Saturday 16 March 2024

Warren 3

"Unbelievable how time just flies
Right before your eyes, but you don't recognize"


Warren G - Do You See
(From Regulate... G Funk Era album; 1994)



It's 1994, teenage Marty has just copped Warren G's debut album, and Regulate + Do You See are such a killer opening combination that I spend a couple of days constantly rewinding both songs and don't even listen to the rest of the album until the third day. Actual factz, shit really went down like that. Do You See went on to be the album's third single, and it's such a lush Slick Rick-ified slice of G-Funk with a streak of sad boi sentimentality at its core that it's now my favourite single from the album - no mean feat when the two preceeding singles were Regulate and This D.J.. Come to think of it, The Chronic's third single Let Me Ride is top billin' for me too. Maybe three was the magic number for Warren and his stepbrother Dr. Dre?

Three Warren G bonus thoughts:

* I've never heard Warren's third album. Stay tuned for the n-x-e-t episode when I check it out.

* Warren's remix of Slick Rick's Behind Bars has gotta be a top 3 remix which made the original version completely irrelevant.

* Warren & Nate Dogg's 2015 single My House remains a great example of L.A "you 43 and you still rappin'?"-core.

Thursday 14 March 2024

Berserker back!

AyooLii - Dumpin' Out A Zip
(From Dumpin' Out A Zip single; 2024)



Yours truly just had an epiphany and realised that the AyooLii songs I fuxwit are kinda like Milwaukeee's equivalent of peak 70th Street Carlos. The boi Carlos made Berserker-Bounce, AyooLii makes Berserker-Bass. This particular song is Certified Fatter's first keeper since On My Daddy IMHO. No shotz @ AyooLii's backyard, but he is not a horticulturist of the Mouse On Tha Track caliber.

Completely unrelated: I had a dream where Jim Jones remade Kim Gordon's slam poetry fake-Trap song. Don't ask me why my dreams are concocting Jim & Kim fusions because I haven't listened to any Jones in months and I dislike the Gordon song. But in the unlikely event that Jim & Kim ever do collaborate then here's the perfect song title for them: My Friend Goonies.

Monday 11 March 2024

Breihan's Got A Baby (Part 2)

Y@k Ballz - T.C.K
(From demo tape; 1999/Mondee's Where My Dogs At? compilation CD-R; 2001)




Top three Rap songs I've finally found CDQ versions of in recent years: Heavy Rain by The Jacka, Do The Crew by Jay Tee & Mac Dre, and T.C.K by Y@k Ballz. The latter is some super duty Transylvanian-toothed indie-Rap which doubles as a tribute to Y@k's graffiti crew True City Killahz. A cult-classic from Bobbito & Lord Sear's C.M Famalam radio show, it's Y@k's second best song after HomePiss innit. And so kiddies, the story goes that Bobbito decided T.C.K wouldn't be included on Y@k's debut EP on Fondle Em Records due to the rogue n-bomb he dropped. Seems plausible because you definitely shouldn't be dropping n-bombs on wax if you're a half Persian white lad who looks like a lesbian modelling for Zoo York (before commie-caps became the backpacker's hat of choice, there were peaked-beanies.) I'm always sure like the coral reef that T.C.K and Flossin' woulda sounded perfect back-to-back on side B of that first Y@k Ballz EP.

My own 1990s graffiti crew weren't so much True City Killahz as Toy Town Goonies. Here's an ELS dub ya boi painted in a hospital carpark's subway back in 1998 as homage to my Grandma Elsie. This shit woulda looked more James Flames if I'd used Montana spray-paint and a fat cap nozzle, but it was done with watery British spray-paint stolen from the auto shop in Kwik Save. Picture me spendin' money on posh spray paint and fancy nozzles when there were Screwball 12"s and Devin The Dude CDs to buy.
Mind you, I used to gladly spend money on graffiti magazines back when Tower Records was the muhf**kin' spot in Birmingham. Graphotism Magazine was my fave periodical, but the only shit I ever ordered from their store was Kool Keith's Sex Style cassette and a handful of early Kid Capri mixtapes. Call me Nat Robinson because my first priority was always music. Yo, I just dropped a jewel on 'em, my man Dave told me to go Puba Maxwell on 'em.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Levelling Up

