Royal Renegades Week, Day 2 - MC Boo and the Crew

I almost bought this album when it was new. I was on vacation with my family, driving to Florida, and we stopped at some Southern in-between state - forget which one now - and I saw a music store specializing in rap and hip-hop in the phone book at the hotel.  Of course I made my parents swing by, and it was like this little house, full of mostly cheap mixtapes.  Behind the counter, I saw MC Boo and the Crew, and I remember asking the guy if that could possibly be McBooo from BDP. And he was just like: nah, this is just some wack Miami bass shit; you don't want that. So I left without it. It happened that one of the tapes I'd brought with me on the trip was the first DJ Magic Mike and the Royal Posse album, and in the car I'm looking at the liner notes and I see MC Boo! Well, by that point it was too late to go back and I didn't get this album until many, many years later, when I finally ordered it from Amazon as an adult, filling the little gaps in my collection.

Honestly, I wasn't missing all that much over the years. I mean, it's not bad. But you see that blurb on the front cover? "THE BEST BASS ALBUM EVER RECORDED...!" Well, yeah, it's not that.

You would think the biggest issue would be the loss of Magic's production, and yeah... the production is weaker. Still okay, but weaker. But the most disappointing aspect is MC Boo. After "We're On a Mission," I expected more from him. He's not terrible or anything, but he's just... generic. Average. Good enough to get by without embarrassing himself, but never saying anything slick or compelling or kicking a delivery that stands out at all. Same with the production.

Now, at this point you may be asking, "who is The Crew?" No, there's not another team of junior MCs on hand or anything. It seems to just be referring to his DJ, Ray Swift, T. Isaam and the Ocean Records production team. The DJ, in fact, is the real star of this album. Even though they left Magic, they still had somebody on hand who could provide some really nice cuts, which definitely breath some energy into an otherwise dull album.

Unlike MC Madness, T. Isaam, and even Jan Hrkach or DJ Lace, MC Boo hadn't been working on Mike's albums since the first one. He'd been out of the picture for a few years. So, in a way, this is a bit of a comeback for him (which he raps about on one of the strongest cuts on here, the opener "Freeze"). But it also means that he doesn't seem to share the same hostility towards Mike or Cheetah Records, so there are no diss cuts. There is one song with a line about how he "used to kick rhymes with my so-called friends," which seems like it might be a Royal Posse reference, but the song's about how he grew up as a hustling youth, so he could just be talking about kids he went to school with or something. He's basically going for a "I'll just do my thing," live and let live career move here, which is respectable. But on a generally plain, disappointing album like this, a diss or any kind of statement with stakes would've gone a long way towards making this interesting at least.

A bigger part of the problem is that, despite this being an MC Boo album, a bunch of the tracks on here are strictly instrumental, so Boo's not even involved. Frankly, that shit bores me on Mike's albums, and when your production is weaker than Mike's... yawnsville. One song features a big sax solo instead of vocals, which is interesting on paper, but in practice, it's just not enough to hold a whole song together. At least not when the rest of the track is so flat. And we get a song called "Bangle Sluts" on side 1 and "Bangle Sluts (Re-Mix)" on side 2. First of all, the song's alright I guess, but it's definitely not compelling enough to warrant two versions on the same album. Secondly, the Re-Mix is actually just the instrumental.

Amazingly - and I don't mean "amazingly" in a hyperbolic way, my mind was literally blown by this when I first heard it - one song, at the end of side one, consists of nothing but a loop of a ticking clock for several minutes. Not even a bass hum! Yet, bizarrely, it's titled "Back To the Bass." I mean, if you were looking a moment that perfectly emblematizes everything that's wrong with this album, here you go.


Again, though, don't get me wrong. If you're a Royal Posse completist, this album has moments that will at least get a pass... Some decent samples, and again, it comes to life when Ray Swift gets on the tables (primarily the DJ cut "Go Crazy"). Wisely, "Freeze" was the single, b/w a boring but passable instrumental called "Let the Bass Go," which actually doesn't have much of a deep bassline. "Kickin' Rhymes To the Rhythm" would've been a better choice, it's actually the best song on here, with a funky sample, nice drums, killer scratches, and a naturalistic emphasis on Boo's rhymes.

But things are about to heat up in Royal Renegades week, as tomorrow we unleash the Madness...

