2 Live Crew – Before Luke
As I slowly convert my old LP’s to digital format, I continue to unearth some gems from my younger days. I bought the 12″ single “What I Like” b/w “The Revelation” by the 2 Live Crew back in 1985. This was the year before they released their explicit debut album, ‘2 Live Crew is What We Are.’ “What I Like” features Fresh Kid Ice, AKA Trinidad-born Chris Wong Won. He had just moved to Miami from California to caplitalize on the success of the single “The Revelation” in the Miami area. These tracks were released before Luke Skyywalker (Luther Campbell) joined the group and caused all the controversy with 1989’s ‘As Nasty as they Wanna Be’.
“What I Like” is Fresh Kid Ice on the mic, with the booty shakin’ drum machine beats, and scratching (including a Morris Day cackle in the chorus). Vintage old school. And it’s 2 Live Crew without one single profane word! How many times has that happened?
Go-Go with Kurt and Trouble Funk
It’s 1982 in Washington D.C tonight as Trouble Funk mixes their homemade brand of go-go music with the freshest master rappin’ styles of the day courtesy of Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force. Their 1982 release, ‘Drop the Bomb’ was released on Sugar Hill Records, home to some of the earliest hip hop sent out to the world.
Trouble Funk:
Pump Me Up(mp3)
Nice groove huh? Well, the very same beat in this tune was sampled and looped a few years later into Kurtis Blow‘s “If I Ruled the World”, which showed up in the old school classic film ‘Krush Groove’ (aka the Fat Boys acting debut).
Kurtis Blow:
If I Ruled the World(mp3)Cameosis
It’s late, and there was a slight internet outage in the House of Ickmusic… that, and a killer season finale of ’24’. So not a lot of commentary. Cameo was the first band I went and saw multiple times. My friend Chris and I would make the trek up to the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee to catch them in concert (dropped off by our parents, no doubt)…two of the few white boys in attendance… this one is the title track of their 1982 album, ‘Alligator Woman’. This was a few years before ‘Word Up’ exposed Cameo to the mainstream. . . their quirky, funky stylings are on display here…
Cameo:
Alligator Woman(mp3)bad boy from philly
Well here I am riffing off of someone else’s blog post again, but I just got done reading Christopher Porter’s post on a new book called Rakim Told Me, which delves into 21 different classic old school rap albums, including, among others, Eric B. & Rakim, Too Short, Ice T, Public Enemy, and Schoolly D. I read an excerpt on Schoolly D’s Saturday Night album, and was compelled to plop on the headphones, turn the volume up to 11, and relive my younger days… Schoolly talks about the making of “P.S.K. What does it Mean”, with the aid of a “massive reverb chamber”: “big f** plates, they took up a whole room. It takes like 3-4 people just to move them around”. Schoolly was pioneering “gangsta rap” in Philly back in the mid 80’s. He and his DJ Code Money would get together with a Roland TR-909 drum machine, a couple of turntables, and an ample amount of alcohol and weed, and they’d see what came out of it. As a 15 year old kid in Wisconsin, I didn’t know how they were putting these tracks together, but I sure liked ’em…
Schoolly D:
P.S.K. What Does it Mean?(mp3) andHousing the Joint(mp3)Old School 87
G-Unit, The Game, Lil Jon, Lil Dik-Dik, blah blah. I don’t know, I guess I’m getting old, but give me the pioneers of hip hop any day over those thugs. Today I take you back to the old school to join KRS-One and Scott LaRock in the South Bronx, the South South Bronx. Boogie Down Productions released ‘Criminal Minded’ in 1987, a great year for the rap pioneers: Eric B. and Rakim’s ‘Paid in Full’ and Public Enemy’s debut, ‘Yo! Bum Rush the Show’ hit the streets (including the mean streets of Wind Point on the outskirts of Racine, Wisconsin, byotch). I was rollin’ in my mom’s Buick Park Avenue back in those days, 17 years of hard living coarsing through my veins…
Boogie Down Productions:
South Bronx(mp3)
From ‘Criminal Minded.And you Don’t Stop with Afrikaa
Boing Boing had a cool post today about a web site full of late 70’s/ early 80’s hip hop fliers, which prompted me to immediately head for my record collection and pull out a 1985 12″ Afrika Bambataa single, “Funk You”. It’s a few years removed from his earlier Soulsonic Force classic “Planet Rock”, but it’s still classic early rap.