Level ft. Mouse On Tha Track - To Da Beat
(From Unsupervised 2 album; 2024)



How you Lev that? A couple of Martorialist readers have recommended me Level & Mouse's latest track. Took me a while to warm to it but now I'm all over this shit like an Our Legacy shirt on a skinny bloke's body (f**k that brand and their boxy fitting clobber!) It sounds like a new Level & Mouse single should sound like without sounding like any of the previous Level & Mouse singles. But don't take my word for it, here's proof via a Level & Mouse Quinary Of Quality™ playlist. Music to dance the pain away the Baton Rouge way.

Level & Mouse On Tha Track top 5 singles
1. Get It Back (2013)
2. I Bet U Won't (2015)
3. #DFWT remix (ft. Boosie) (2018)
4. I Don't Miss (2022)
5. MC Hammer (2014)

Monday 4 March 2024

Good Morning, Vietnam

Saigon - Favorite Thingz (extended)
(From bonus track on Welcome To Saigon mixtape; 2006)



Sum shit I found out during my recent reacquaintance with Saigon's 2001 to 2007 catalogue: there's an extended version of Favorite Thingz with a second verse and no bellowing by Kay Slay & Whoo Kid. A legitimate mixtape/street DVD classic from an era that's now a literal lifetime ago. I might mock Saigon for his delusions of graNYdeur, but that lad knew how to write a song with a chorus which is bulletproof like Batfink's wings. He was no Max B, but he was no Maino either.

Noo Yawkers, plz forgive me for taking Maino's name in vain. I'm allowed to talk shit because I'm Earth's biggest fan of Rumors and Role Model.

Thursday 29 February 2024

Generic list post: February 2024

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when Vince Staples' TV show sounds even less appealing to me than Vince Staples' music. One of the most shameless trend-hoppers of the past decade who somehow gets a pass because ppl think he's funny on Twitter. A true One Song Wonder, Staples is just a Tumblr-Rap Tyga for dry-tasted randos who only listen to Album Orientated Artistes™.

Big Moe ft. Mike Wilson - Leave Drank Alone (2003)
Saigon - Stocking Cap (video) (2004/2024)
Homeboy Sandman - $ (video) (2022/2024)
AyooLii ft. Myaap - On My Daddy (2023)
Ezale - Do It All Night (2024)
Mac God Dbo - A Whole Brick (2024)
Haircut 100 - Nobody's Fool (1982)
Sharon Forrester - Love Inside (1994)

Other notables: got nostalgic for 1990 by reminiscing over Pete Rock & CL Smooth and Faith No More; Johnboxxx dropped a post about his fave party breaks choonz; Party Sparty dropped a list of his fave Riz Ortolani movie scores.

Tuesday 27 February 2024

Moe B

Big Moe ft. Mike Wilson - Leave Drank Alone
(From Moe World album; 2003)



Is Leave Drank Alone Rap's most uplifting and wholesome song about addiction? Rest In peace Big Moe, I wish you hadn't filled your albums with verses from your m8s because them songs where you went sing-sang for self are a missing link between Nate Dogg and Max B. In fact, Just A Dog (Club) is a key song in the proto-Wavy canon innit?

Big Moe - Just A Dog (Club)
(From Moe World album; 2003)


Saturday 24 February 2024

Mobby-Dick (part 3)

"I can't listen to the law, I'm disobedient
'Cause shakin' 5.0 gettin' tedious
I'm a pro, bitch, this ain't intermediate
'Cause MDMA was the ingredient"


Ezale - Do It All Night
(From Do It All Night single; 2024)



We talked Ezale's new single when the visualiser clip dropped, but that shit is gettin' another post because the Pot Pot of The Pillionaire's Boys Club's songs always pop hardest with proper videos. We got son lookin' wired, we got wenches lookin' sultry, and we got posters of The Mack and the 2Pac, E-40 & Boots Riley picture on the walls. For the life of me tho, I can't work out which James Belushi flick is playing on the TV? Movie guys, pick up the slap-phone and dial M for Martorialist.