Royal Renegades Week, Day 1

On "Through the Years," a song he liked so much, he included it on at least four of his albums, DJ Magic Mike breaks down his musical history, and talks about the extensive line-up of his crew, The Royal Posse, saying:


"I started my own crew,
I called it Royal Posse, and I start with twenty-two.*
Now the posse's on - dope DJs and rappers, G;
Finally made a name, but we're only known locally.
How many obstacles do I have to face?
My only solution was to head for Miami bass.
Everything I touched was a number one pick;
But wouldn't you know, I had to get the shitty end of the stick?
But I wasn't gonna let it stop me;
Back to Orlando to unite with the Posse.
But as time passes, people change like the seasons
And most of the posse changed for the wrong reasons
Everybody ain't true, everybody ain't straight;
I had to bring the posse down from twenty-two to eight."

Now, The Royal Posse's line-up was ever-shifting (MC Madness had a skit on his second album saying he'd send you on an all expense paid trip if you could name two albums where the personnel was exactly the same), but the biggest change happened essentially all at once, when a bunch of members openly broke it off and struck out on their own, most notably his best known partner, MC Madness. They were pissed at Magic for wanting to do solo projects after Madness started to get cornier, and at Cheetah Records over payment issues (Mike was vice-president of the label, and Cheetah's president, Tom Reich, was also Mike's manager and executive produced all their stuff... so the pair probably seemed pretty inextricable to the guys, even though Mike wound up leaving Cheetah and forming Magic Records a few years later), so they went off as a unit to the freshly formed Ocean Records.

So, just who went? Well, MC Madness, of course. He released his debut solo album, Come Get This $ Honey for them in 1993, saying in his first song, "I got side-tracked by a bogus brother: DJ M&M, that punk motherfucker. Now I'm back, the game I'm gonna win." In the Special Thankx[sic.] of their biggest album together, Ain't No Doubt About It, Magic Mike wrote to Madness, "YOU'RE MY BOY TILL THE END. FUNNY HOW I CAN'T SEE THE END. DAMN SURE COULDN'T TELL THIS 4 YEARS AGO. GOD WORKS IN MYSTE-RIOUS WAYS." That was in 1992 - things sure changed quick.

Now, the only other album Ocean put out was another Royal Posse exile: MC Boo and the Crew's Back To Bass-ics (though Madness and Boo also dropped a single each off of their albums). Among other things, MC Boo is the MC on the original "Drop the Bass" on the debut DJ Magic Mike and the Royal Posse album in 1989 (where he also has the intriguing credit of being the "Rap Consultant"). Also, the liner notes are incomplete so he's not credited, but he did that incredible track, "We're On a Mission."

So that's two core rappers out. But who else left? Well, DJ Lace, the other half of Vicious Base, stepped off around this time. He went on to do a lot of stuff - both in Miami bass, and more in clubby techno kinda music - but didn't seem to get too caught up in the drama - though he did record an album with DJ Fury, the guy responsible for "Magic Dike" and all that other anti-Magic Mike stuff.  Mike dissed Fury pretty hard with "Fury Who?" on This Is How It Should Be Done.  Anyway, Lace didn't follow the guys to Ocean Records, though Madness does shout him out in the liner notes of his solo joint, suggesting who he sided with in the split; and I don't believe he ever worked with Magic or Cheetah again.  And I've just recently blogged about what Magic Mike did with the Vicious Base name years later.  Mike did diss him in the liner notes of his 20 Degrees Below Zero EP, though, for forming 2BMF with producer Beat Master Wizzy, who produced a couple early Royal Posse songs and was actually down with Vicious Base before the Royal Posse album, then left earlier on (I guess around the time Boo left). But they never recorded a Magic Mike diss or anything.

Another big drop out, though, was definitely T. Isaam. He was the new member of the crew on 1990's Bass Is the Name of the Game, and contributed to all the other albums before his parting. In fact, he was the only other Royal Posse member to get a full album with Mike: 1991's Southern Hospitality. The other core members, guys who were down for years and years, still never had the shot to put out any albums they could call their own, just verses on all of Mike's albums.  T. Isaam never put out an album of his own again, but was a major writer and producer on Madness and Boo's albums.

