Just sayin', bruv # 5

The precise moment Casino officially became a better movie than Goodfellas was january 29th, 2002 when the video for Ashanti's Foolish debuted and rendered the 1990 movie superfluous by accomplishing what it took Martin Scorsese nearly 3 hours to achieve in a snappy 4 minutes, 27 seconds.

Ashanti - Foolish
(From Ashanti album; 2002)


The acting chops Ashanti displays when she puffs her cheeks out before pulling her fedora down over her face in frustration at 2:31 clearly inspired Milla Jovovich's lesser-half Paul Anderson to cast her as Nurse Betty 5 years later in his possible future-classic Resident Evil 3 : Extinction.

The nets tryin to kill me!

Always look an apostrophe in the eyes before you kill it..


Need a list of 10 underrated albums by such all-time greats as UGK, Slick Rick, Juvenile, DJ Quik, AZ, Master P, Kool G. Rap, Lil' Boosie etc?

As E-Money Bags nearly said on Friend Of Ours : Who ya gonna call? POSTBUSTERS!!!

Read that shit here.

You can say whatcha want, just spell my name right!

I present you with post # 1 in a new series that'll probably run by the official title of Great MC UGK moments in Rap Internet history should it return, beginning with the Guru interview video on WSHH.com where Solar was billed as Solo :


ROFL where u stand! Still waiting on an in-depth expose on Guru's fascinating relationship with the "super producer" who was known for beats that sound like children playin' patty-cake on paper plates and breathtakingly brazen Walter Mitty stories, BTW. Questions I need answers to, damnit! :

Did Gang Starr really split up because Primo shagged Guru's sister?

Is it true that Guru changed the cover of his Version 7.0: The Street Scriptures album with Solar because Agent B from Oh Word made fun of its original artwork?

Was Solar really bumming Guru as well as fleecing him?

Is Divine Rule the worst song ever made by a member of a top five Rap group?

Is Guru's last letter which read like an ode to Solar the most obviously ghostwritten work of fiction since Copywrite's sock-puppeted post on UGHH.com where he suggested Jay-Z was sending subliminals at him?

How did Solar manage to disappear without trace when he had the combined forces of the Gang Starr Foundation, Freddie Foxxx, that Bork who runs the DJ Premier blog and a couple of thousand northern Europeans on his trail?

If he was partial to penis, why couldn't Guru have bumped uglies with someone higher up the hip hop homo hierarchy than Solar like either of the Afrika Bams or Mister Cee?

Brief thoughts on the 2nd remix of Lil' Cali's Dat Dick with Juvenile

Lil' Cali ft. Mystikal & Juvenile - Dat Dick remix # 2
(From the upcoming Catch Up 2 My Campaign mixtape; 2013)


While it's always nice to hear Juve' rhyming about wenches over a good beat, Lil' Cali needs to face up to 2 simple facts here :

1. He can keep adding verses from old No Limit and Ca$h Money artists to Dat Dick until the cows come home, but the original with Mouse On The Track is always gonna going to be the definitive version of that shit.

2. If he is intent on remixing songs from 2012's Against All Odds mixtape with new verses from Louisiana legends from the 90s, then a 2013 remix of the 'tape's best song Me And My Thugs with a Lil' Slim cameo would be a much better idea.

Lil' Cali - Me And My Thugs
(From Against All Odds mixtape; 2012)

Reasons why I love YouTube # 41

Rap songs I never knew there were videos for before YouTube part 109765 :

Slick Rick - Cuz It's Wrong
(From Behind Bars album; 1994)


Let's talk about how Cuz It's Wrong is the anti-Drug Dat Hoe and how Behind Bars is actually kinda underrated despite the fact that it's Slick Rick's weakest album.

Martorial elegance # 72 : Obama jeans edition

Does duuk posing in the S/S 2013 Visvim stonewashed denim coverall coat and denim chinos on Union's blog in the picture above remind all y'all of anyone in particular? Give up? Lemme remind you :


Timberlake's career apex right here, IMO; JC Chasez was always the true pop auteur in N'Sync.

Windows down bumpin' Barry White, in the trunk is where I bury white

French ft. Shiest Bubz - Gettin' Money Over Here
(From Cocaine City 2 Purple City DVD; 2006)


Before he adopted the Montana suffix and leeched onto Max B, French Montana was just French, the generic coke-rapper who was known for resembling a lesbian Psycho Les and peddling a series of street DVDs called Cocaine City, which were the missing link between Smack DVD and VladTV. I've lamented the death of the street DVD before because rappers fighting on Twitter just isn't anywhere near as fun as them sonnin' each other and posing with each other's stolen chains on video, so I figure 2013 is the year I should put my money where my mouth is and make an effort to track down all 14 editions of Cocaine City since I only own volume 2 and volume 10 currently.

Records, tapes, and CDs are for squares and amateurs - real Borks are out here huntin' down street DVDS nowadays. Holla atcha boy Talcum X right chea if you've got still-shrink wrapped copies of Cocaine City volume 1 and the Frost Bitten Uncut edition of Sub 0°, ya heard!

