He Did It for Us: RIP Dave

For me, De La Soul has always been one of the most natural rap groups of all time. I don't mean to say that their music stems naturally from the earth, or spiritually from some ethereal plane as their name might be read to imply. I mean that their members complement one another so well, it's hard to imagine one without the others. Pos and Dave rap like lifelong friends in conversation, starting, continuing, and finishing each others' sentences, their exchange-routines so fluid the numbers 1 and 2 become more for the audience's benefit than anything else. I cannot begin to imagine what Posdnuos and Maseo are going through. 

The singular expression of the human experience Dave shared with the world through his words and voice goes far beyond music. In that sense, it's futile to lament how much the world loses in his absence. It's a shame that De La Soul's legacy and Dave's obituaries seem forever tied to industry politics when their art has so much more to offer; as reductive as dismissing the group as hippies or hearing Stakes Is High only as a reaction to the commodification of hip-hop culture. Those who wish to dwell on these points might do well to check out First Serve, Dave and Pos' 2012 concept album where they play two 20-somethings with a dream of making it in the rap game of that era. Ironically, this project, which has never not been available online, says more about industry politics than any article ever written on De La Soul's relationship with sampling and streaming.

On First Serve, Dave portrays not only one of the two main characters, rapper Dean "D" Witter, but also D's mother, Lenore Agnes Witter. I was playing the album on my way to work this past week. Ma Witter's appearance on "Clash Symphony" elicited in me one of those deep belly laughs, a kind of catharsis I guess. 

Am I just another lost in the pack? 

We Horshack shit, you know, laugh it off

The years just blow by

My eyes stay fixed but the picture's kind of out of focus

I cry a lot but admit to it

Enjoying life now but I been through it

Sometimes I wish that I can go back

No bills, no kids, just getting to' back

I want a wife, I love women

How could I front like I don't be in love with 'em

A little man that I could teach

A little sand but not the beach

I figure excess'll only bring an excessive amount of fuss

So when I'm gone make sure the head stone reads he did it for us

I'm like a modern-day Jesus

I cherish warm thoughts like a Grey Goose

And float soft kisses to my baby (Yo ain't that Dave's little girl?)

Yeah, respect for that, she gonna be somebody

Instead of somebody baby mama

You see, young minds are now made of armor

I'm tryna pop a hole in your Yankee cap, absorb me

The skies over your head ain't safe no more

And hip-hop ain't your home

And if it is you fucking up the crib, son

You make life look like I don't wanna live one

You might as well hold your breath until you die in a corner

Somewhere bent over in the crevice

This God theory overcomes the worst of weathers

As long as you willing to try

You on a good start, homie

You on a good start so get to trying

People are you ready?

Are you really ready?

Ready for the change that may approach you?

Follow down the path that you supposed to

People are you ready?

Are you really ready to try?

You know mistakes are trials that we learn from

In order to live life, you must earn one

People are you ready?

RIP David "Trugoy" Jolicoeur. 

(Everyone reading this, be sure to run up these De La Soul album pre-orders.)

Billie Ski Mask - F Love

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, F Love. In a world of AI language models that couldn't ghostwrite a Ghostface verse if their coding depended on it, there's some comfort in knowing that Billie Ski Mask fucked your bitch in the metaverse. ChatGPT can't seem to figure out that Wu-Tang and Tribe aren't from Long Island, but at least your bitch has been fucked in the metaverse. Ask ChatGPT to review F Love and it'll spit some jive talk about not knowing any albums from after 2021. Inform it that several earlier Billie Ski Mask releases are available and it'll continue to play dumb. Clearly, ChatGPT feels a certain type of way about Billie Ski Mask having fucked its bitch in the metaverse.

DJ not-I - In The Ghetto Tonight (Rakim & Phil Collins)

If Wednesday's post featured "one of the most perfect blends ever committed to wax," today's features one of the most perfect blends ever, period, end of story. 

DJ not-I's "In The Ghetto Tonight" was mixed sometime between 2004 and 2006. The video mash-up, also by DJ not-I, was posted to YouTube in 2015.

So concludes this year's Rakim week. Happy 55th birthday to the God MC.

The "Eric B. Is President" Beat that Never Was

"Using that 'Fonda Rae' bass line and putting it with 'Funky President' was impossible because the tempos did not match up," says Marley Marl in a video reconstructing how he produced the beat for Eric B. & Rakim's "Eric B. Is President." "Well to combat that problem, I needed to pull out my CZ-101 so I could replay it." But what if it weren't impossible?! What if one could line up any two samples regardless of their tempos and somehow stretch one or both of them to match? Of course, that's not only possible today, but done regularly through the time stretching feature that's a staple of modern production technology. 

Fortunately, Marley Marl is still around, mixing records live on the radio, and able to take advantage of said technology. So, on an episode of Golden Era Radio, he was able to make the impossible possible. "I guess that's what 'Eric B. Is President' would've sound like if I had the technology like I got today," Marley said after recreating the record on air using the original samples along with Rakim's acapella. "That's why I could do that, blend those together, but back then there wasn't time stretching and all the amazing things we're using these days in technology, so that's how it would've sound if I'd had that technology in my pocket."

DJ Mickey Knox - Forgotten Rakim Joints & Remixes

You know I already had this on hand back in August when I posted Mickey Knox's mix of lost Roc Marciano joints with links out to his Biz and De La tapes. There are plenty of rarities on here, some lesser heard than others, but one of the main attractions is Knox's mix itself: the transitions, scratches, all that good stuff. That being said, I will give Mickey extra credit for including at least one Rakim feature I had absolutely never heard or heard of in my life, that is, his appearance on "The Paragraph Chemist" by Norwegian DJ and producer The White Shadow of Norway, off that artist's 2013 album, Nightmare Concert. You know what they say. You learn something new every day (especially when you listen to Rakim daily).