Also, perhaps less obvious to us hip-hop fans, but a major player to go was Jan Hrkach. Jan was a member of pretty much the only notable act on Cheetah Records besides Magic Mike (i.e. the only other ones to drop multiple releases), the techno group called Radioactive Goldfish. Jan was a big behind-the-scenes guy at Cheetah, engineering, mixing and even occasionally producing a song for Mike's albums. Well, he became president of Ocean Records... which certainly explains why Radioactive Goldfish stopped putting out records on Cheetah after 1992, and the label really became nothing but Mike's vehicle. Jan also did the mixing, engineering and some "electric bass" instrumentation on Boo's album.

Other members quietly drifted in and out of the Posse at different times, but this was the big rift. And we're gonna study it for the rest of the week.  It's been a while since I've done a "week." 8)


*Here's a fun trivia challenge: try to name all twenty-two!

Writing E Money Bags Back Into History

Early in 50 Cent's career, he wrote a song called "Ghetto Qu'ran (Forgive Me)." It's probably best remembered for being the song got him shot, because in it, he breaks down all the players, killers and victims of The Supreme Team drug dealing operation. So many names are dropped in that song, and so many of his fans probably had no idea who or what the Hell he was talking about - Hell, I don't pretend to know who all these people are myself. But one name I recognize comes up in the final lines of the last verse, "And if you watch the news, you see players in this game that lose. I'm forgetting Lefty and Jazz, Pretty Tony and Lance, Head Lou, Mel Son, Troy and E Money Bags." I only know who the last name on that list is: E Money Bags.

E Money Bags was the rap alias of Eric Smith, who released his self-titled album in 1999 on the indie Grand Imperial label. He was from Hollis, Queens, and worked with the biggest Queens cats, including Nas and Mobb Deep. He was also down with The Live Squad, who you should remember from the BQ In Full Effect EP that started off Percee-P's career. They became affiliated with 2Pac (though let's not confuse them with The Outlawz); and they even put out a final record with him and 'Pac after his murder.  Now, I'm not referring to 2Pac's murder, I mean E Money's.

E Money Bags was gunned down in July of 2001. This article from NYMinute details, "Law enforcement officials contend that Kenneth 'Supreme' McGriff ordered Eric Smith's murder to avenge the December 1999 killing of a friend, Colbert Johnson." Definitely one of those cases where a rapper's criminolgy lyrics turned out to be all too real and cost him his life.

Which brings me to this white label 12" I randomly came across: Nature featuring "Kool G" (Kool G Rap, of course). Every Kool G Rap record is worth having, so just seeing his name was enough for me to pick this one up, But... I know Nature did a couple things with G Rap, but I didn't remember this song. Of course, I didn't follow every tiny step of Nature's career... turns out G Rap was on Nature's 2008 album, Pain Killer, for example. But that's not what this is. This is some killer 90's shit. I even recognize G Rap's verse.

Remember when Sway and Tech had blown up to such a point that they had a label deal with Interscope even though they'd stopped being recording artists themselves? [Let's have a brief pause for their great, Flynamic beginnings.] They essentially commercially released a mixtape (This or That) of classics and new, original songs featuring some of the hottest artists in the game. One highlight was a little freestyle joint called "3 To the Dome" which had Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane and Chino XL spitting together, Now, Kane's verse was some dope but recycled rhymes he'd used elsewhere... makes sense, since it was just a quick freestyle for him. In fact, I was surprised Kool G hadn't recycled a verse for that song, too. But now I realize he had - it comes from this song, "Friends of Ours."

"Friends of Ours" claims to sport a Main Mix on one side and a Clean Version, but both sides are actually identical, dirty versions. And there's no production credits, which is a shame, because whoever made it did a fantastic job, flipping a killer soul sample Mood used a couple years earlier ("Karma") but speeding it up and re-doing the percussion. There's also no mention on the label of a third rapper who can be clearly heard kicking the first verse of this song. ...Well, if you read the first three paragraphs of this post, you're probably way ahead of me: the "mystery" MC is E Money Bags. This  is actually his song, a brilliant track taken from his album (which, no, doesn't seem to have any production credits either).

All the MCs come tight, with Kool G Rap of course stealing the show at the end with a brilliant verse. E Money's the weakest, with some solid bars overall, but a couple questionable lines... "who you gonna call? Toast busters" would've never made it past G Rap's quality control checks. And speaking of the Kool Genius, he came off on This Or That, but one listen to this one and you'll know this is the true home of that verse, where it sounds the best - pure killer Queens.

You know how I used to post myspace pages of rappers here, back when rappers were on myspace? Well, here's E Money Bag's. I'm not sure why E Money Bags' name was taken off this record... it could be because he has his fair share of detractors (check out this review on Amazon calling his album "snitch rap"). But history is history - it's his record no doubt, and you've got to honor the art of a great 12" like this.