Eleven years on, somebody needs to convince Ezale to record a 5 Minutes Of Funktown sequel. Crazy visionz, BOOM: these are the 5 beats it'd jack:

Whodini - Magic's Wand (1982)
Vicky D - This Beat Is Mine (1981)
Dru Down - Pimp Of The Year (1993)
Ago - Stop Your Life (1982)
Digital Underground ft. 2Pac - Same Song (1991)

Fun fact: when you search for Ago's Stop Your Life on YouTube it takes you to a special suicide prevention page. Here at The Martorialist we say DON'T DO IT like Big Fun.

Wednesday 21 February 2024

Smack That

Saigon - Come Again
(From Warning Shots mixtape; 2004/Smack DVD vol. 6; 2005)



Saigon recently shooting a video for his 2004 mixtape classic Stocking Cap has got me listening to his old shit like it's new again. Come Again was a personal favourite back then but I never knew there was a Smack DVD video for it with Tru Life playing Puffy and hogging up the entire frame. For better or worse, Smack DVD was a key pioneer of no budget Rap videos featuring goonz waving guns at the camera. Another personal favourite-turnt-actual classic old Saigon song which got blessed with a Smack DVD video was The Letter P featuring Kool G. Rap. Most pre-eminent usage of the alphabet's 16th letter since 2Pac's If I Die 2nite or wot? Very legendary street DVD era Rap moment where G. Rap rolls the Range Rover's window down to reveal his mug.

Saigon ft. Kool G. Rap - The Letter P
(From Abandoned Nation mixtape; 2005/Smack DVD vol. 10; 2006)



Sum shit that's vanished from the internet: Tru Life's Jim Jones dis freestyle where he said "summer in Miami, hidin' from Gangster Lou/tight shirts with the motorcycle jeans, that ain't what gangsters do!"

Monday 19 February 2024

100 grand on my Haircut, yeah life sux

Haircut 100 - Nobody's Fool
(From Nobody's Fool single; 1982)



The old saying goes that you should Save Your Best For Last™ and that's exactly what Haircut 100 did with their O.G line-up's final single. An ode to lost love with a bassline str8 outta the Bernard Edwards songbook, Nobody's Fool is a key choon in the canon of 1980s British prawn cocktail-pop, the sub-genre which blessed us with such classics as The Bitterest Pill by The Jam, Save It For Later by The Beat, Tunnel Of Love by Fun Boy Three, Careless Whisper by George Michael and too many Style Council singles to hyperlink. Keep your eyes peeled for a soon-to-be famous blonde bird as the video's love interest.

Dry-eared randos dismiss Haircut 100 as some naff cracka shit because they're blind to the factz, baby: Haircut 100's drummer was a black bloke who hailed from Memphis and whose brother was a member of The Bar-Kays, and their debut single Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets World) is the first British pop single to feature a rapped bridge. More importantly, Haircut 100 scored themselves a Larry Levan fave at N.Y.C's Paradise Garage with Ski Club Of Great Britain. The best 1972 Kool & The Gang song not recorded by 1972 Kool & The Gang or wot?

Haircut 100 - Ski Club Of Great Britain
(From B-side of Fantastic Day single; 1982)



Best Haircut 100 album track? I'm a Lemon Firebrigade man, meself.

Friday 16 February 2024

Get In Where You Fit In

Saigon - Stocking Cap
(From Warning Shots mixtape; 2004/YouTube; 2024)



A pleasant surprise, like seeing shaved p*ssy in front of ya eyes: Saigon releasing a 20th anniversary video for one of the highlights of his Warning Shots mixtape. It's a pity Saigon developed a misguided "I AM NEW YORK'S SAVIOUR" martyr complex because he was a good rapper who misunderstood his position in the game: my man thought he was the rebirth of Nas for the Roc-A-Fella era when he was #actually the reboot of Intelligent Hoodlum for the 50 Cent era. Apparently he's gonna drop videos for a few of his early choonz, which means I might finally get the Diduntdidunt video I've been craving for the past 21 years.

Cool to see some Vaughn Bodē character graffiti in a 2024 Rap video. If you did graffiti at some point between 1989 and 1999 then you & your crew definitely painted a Bodē character once or twice.