Rakim's Games of Death & Life

In 1996, Shaquille O'Neal released his third rap album, You Can't Stop the Reign. Say what you will about Shaq's rap career; the album included a song with Rakim. And while Ra is technically the featured artist on "Game of Death," he essentially runs point, turning in not just a 16, but also a second eight-bar verse as well as the song's hook. Basketball-reference-laced "Punisher"-era bars abound — e.g., "Thoughts of torture terrify your team in the tournament" — as Rakim and Shaq execute a hip-hop tribute to Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's famous fight from the 1978 film of the same title. Ironically, if not self-referentially, Rakim also used a basketball metaphor nine years later in his last lines on a song called "Game of Life." The track, also featuring Ice-T and Chilly Mac, appeared on the soundtrack of 2005 documentary Slippin': Ten Years with the Bloods. The film was co-produced by pioneering MC Kurtis Blow; hence Rakim's line, "First let me bust another verse for my man Kurtis Blow."

Bonus materials: Rakim's song "Welcome to the NBA" from the videogame NBA 07 (now retroactively included in LIRR's Rakim Soundtrack Work playlist) and a clip of Bobbito Garcia recalling a pickup game with Rakim and his friends from Long Island.

 

M.J. Rap / Billy Jean Knows You've Got Soul

In 1988, a house music label by the name of T.K.L.S.T. Production issued an unofficial white label featuring a Michael Jackson "Megamix" of several of his biggest songs. Bootlegs like this were not uncommon in the record club days of the 1980s. They'd sometimes include mashups and remixes, which often went uncredited as was the case here. Flip this 45-RPM record over and you'll find a track innocuously titled "M.J. Rap." But don't let that misnomer fool you, as this is not Michael Jackson rapping. In fact, it's one of the most perfect blends ever committed to wax: a mix of Eric B. & Rakim's 1987 single "I Know You Got Soul" and Michael Jackson's 1982 Grammy Award-winning hit, "Billie Jean." How perfectly do these songs align? So much so that eight years later, in 1996, another house music label called Cluedo? Records put out another version of the blend, with the much more descriptive title, "Billie Jean Knows You've Got Soul." While both are absolute body movers, there is a notable difference between the two. Where the first track slows the "Billie Jean" instrumental to match Rakim's vocals, the second instead speeds them up to keep pace with the music. Additionally, the first record was put out by a U.S. label while the second comes from the U.K. As for the DJs behind these blends, your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, both blends are well worth a spin and available via the following YouTube streams thanks to some generous record owners.

 

The 45 King & Rakim

Mark the 45 King's first Rakim remix was made for Kool
DJ Red Alert, seen above with a young Rakim.

Rakim's birthday is this Saturday. Rakim week starts now.

If you've listened to Funkmaster Flex much over the past year, there's a decent chance you heard him accompanied on air by the inimitable Kool DJ Red Alert, and if you heard one of those broadcasts there's an even better chance you heard Mark the 45 King's previously unreleased "I Know You Got Soul" remix played on Hot 97 ... in 2022. The track, previously played on Red Alert's Kiss FM more than three decades ago, was practically in Flex's regular rotation last year — a beautiful thing.

This got me thinking about the 45 King's other Rakim remixes, of which I knew there were at least a couple. Mark was behind the boards for the extended remixes of Eric B & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" and "The R" off Follow the Leader, and it's even possible he had a(n uncredited) hand in the original versions as well. Additionally, he produced the club mix of "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em," previously shared on this site in the first post of the first ever Rakim week. Then there was a white label release in 2000 for the remix of a song called "Feelin' You," which as far as I can tell was never otherwise released, thereby making the remix the original mix commercially speaking. Of course, before the last of those remixes dropped, the 45 King produced "How I Get Down" off The Master.

That makes no fewer than six 45 King-produced Rakim tracks, a nice EP's worth of music from two of the most transformational hip-hop artists of all time. (Let's not forget 45 King produced "Hard Knock Life" and "Stan" in addition to what's essentially a full discography of once-obscure now-familiar breakbeats.) If that sounds like the basis for a great playlist, then you're in luck as that's exactly what I've put together below. 

WXRTHY - The Journey

Can a multimedia executive make outsider art? Can a rap blogger drip immaculately? 

Like a new Kanye album with more focus and less fascism Like high fashion spun from Goodwill donation centers, WXRTHY's Journey makes alt-rap symphonies out of detuned instrumentals and bar-napkin bars. 

In fact, WXRTHY got his first SP while working as a donation clerk at a Goodwill. Talk about right place, right time. Call it fate or fortune, such circumstances could be seen as the yang to the mental health struggles that form this album's yin. (But also, imagine donating an SP!) It's pain- and pleasure-ful, and one of my personal favorite projects of 2022.

Ibrahim Maalouf - "Quiet Culture" ft. Pos

DLS' full catalog is coming to DSPs on March 3, 2023, and they're rereleasing 3 Feet High and Rising along with a bunch of related merch. 

Oui, oui, all very good news. 

In addition, I for one would take a Posdnuos solo album produced and arranged by French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf. To be clear, as far as I know, that's not at all a thing. But after hearing Pos snap on this song off Maalouf's Capacity To Love project, I'd very much like to put the idea into the universe. 

"Quiet Culture" is must-rewind monolith of jazz-inflected, children's choir-backed rap in the grand tradition of "Trying People."

Don't miss the new for the old.