Lord Sear

(Youtube version is here.)

Tommy V Isn't Dead

I got a new post for you guys - a double post even! But it isn't here. It's over on Hip Hop Isn't Dead. That's right, I'm back over there with another Reader Review (If you missed it, I did a Fresh Kid Ice review over there back in 2009). I like the short, track-by-track breakdown style he's been perfecting over there through the years, and it's really fun adopting it for a contribution. It's very different from how I normally write here; and, yes, that means I already have the bug to do another one for 'im.

Anyway, without further ado, we take a look at the classic, California 4-track era, with two (sub-) genre defining tapes from one of its most prominent and under-recognized contributors... and practically everybody else who was a part of the scene.  Right here.

I Put Off Listening To This Album for a Long Time...

So, this album came out in 2010, and I put off purchasing it for a long time.  Then, even after I finally found it cheap and bit the bullet, I had this CD sitting by my computer for months unplayed.   It would justs it there, staring at me with its bright, somewhat cheesy cover like, "are you gonna listen to me or what?"  And I'd put it off for another night...

Since you can see the picture clear enough, I won't milk the suspense: I'm talking about DoItAll's American DU album. I'd been a fan of The Lords Of the Underground since they first made a record name-dropping my hometown back in 1992; but just wasn't up to facing another "past his prime" disappointment. And LOTUG was already coming with a questionable batting average. And, ten years after "Funky Child," did I really want to hear anymore of that crazy, cartoon voice flow and punch-lines? This is 2012. But, finally, what pushed me over the edge was that I was curious about the Grand Daddy IU guest spot on track 14. If nothing else, he was going to kill his verse, so I might as well test the waters.

Now, this isn't DoItAll's first solo album; he released the very rare Eleventh Hour in 2003. I don't even have that, though I've heard some tracks and... eh. But I have to say, in the end, I'm glad I got American Du and have finally checked it out.

First of all, thankfully, DoItAll's coming with a more mature, relaxed steez. No silly, hyperactive, "can I slam like Bam Bam, that kid from Bedrock" raps. And while it's tempting to just say "needs some K-Def!" (which really would've gone a long way), the production by a collection of essential unknowns is actually often pretty full-bodied and interesting. Pete Rock (yay!) and Scott Storch (yeck!) drop by for one track apiece, but everything else is by cats named Jimmy Johnson, Kay Mason, Be-Life, The Real Focus, Tab, Lady Trauma, Ric Note, The Are*, Illastrate, Lexzyne, and Mel & D. I feel like he made all those names up, but I, no, I don't really believe that. It's just a bunch of tracks (this is a long album) by a bunch of unknowns.

If you're gonna give this album a go, though, I have to say, skip the first couple of tracks. There's bad spoken word poetry, talking intros, R&Bish skits and some crappy club beats. If you're feeling open-minded, you might jump in at track 4, his joint with DJ Kool, but discerning heads will want to hold out a little longer, even past Pete Rock's "Surrender," which is far descended from his best work, it's tempting to believe that there must be two Pete Rocks working in the industry - the one we all love and remember so fondly, and the new guy who's running around ruining his rep. But, sadly, no...

Anyway, wasn't I saying there's something actually good about this album? Yeah, just start in about midway through. If this were a cassette or LP, I'd say just play side 2 and forget about what's on side 1. Just... don't even think about it or question it. But starting with "Let's Go," we're into some compelling territory. It's a posse cut with Craig G, Masta Ace and Ed O G. And thankfully, they've got a good beat for 'em. They all come nice and sound really good. There are some quality scratches at the very beginning and ending by DJ Lord Jazz himself, and while they make the unfortunate decision not to use them on the hook, but have some guy named Probz do some LV-ish kinda hook, they still manage to pull it off alright.

But it's not just the guest spots (the rest include Treach, Shyheim, Mr. Cheeks and a bunch of unknowns) which are compelling. As the album progresses, DoItAll comes pretty nice over some solid tracks. "Surgeon General" and "Hi Def State of Mind" are some respectably produced reminders of why DoItAll's a name worth remembering. And "Flash Forward" is a really compelling, jazz sampled instrumental. Really, if you don't let side 1 tarnish your listening experience and listen to side 2 with fresh ears, it's a nice little record with only one annoying skit. No, it's not the an Illmatic or anything, but I'd give the second half of this album a genuine recommendation. Just make sure you don't hear the first seven tracks, or it'll ruin your opinion of the good stuff. I mean, it's at least worth giving it a spin if it's sitting there on your desk, staring you down.


