The Thor Rap

You kids are all excited about your Avengers movie this weekend, are you? Well, how about a rap song to go with it? No, this isn't from the official soundtrack - in fact, there are two: the proper soundtrack by the composer, and a collection of pop rock songs that's actually intended to succeed commercially. And neither have any rap on it. So instead I've dipped into the vaults to find a suitable hip-hop companion, and decided upon this: "God of Thunder" by Virtuoso.

Now, this isn't the first or only rap record to reference a Marvel super hero, or even an Avenger specifically. When Ghostface Killah adopted the alias Tony Starks, he even titled his debut solo album Ironman, just in case we didn't get the reference. But despite using the Ironman cartoon theme song (and getting sued for it), he doesn't ever really rap about being a superhero in a giant robot suit, a la the famous Avenger. I wanted a song that was actually about an Avenger, not just borrowing some names, or slipping a reference or two into a punchline.

And this song fits the bill. Thor, of course, is the god of thunder. But this song doesn't ask the listener connect the dots. The hook consists of the phrase "I'm the mighty Thor" taken from The Beatnuts' "Off the Books," being cut up by producer Panik of The Molemen. And Virtuoso keeps it going with his verses, explicitly rapping about himself being Thor, "Virtuoso and The Molemen, lurking in the Trojan horse bringing the force of the Norse king Odin." I mean, granted, he seems to be confusing the Trojan horse, which is from Greek mythology, with Thor and the Nordic stuff; but he clearly means to be rapping about our Thor when hr refers to himself as the son of Odin and such. He even mentions, "when I swing Mjolnir" (that's his famous hammer).

And before you say it, let me respond. You might argue that Virt's rhyming about the original character from Norse mythology and not the comic book character. But first of all, the comic book is explicitly about the Norse god, from Asgard and the ancient mythology and all the trappings that brings with it. The comic just puts him in modern times,a nd so does this song, as he brags about "shifting the sands of California." Plus, in the song, he raps about "battling prehistoric dinosaurs" and shit that never happened in the old myths, but probably happened in the comics. Hell, maybe Thor even rode around in the Trojan horse at some point in the comics - a lot of randoms hit happened in the many decades Thor has been a super hero, especially in the 60's.

Anyway, let's not get too hung up on the tenuous connection I'm drawing between this record and the Avengers movie. This is a pretty cool, vinyl-only song that I've been meaning to blog about for a while anyway.  I've always felt that Virt never recovered from the time he changed his voice and flow between his Brick Records and Omnipotent Records releases. That's not to say all his later stuff is bunk - I still check for his newer material; but compare anything from the 2000s forward to "Incinerator," "Orion's Belt," "Omnipotence," etc and there's just no comparison.  Like he was replaced by a different guy. But this single is some of the best "second era" Virtuoso, and comes closest to capturing the lightning of his early work.

And The Molemen aren't really one of my favorite production teams. Part of my issue with them is that they seem to have one production sound for whoever they're producing. In other words they make beats that fit EC, but feel flat when it's, say, Grand Daddy IU. But here they've produced a track that's not only pretty good and energetic, but that really firs with the vibe Virtuoso was going for with this more dramatic, epic subject matter. These are the last guys I would've asked to produce this song, but it turns out they had it locked.

"God of Thunder" is the third and final single off his World War One: The Voice of Reason album, following "All We Know" and "Beatdown." But, interestingly, the song itself isn't on the album. The B-side, "Smashtapiece Theater" is, however - it's also one of the strongest album cuts, despite the cringe-worthy pun. So, what we have here is the rare "A-side exclusive."

"God of Thunder" in the full set of Clean, Evil (dirty), Beats (instrumental) and Words (Acapella) versions, and "Smashtapiece Theater" comes in Clean, Beats and Words - you'll have to buy the album if you want to hear the proper, unedited version, which is a bit lame. It also comes in a pretty wicked picture cover with some amusing "crazy credits" on the back.

Clinton Sparks + Virtuoso? But Why...??

