo Gals II (Remix)" and "World Famous Supreme Team Radio Show (Remix)." Both are a lot of fun... they're never gonna replace the originals, but they're good mixes with some new scratches and breaks that make for fun alternatives. The most marked difference in "Buffalo Gals II" is the addition of an R&B singer (Seduction, apparently, from the credits) who enthusiastically belts out a epic rendition of the "it's a pity that you're so dirty" portion. It's a lot of fun.

Those two remixes, however, mark the only appearances by The Supreme Team as we know them: See Devine and Just a Lot of Superstar [as their names are spelled here]. The rest of the album is a collaboration of a new hodge podge of artists, both known and unknown - would you expect anything less from Malcolm?

The first song was also the first single, "Operaa[sic.] House!" As you might not expect even though they're pretty upfront about it in the title, it's a house track with opera-style vocals provided by Mona Lisa Young, best known for her songs with The World Class Wreckin' Crew. Some of her vocals are original and kind of your typical club diva style, but further into the song, she gets into covering some actual, classical opera arias. But if that isn't out there enough, just wait! There's also a rap duet on this song, performed by none other than the great Grandmaster Caz and Sparky D. Yes, the original Caz and Sparky.

That's Sparky's only appearance, but Caz and Mona Lisa Young are actually all over this album, contributing to several songs apiece. The other most prominent recurring artist on this album is Low Profile's DJ Aladdin. He even has a solo song at the end of this album, "Aladdin's Scratch," and unlike Aladdin's own albums, this album really showcases why he's a world champion DJ, adding killer cuts throughout the album (for some reason, on his own albums, he never once touched the turntable!).

So that's your main line-up. Some other singers, a spoken word poet, and a rapper named MC Hamlet also appear. I suspect Hamlet may be an alias... he only appears on a song called "II Be Or Not II Be," and outside of this album, I've never heard of any MC Hamlet. Actually, there are short bios in the liner notes. Will that shed any light on this mystery? Well, his reads, "Dancin Black Indian Poet. II Be Or Not II Be!! From Alaska to Venice Cali that is the question: 'is it more noble of mind this decision to die and lie still for lifes ills and torture.'"[again, sic.] Yeah... sounds like a made-up bio for a made-up rapper to me; but who knows? It doesn't help that whoever wrote the bios doesn't seem to be terribly well-informed... did you know that Grandmaster Caz was "part of the TREACHEROUS THREE?" Me either.

So what else is on this crazy album? Well, there's the aforementioned "II Be Or Not II Be," where MC Hamlet turns a section of Shakespeare's Hamlet into a rap. There's "Romeo and Juliet" (which was the second single) a Grandmaster Caz solo song (essentially... there are some uncredited R&B vocals on the hook), which is basically a play on his classic "Yvette," but changing the name Yvette for Juliet. I mean, literally, he kicks the exact same lyrics including the infamous "somebody's comin'" line from "Yvette."

There's a song called "World Tribe" which has basically the same instrumental as Special Ed's "The Mission," but with female R&B singers and some extra instrumentation instead of any raps. And there's "Un Coche De Agua Negra," which is a combination of singing, spoken word poetry, Aladdin scratching a lot of records and none of it's in English (though I could male out another reference to "Romeo and Juliet" in the lyrics). Crazy.

The rest of this album is padding. In fact, if you count the classic Supreme Team records being remixed as padding (which really they are), more than half of this album is padding. "Diva Loves Operaa House!" is just another version of "Operaa House!" minus the raps, and "Wherefor Art Thou?" is another version of "Romeo and Juliet." Even "Aladdin's Scratch" is him getting busy over the "World Tribe" instrumental (Aladdin's version is awesome, though). So, really, basically, there's just five original songs on here.

So it's really not hard to see why this didn't catch on... a crazy mix of house, rap, and r&b with VERY pretentious, heavy-handed attempts to get the kids into opera and Shakespeare. Then add in the fact that most of this album is unnecessary remixes and filler, and you've got yourself a pretty tough sell. Oh, plus MC Hamlet is corny as hell.

But the good moments: Aladdin getting busy, fun (if recycled) raps by the one and only former Cold Crush Brother (you hear me, liner notes guy??) Grandmaster Caz, and Malcolm McLaren's insane musical flourishes makes for a pretty enjoyable listening experience. I mean, you know what? Mona Lisa sounds pretty damn good singing opera over a funky house track. This album should be a huge disaster, but it's not. Quality production and genuine talent from the artists involved turned even this colossally bad idea into a damn enjoyable listening experience. And that was the magic of Malcolm McLaren.