*Actually, I know who The Are is; he's from K-Otix. Remember them?  I should do a blog on those cats one of these days.

Exactly WHICH Ghost Is Back, Exactly?

Sometimes I'll see an album and think: I probably won't like that very much. But I'm just so damn curious about it, I want it anyway. Well, I finally broke down and purchased one of those albums, so I figured I'd share my findings with all of you. This way you can make an informed decision, and not have to buy the album blindly to find out what it was like I did.

So, the album is The Ghost Is Back by Vicious Base featuring DJ Magic Mike. Streetbeat Records, 1997. Now, I quite liked the original Vicious Base album, so you might be wondering why I was so hesitant about this one. Well, I'll tell you.

See, Vicious Base was the duo of MC Madness and DJ Lace. They came out as Vicious Base (featuring DJ Magic Mike) before they started releasing some of their biggest hits as DJ Magic Mike and MC Madness. But, if you know the story, you know that Madness left Mike and the label (Cheetah/Magic Records) in the early 90s with a couple other members of the crew (most notably T. Isaam), and they spent the next several years writing vicious (pun sort of intended) diss records back and forth to each other, until Madness's career eventually completely evaporated. So, how then could there be a Vicious Base and DJ Magic Mike album in 1997? I was pretty certain they never made up and reuinted... and if it was just a Vicious Base album on StreetBeat, I would've thought, okay, Madness hooked back up with Lace as another venture after his solo albums didn't turn out to be such big successes. But featuring DJ Magic Mike again? Something had to be wrong with this project.

Actually, my first assumption was that it was just a compilation of past Vicious Base tracks.  But looking at the song titles, they're all new. Actually, two songs wound up getting released again, later, as bonus tracks on the Mo' Wax 3LP of The Journey in 1999.  So, just what the heck is going on here?

Well, I guess this is essentially Magic's ultimate "fuck you" to Madness. To answer the first question on everybody's mind, no, Madness isn't on here. Neither is DJ Lace. This is basically just a DJ Magic Mike solo project. I'm guessing he owned the rights to the name, and so ha ha, sorry, Madness. Vicious Base has a new record without its members.

It's also not a very good album by Magic Mike standards. I get the feeling he made this quick and cheap. It's a mostly instrumental album, and not many of them are very compelling or interesting at all. There is one vocal track, with Daddy Rae (another member of Mike's Royal Posse) and Mike rapping, but... while it's a highlight simply because it's a vocal oasis in a big instrumental desert; it's definitely one of their lesser efforts. Also, it's just a remix of a song off of 1994's Bass Bowl, and that version was much better. Mike also raps a bit on the intro and outro, which is fine but nothing to get excited over. And there's basically only one track where Mike really gets busy on the turntables: the redundantly titled, "Number #1." It's easliy the album's highlight. He also scratches a bit on "The Bass Will Go No Lower," which is the second best cut on this album.

So, yeah. This is a quick, mediocre cash grab, just like I knew it would be. But... I had to know. And now I do, and so do all of you. Not terrible, but definitely very low on the Magic Mike totem pole, for completists only.

I Don't Know Black

(Youtube version is here.)

A Bad Mama Jama

I just recently picked up Fresh Celeste's first album, and was surprised at how banging it was... except for side 2, which was all cheesy love songs except for one track. But side 1 was great. And probably my favorite number on that album turned out to be a single, and here it is: Fresh Celeste's "She's Bad" on JR Records, from 1989.

Now, I referred to this as Fresh Celeste's first album, but she'd really ben in the game already for a minute. She was originally one third of a group called The M-4Sers (like "enforcers" but with an M), who put out two albums and a bunch of singles from 1988-1989. But then they broke up (I'm not sure why, but she mentions on her album, "I had a group, but now I'm here all alone") and Celeste wound up putting out her own records on the same label. ...The M-4Sers did one more album, too, without her.