Listen:
Afrikaa Bambaataa & Family – Funk You(wma) – – this is a WMA file, and doesn’t download normally from Firefox. I recommend right clickin’ and savin’ target as…
Buy: Afrika Bambaataa’s music on Amazon
Freaky and Clandestine: It’s Double Oh-Oh
I finally got my turntable and computer talking to eachother again, so I’m finally able to bring you some of my choice LP cuts! I bet you’re really excited.
One of the first albums I pulled out today was George Clinton‘s 2nd solo album, ‘Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends’, which came out in 1985 (during my Prince-inspired funk discovery days as a teenager). My favorite on the album is the opener, “Double Oh-Oh”, about a super sexy secret agent. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be jumping around chanting “UH! This is for my country…UH! This is for me!” by the end of the song. I’ll try to get more tracks from this album out. A couple of them are written and produced (and partly performed) by Thomas Dolby. A cool album, lots of drum machines and synths, but hey it was 1985, and being a Prince fanatic, this was right up my alley.
Buy: Some of My best Jokes are Friends
Official Web Site: georgeclinton.comOld School Saturday – Electric Lady
It’s time to take you back to 1985. I was a 15 yr old snot-nosed little kid and I loved the 80’s R&B / Soul of the time (thanks to Prince opening up my mind and expanding my love of music a year earlier), including this absolute classic by Con Funk Shun. Now, these brothers were around a looong time before I came across this tune. They got together in the late 60’s.
This track was produced by Larry Smith, who produced Run-DMC’s first two albums, and Whodini’s Escape (another one of my favorites of the time…”I’m a Ho”, anyone?). So dig if you will the picture, of Con Funk Shun busting out a little Electric Lady on yo ass….
By the way, I have to thank Tofu Hut for an honorable mention on their site. My traffic has picked up quite a bit as a result.
So come on folks, click the little Comments thing under the posts and let me know what you think. Does any of this music fill your soul, or make you beeline for the latest toilet? Anybody else remember Electric Lady? You thought it was Cameo too huh? Hehe. Me too…
Talkin all that Jazz
And so tonight we go back to 1988, whence Stetsasonic released ‘In Full Gear’ (and just by looking at the album cover above, wouldn’t you agree that, wow, yes, they are in full gear?), and the best track on the album was (and is) entitled “Talkin’ All That Jazz”. Their DJ, Prince Paul, produced one of my favorites, De La Soul’s ‘3 Feet High and Rising’.
So anyway, the song defends the art of sampling the music of others, and includes a trumpet sample by Donald Byrd. Kudos to whoever can peg the actual song. Googling “Talkin’ All that Jazz sample” didn’t do it for me. Dang.
But, it’s the beat that’s always done it for me on this tune. Stet was one of the first rap groups to use a live drummer. Again, I wish I was musically articulate enough to expound on the technical details of this beat, but all I have is: “goldang it sounds goooood!” Maybe my drummin’ buddy Richard can help. 4-4 beat? 2-4? Hell if I know, but it sounds good.
Goin Way Way Back
Reminiscing about back in the mid 80’s when I was a naive little white boy coming of age. I’d listen to the nightly “hot mix” on WLUM (Milwaukee), where I was introduced to some very cool music. Like this hot little number from Man Parrish w/ the Freeze Force Crew. Granted, I was a spoiled little white boy living comfortably in suburbia, but this is the music I grew up with… livin’ hard on the mean streets of Racine baby!
Cool Johnski from the Freeze Force Crew
I came here to say a def rhyme for you
About the Boogie Down Bronx, it’s a one of a kind
It’s the place to be; it’s a state of mind
But the guys out here, they really are crookin’
They snatch gold chains when the cops ain’t lookin’
But what can I say? It’s the place to be
It’s where I stay in reality
So listen close and you all will hear
About the devastatin’ body rocker of the yearMan Parrish – Boogie Down Bronx – buy the single on the Official Site
