Father's Deadly Venom

Another new year and time again to cover another exciting point in Father MC's career... but are there any left?  Man, you're ding-dong right there are!!  And today we're going to take it back to 1995, when he was simply going by Father and his Uptown days were a couple years behind him.  This is when he released those weird, dueling Sexual Playground/ This Is 4 the Players albums on different independent labels.  So this was easily the most high profile thing he did at that time: producing, writing and featuring on N-Tyce's single "Sure Ya Right."

So, a quick run-down of N-Tyce's career: she started out as MC Spice, dissing The Real Roxanne in 1989.  Then she changed her name to N-Tyce and released a series of singles on Wild Pitch Records, starting with the tight "Black To the Point" in 1990.  Unfortunately, after that, she softened up.  I remember thinking her single "Walk a Little Closer" sounded like a Monie Love crossover record minus the accent.  She got some attention in 1993 though with an early Wu-Tang collaboration on her single "Hush Hush Tip" which was produced by 4th Disciple, written by RZA and had Method Man on the hook just when everybody was super excited to hear anything from the Wu.

Then this single with Father was her final one for Wild Pitch.  The back cover promised an upcoming album called Single File, but that never came out.  But it turned out she was just transitioning to another phase in her career, because she parlayed that RZA connection into a full on membership to Deadly Venoms, the official Wu-Tang girl group, which struggled to really take off, but released some interesting things throughout the latter half of the 90s.  Nick Wiz later dropped a bunch of unreleased recordings with her from the early 90s.

Unfortunately, this record is still in her soft phase.  Father has looped up "Outstanding" after only a million other rappers had used it: Blvd Mosse, Alliance, Rich Nice, Rob Base, Ice Cube, Paris...  Look, I like that sample, but by the time Shaquille O'Neal had put out his "Outstanding," I don't think you could argue that it wasn't thoroughly played out.  Still, Father's like Rodney O & Joe Cooley, in that they're clearly lovers of the great soul records and love to keep making records out of the classics.  You can't be mad at it; they never fail to sound good even if they're not breaking any new ground.

So yeah, Father does the hook on here, like Meth did on "Hush Hush Tip," but in this case he also drops his own verse, "it's time to ease up, squeeze up, get my game on.  Ain't nothing wrong if we get it on."  And maybe that's the only reason he gets a writing credit on this, but I suspect he had a hand or more in N-Tyce's lyrics, too.  Partially, because they're just his type of bragging/ relationship raps, and because she drops a pretty pointed Father MC reference, "you want a one nite stand (nahh, baby)?"  And his own line about "I've been watching you" is surely a nod to his single with Lady Kazan, so that seems to be his overarching concept here.  Although some of the subject matter, like "I be the chick known to cheat," is also a callback to N-Tyce's own earlier material (that's what "Hush Hush Tip"'s all about).

Perhaps because that "Outstanding" loop was so old hat, this single includes a couple of remixes.  There are instrumentals, an accapella and a shorter radio edit, but then two proper remixes with all new instrumentals.  The L.E.S. mix, produced by Queens' DJ L.E.S., is a cool, darker track that harkens more towards her Deadly Venoms sound.  But unfortunately it totally clashes with the pop dating raps N-Tyce is trading with Father, so it really doesn't fit.  They also include the instrumental, so that's a nice little secret to keep in your crates if you're a DJ.  But as a version of "Sure Ya Right," it kinda blows.

Then there's the Eclipse Mix by, obviously, DJ Eclipse, and he shows he understands the nature of the project, delivery a more poppy, smooth track with a slick bassline and some catchy little horns.  Still, the original is better.  There's a reason Father sticks to the tried and true.  Eclipse tries to create something new, but it's hard to compete with giants.  So A-side wins here.  But, frankly, it's not all that in any variation.  N-Tyce was easily at her best when she wasn't writing for the mainstream R&B crowd, and I'm sorry to say it as a lifelong fan of his, but teaming up with Father was probably a mistake.  If she had shown some of that Deadly Venom flavor here, Single File probably would have turned up in stores nationwide.  But oh well, this was still an interesting and pretty high profile project for Father at the time.

Who's On the Payroll?

Roughly five years ago, a little label calling itself Madison Square Garage Recordings put out a nice, double CD set of Payroll Records' (almost) entire catalog of rare 12" singles and even a cassette-only promo tape.  All their great bangers from the late 80's and early 90's by guys like The Bizzie Boyz and Supreme DJ Nyborn are rounded up here, including the Instrumentals and Acapellas. I remember seeing another CD compilation by this label called Random Rap and thinking to myself, "there's no way they tracked down all those artists and rights holders and cleared all this stuff." And, yup, turns out I was right and despite the fact that they got their releases into some respectable outlets, these guys were straight bootlegging. And the real Payroll Records guys came in and put a stop to the shenanigans. So, it was a shame for a couple reasons... One, the right guys weren't getting paid for their music, and two - Payroll stopped MSGR before they could put out the vinyl EP that was supposed to accompany their CD set!

Well, thanks to Dope Folks, both of these injustices have been set to right. Here we have the vinyl EP, Rare Tracks '88-'91 (limited to 300 like all Dope Folks records), that contains the rarest tracks from the CD set (the ones that didn't wind up on the artists' full-length albums and stuff).  And unlike MSGR, Dope Folks' aren't bootlegging.

So we've got eight killer tracks.  Supreme DJ Nyborn is represented the hardest here, with three of his rarest cuts and remixes, including "The Smooveness," "Versatile Extension (Remix)" (a 12"-only remix of his single "Versatility") and "Breathless." Plus there's "It's Time To Get Paid," the Superb DJ K-Nyce 12" he's featured on that, interestingly, was absent from the MSGR CDs.

The Bizzie Boyz just have one song on here, but it's fresh. It's the remix to "Hype Time." Not to be confused with the Club Mix from their "Hype Time" 12" (which really isn't very different from the original mix), this is an even rarer remix, which adds a bunch of energetic scratching to the original instrumental. It's not a huge change - it's basically the same rhymes over the same track, just with some extra bits. But it's better with them than without them, effectively making it new definitive version.

Then you've got a song from The Original MC Spice called "Take It To the Stage," where she's dissing The Real Roxanne.  I'd never heard of this MC Spice (there are other "MC Spices" out there, which I guess is why this one decided to add "The Original") before the CD set; but it turns out this a rare early venture by N-Tyce, who would later sign with Wild Pitch and join the Wu-Tang Clan's girl group, Deadly Venoms!

There's also MC Capone, who only released one song on a split 12" with Nyborn, and this is it - "Smoove Style." And finally there's B.A.D. Rep, a.k.a. DJ Def and Dizzy Dee, with a rare song called "Uphill Peace of Mind." While most of the material here is about just flexing and sounding dope, this one's about kicking knowledge and uplifting.  It features another MC named KSB Fresh, who had a song on the highly sought-after Back To the Lab album on Overdue Records. And DJ Def, meanwhile, went on to greater fame under the name Mark Sparks, producing all kinds of big stuff, including Grand Puba's "I Like It" and Will Smith's Men In Black song.

But nothing here is anything like "Black Suits Comin'." It's all hip-hop in its purist form, which is why Payroll's original 12"s are so expensive and hard to find, making this a pretty handy compilation. Better still, several of the songs here are making their first ever appearance on vinyl, so even the hardcore collector who already has everything will be adding this to their collection.