The M-4Sers always had bumping, up tempo beats - typical Miami, but high quality - and nice scratching. Well, Celeste kept the nice scratching, but (mostly) chucked the rest, and instead came with tough, bare NY-style drums and hard rhymes. She started with a political, pro-black song called "I Ain't With That," with a tiny chopped samples ans squealing horn sounds, a la Public Enemy.  Not exactly what heads were expecting from a Fresh Celeste solo record. But while that was a nice surprise, the next song is what really had be geekin' [what? Slang's changed in the last twenty years? Why no, I hadn't heard].

I mean, I suppose it's slightly more pop, because it's got a little electronic keyboard riff to the beat, but the drums are so perfect, and Celeste kills it. And yeah, she's got nice cuts all over this, with a DJ cutting up Keith Sweat's "I Want Her" (among others), like they're taking new jack swing to the streets of Miami. There's a little bit of singing on this, with a girl belting out "she's a bad mama jama," and that riff I mentioned before sounds fucking fresh combined with everything else. It's one of those rare, perfect songs where pop rap elements that shouldn't work on paper just perfectly combine with some real shit to make something better than either camp would on their own. And you don't have to be a bass-head to appreciate this either; heck, there isn't even all that much bass in it; just some thumping away behind the drums.

The production, like pretty much everything by Celeste, is by Calvin and Carlton Mills (who was also the show-stealing DJ, under the name Ready Rock C... no relation to Will Smith's human beatbox)- two producers who started out as a group called Rock Force, and wound up being the in-house producers who produced just about everybody on JR/Joey Boy Records, and generally, just about half of Miami bass in the 90s. They wound up getting pretty paint-by-numbers and frankly, seeing their name in the credits of an album can be more of a bad sign than a good one... it's easy to forget they were doing dope records like this back in the day.

The 12" just features the one song, but it's fully loaded in terms of pieces - you've got the Acapella, Instrumental, Dub, Radio (shortened edit) and Dance version (which is really just the album version). There was also a single for "Hardcore Rap," which was kinda cool too; but this is way better. This one's bad.

The Zone Of Zero Funkitivity

When hip-hop started sampling P-funk, it was awesome. Listening to X-Clan's first album, for instance, was mind blowing (though P-funk admittedly wasn't the only mind-blowing element to their debut).  When Digital Underground came out, damn they were cool. Then everybody started sampling P-funk like crazy, gangsta rap completely transformed into G-funk, MC Breed started sporting a giant afro and bell bottoms, and the original P-Funk all stars from back in the day were popping up in every corner of music media, collaborating with rappers of all types and quality, and the same samples were being used again and again and again until you just wanted to rock back and forth in your closet, covering your ears and wishing it would all go away..The mothership had dropped the bomb and damn near killed hip-hop dead.

Somewhere in middle of all that was Ground Zero. I don't mean metaphorically, in the middle of the devastation of P-funk's shock and awe... I mean, there was a short-lived group literally named Ground Zero. They came out in '90/'91 on west coast label Lethal Beat Records, home of MC Twist, and their big single was "Lettin' Ya Know" featuring Bootsy Collins. Yup, this was the beginning of those guys turning up everywhere. It wasn't Bootsy's first comeback appearance, mind you - he'd already made his super huge, attention getting cameo on Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In the Heart" by then - but for a rap record, this was still a big deal. Especially since Ground Zero seemed to be nobodies who'd come out of nowhere.

Ground Zero was made up of two guys: E-Smooth and 1/2 PINT (Discogs thinks it's the same 1/2 Pint who later put out a bunch of bass records on On Top Records, but I really don't think so - they sure don't sound alike), and their whole deal was using P-funk samples (hooked up by their producer $ Makin' Mike). "Lettin' Ya Know" had a video which got huge rotation and media attention, and they wound up releasing it as a 12" single, a second 12" with a bunch of remixes, and including it on their EP, Future Of the Funk.

So, yeah, this is the main 12" pictured. It comes in a sticker cover and just features two versions: Radio (simply a shorter edit), and the Extended P-Mix, which is really just the full-length version of the song, and not a remix like its name suggests. These are the same two mixes on the EP, too - the "Radio" is naturally the same as the "Radio Mix;" and the "P-Mix" and "Extended P-Mix" are exactly the same, despite the extra extension implied in the name.