Apparently, this is a pretty friggin' rare Virtuoso record. As you already know if you follow me on Twitter, Virtuoso's mounting a comeback, so I thought it was time I did a blog about one of his records. So I did a google search for this one, and only result came up - my own Virtuoso discography page. So before I start getting hostile e-mails from his fans accusing me of recklessly making shit up, I figured I'd better blog about it. :)

This is Virtuoso's first release after he left Brick Records to strike out on his own. He dropped this in 2000 on his own label, Omnipotent Records, which has since become Big Bang Records. And that's probably a good part of the reason why this record is so obscure... he probably printed up a pretty small, under-publicized run. But there's also another likely factor: to put it politely, this is not exactly his best work.

"That's Why" sounds like Virtuoso's attempt to sell out. You know those awful, poppy songs radio stations like Hot 97 used to play all the time (and maybe they still do; I stopped listening)? Where the MCs kick slower, simpler deliveries about cheesy battle-of-the-sexes rhymes over beats that consist of bloops and beeps rather than horns or piano? Like, the very worst stuff by Nas or Jay-Z and their many imitators that their fans try to forget? Well, that's what this is. It's even got a super irritating female hook (courtesy of one Charisse Moore) sung in that dopey high-pitch note, low-pitch note, single-syllable schoolyard style . You remember that period - we're still not entirely out of it - where hip-hop producers fully embraced the fact that the largest hip-hop demographic was kids, and so the music engineered with the same mentality as a Barney the Dinosaur song. Did I mention I hate that style of hip-hop?

That said, it's not so terrible. Virtuoso is still clearly a talented MC, and he manages to sound okay here. And, when the beat strips down a bit at times, it's not so annoying. It's produced by Clinton Sparks, who's done these types of songs for Biggie, Busta, L'il Flip and others. So it must've seemed like a big win for Omnipotent Records in the planning stage. But really, this is just an ill-conceived idea seen through to its inevitable conclusion.

This one comes in Clean, Instrumental and Instrumental with Chorus versions. Yeah, there's only a Clean vocal version, but he doesn't curse on here anyway, so nothing's censored. It's just a naturally clean song - further evidence he was targeting radio, I figure.

Fortunately, things pick up considerably on side 2. First up is "Omnipotence," Virtuoso's stunning debut song that originally appeared on The Rebel Alliance compilation. But this is a new version, remixed by Panik of The Molemen. The original is (as you'd expect) better, this this is a good, viable alternative. It's much more under-stated, which is good if the original struck you as being over-the-top. Unfortunately, this only comes in Clean and Instrumental versions, too. And unlike "That's Why," there are curses that have to be censored here, which is wack.

Finally, there's one more song called "If You Can't." Well, actually, it isn't a totally new song; it turns out it's a retitled remix of "If You Can't." And wow, what a difference a good remix can make! This one's produced by Beyonder and Virtuoso himself, and is miles ahead of that Clinton Sparks crap. The biggest change is the hook. It still features a female vocalist (this time Nance Pierre), but here the singing is actually good, and instead of trying to sing like a little girl, here she sings like a grown-up - huzzah! She still does a little bit in that up, down, up style, because it's ingrained into the song. But in both her hook and the music, it's a lot more subtle. The music here is completely smoothed out. It still retains the original's rhythm, but brings it down a thousand notches to something listenable. The only downside to this is that lyrically, it's still his dopey cross-over style song-writing: "give me a D-cup or A-cup, just don't give me a flat butt" is not the kind or caliber of lyrics we've come to expect of Big Virt. And fortunately, this seems to have been his one and only turn in this direction.

The label says that these songs are taken off his forthcoming The Voice of Reason album (later retroactively retitled as World War One: The Voice of Reason, sort of like when George Lucas went back and labeled Star Wars as Episode 4), but when that eventually came out, only the "Omnipotence" remix wound up being on there. So the rest is all 12" exclusive. I guess it's okay that this is rare, though, as only Virtuoso's most die-hard fans will feel compelled to seek this one out. But, then again, Clinton Sparks has produced some huge records, so I guess there's actually a pretty big market for this sound... ((shudder))