And there's not too much more to be found on Future of the Funk... it's really a stretch to call it an EP. The cover lists six tracks, but there's really only five (that's because a tiny intro, "Grim Reaper's Prelude," is actually blended into one of the songs, not separated into its own track like the cover says), and remember, they've put "Lettin' Ya Know" on here twice. One of the other tracks is just shout-outs, so there's really only two additional songs besides "Lettin' Ya Know." Three songs = a single, not an EP, in my book.  :P

Anyway, for all my complaining, I like this joint. The instrumental is made out of a commonly used loop from "Disco To Go" by Collins' band Brides of Funkenstein (and I think "Atomic Dog" drums).  In fact, I doubt Bootsy had anything to do with the music on this Ground Zero record at all, apart from being the sample source. But he does add some vocal ad-libs to the track, and it does add some extra charm to have him shouting "boooombs away" and stuff during the breaks; but really, for all the stickers and labels throwing his name on the cover of the single and EP, him starring prominently in the video and CD artwork; this record is basically complete without him. And, no, he didn't participate at all on the other EP tracks (except, again, as a sample source). It's all just a glorified co-sign. But, while neither rapper are particularly impressive, they at least have voices strong enough to carry a really bumping track. It bumps.

I remember being really excited to pick up this EP based on the video. But the rest was a let-down. The only song worth repeating was "Lettin' Ya Know." But still, it was enough to keep me eager for their upcoming full length, Zero Tolerance, and their promised future collaborations with Bootsy. But they never happened. There was going to be a second single ("Nuthin' 2 It," which is actually also on the EP, and... meh), but that never came, and neither did anything else. Check out this interview on Video Soul, where they talk about how they're going to do a bunch more songs together - see?

So, where did these guys go? Bootsy declared them "the P Masters of the Universe" and seemed pretty locked into a long-term working relationship with them. I mean... I guess the death of Lethal Beat Records is what happened, but really,m this single was big in the back of the day, and Bootsy and the gang weren't so over-saturated and played-out in 1991; his co-sign was a big deal then. I'm surprised no other label picked them up, at least for another single. I mean, okay, looking back it's probably not such a big loss as I thought of it back in the day, always waiting and expecting them to turn up again. But I bet there's a story there... just what happened after that Donnie Simpson chat? I've been wondering that for over twenty years now. But at least I got a pretty cool P-funk rap record out of it all. You know, one of the good ones before it all went to pot.

I'm No Fool; I Want My Record Played

There's a Doctor Ice record where he spends like, the last minute and a half or more doing shout-outs, including all the major DJs: Red Alert, Marley Marl, Chuck Chillout, and ends by explaining, "I'm no fool; I want my record played!"  Well the Def Con Crew had the same idea and they even took it one step further, by making the entire record a shout-out to all the DJs.

Def Con Crew only produced one record, and this is it. In 1988, this was put out on Ray Ray Records, the New York label that also dropped Sirocalot's killer single, but they get to DJs from all over, Greg Mack on the west coast, Ralph McDaniels on BET, and tons of presumably local DJs across the country from Philly to Texas. It's not all shout-outs, though. While they do a healthy dose of DJ naming shout-outs at the end, the bulk of the song consists of full rap verses praising the DJs - some famous, some generic. Conceptually, it's like a cross between "Hey DJ" and "Magic's Wand."

And it's funky, using a chunky sample of "Strawberry Letter 23" for the bulk of the instrumental, every so often bringing in that wonderful keyboard riff. The hook is a sung sample of the phrase "last night a DJ saved my life" from the Indeep record of the same name (famously copied covered by Mariah Carey). And the production's all by the Def Con Crew themselves... though it's worth noting that this is an early credit for Keyboard Money Mike, who engineered this record and is better known today playing on records by Ultramagnetics, Lord Finesse, BDP, etc.

So, this record's just known as the DJ praising joint, but there's actually a B-side as well, noteworthy for being the only other Def Con Crew song. It's called "We Came Here To Rock," and it's got a fun, throw-back rap style even for the time. They almost rhyme like The Crash Crew without the harmonizing parts, and a hard drum track instead of a disco band. It's probably more enjoyable now that its old school nature is nostalgic... at the time heads probably dismissed it as having a kinda cool beat but that's it. But now the super simplistic rhyme patterns have an extra "aww, remember when?" appeal.

Still, the A-side's the one you'll be buying this record for.  It comes with Vocal, Instrumental and Bonus Beat versions of each song.  And while it may not have you pining for a full Def Con Crew album or anything, but it's definitely a nice little 12" on its own terms. 'Cause "there's Mr. Magic, without no doubt, and the cool, cool brother called Chuck Chillout. I can't forget about the trooper, Red Alert. Yeah boy, you know the score, he goes berserk."  :)