Reasons why I love Youtube # 40 : pon di road edition

If there's three things which make me ashamed to be a U.K citizen it's Ricky Gervais, Keep Calm parody paraphernalia, and British ppl attempting to rap. Doesn't matter if it's Grime, UK Hip Hop, Trip-Hop by whispering stoner troglodytes like Tricky, or whatever the fuck Road Rap is, it's all an embarrassment to this fair isle which gave all y'all such planet-dazzling exports as Phil Collins, Razzle Romps, and Porridge. There's only ever been one good rap song to emerge from this country and it's the early eighties Green Cross Code advert which interpolated Duke Bootee & Melle Mel's The Message :

Johnny was a fool, he didn't act cool
He walked on out, he broke every rule
He shoulda stopped, looked and listened, he shoulda used his head
If he don't watch out he's gonna wind up dead

Now don't step out when you're close to the edge
Or you may find that you'll lose your head

When you're out on the streets tryna cross the road
you gotta try to remember your Green Cross Code
You gotta stop at the edge, y know you gotta take care
You gotta stop, look, and listen because there's danger everywhere

Now don't step out when you're close to the edge
Stop, look, listen, think and you won't lose your head!

Here's Melle Mel, Cowboy, and Scorpio performing their not-so-subtle dis track to Run Dmc and LL Cool J Step Off on Top Of The Pops a couple of years later in 1985, with Melvin stylin' & profilin' in a t-shirt which looks like it's made from those chick's skull-print scarfs they sell in Superdrug and Primark nowadays. Furursitic swag indeed :

Martorial elegance # 71

And all the time I'm readin' DK talk about Master P, 'cause it seem like he the only writer makin' sense to me :

that fresh from the west coast percy miller is a great persona though too. in my mind nigerian pentecostal preacher swag with boxy shoulder starched creases and grey on white pinstripes, new economy hustler fervor behind christian dior goldrims, glock 17 in the waist and motorola startac crisp in its holster. the godgiven ever dependable 1 and only gfunk synth whine gangsta music transposed onto b.w. cooper apartments, calliope housing project, third ward.

in my unpublished biography of master p, i used extensive research to reconstruct the events that occurred after the release of “break em off somethin.” kitchen of a tudor bungalow in suburban baton rouge, percy miller sweat soaked through a violet silk shirt, pimp c the defiant hedonist duct taped to a chair, spitting at his captors through a broken cubic studded grill, his torn rabbit coat heaped on the linoleum floor. a phone call to j prince. like a scene from a no limit straight to dvd movie. j prince says, let him go. pimp c drives back to houston in a dodge caravan and records: i make my fuckin music for the boys with the Os / the old school pros and the strip club hoes / the boys with the hard in the motherfuckin south / bitch you aint had a hit since i sold you "break em off."

master p phase 3, percy on the yacht with obama jeans, dior shades, bottle of dom awkwardly clasped between his knees.

Perez Hilton M.C UGKs A$AP Rocky

Taken from today's Kendrick Lamar Calls Out Rapper Danny Brown For Getting Onstage Oral post :


Kendrick LMAO!

Shiest Bubz is out for David Drake's blood!

Apparently Shiest Bubz didn't take too kindly to me calling him the lowliest of Dipset weed carriers on the Purple City Byrdgang entry to our 25 Greatest Harlem Rap Songs list yesterday because he's already stalking Deezy D on Instagram and leaving him threats :


If the Complex office gets bumrushed by disgruntled 2003 - 2006 era Dipset Z-listers on some THE WHOLE BYRDGANG'S IN HERE LIKE KRISTEN PFAFF WAS HERE GYEAH GYEAH GYEAH GYEAH! type shit today, then pray that Drake makes his rims do the Macarena out of there before Un Kasa gets a hold of him.

Willie's Burgers was mah spot!

A couple of weeks back the Rap Game Sophie Lancaster Foundation right chea and David Drake were debating what the apogee of Posta Boy's career was; I argued the 106 & Park battle against a pre-Dipset Hell Rell that Max B & French Montana used to clown Ruger Rell on WSHH.com is his greatest achievement, whilst David insisted Jurassic Harlem is a lost masterpiece which might just be better than anything on Illmatic. We went back and forth for all of 3 minutes before I had a EUREKA! moment : let's pitch a 25 Greatest Harlem Rap Songs list to Complex instead. Did Jurassic Harlem make the final cut? Could I talk Complex into letting me sneak 40th Boys by A-Mafia & 40 Cal into a list of definitive Uptown classics? Find out HERE!

It pains me that we couldn't quite find room for classics like We Are Known As Emcees by Crash Crew, When You're Standing On The Top by Super 3, or I Need A Girl Part 2 by Diddy & Loon et al when editorial policy dictated we include A$AP Rocky's one semi-aiight song. Similarly, I'm still heartbroken that my pleas for Everyday remix by G-Dep, Harlem World's Cali Chronic, and Sober by Jae Millz as the list's token sleeper choices all fell on deaf ears.

Thankfully, the final list doesn't look like it was chosen by a Rap Radar intern, and getting Dr. Jeckyll & Mr Hyde, Pretty Tone Capone, and jokes about Un Kasa being the least-threatening looking thug-Rapper ever into a Complex list is a victory for ya boy, even if I was forbidden from calling Max B's lawyer Gerald Saluti an idiot-savant whigga and mentioning that the RNT marketing okie-doke is a much more interesting story than Rocky himself. Anyhoo, let's use this post as an opportunity to tell David he done fucked up in ranking We Fly High over Dipset Anthem.

Being a rap nerd isn't always so simple (and plain)

I'm interpreting this as Noz simply asking whether Lay-Lo ever recorded an album together, because I don't want to consider the possibility that dude just had an Tom Breihan on 3 Kings type M.C UGK moment by somehow thinking that Lay-Lo was a solo artist, especially since the duo included a Baton Rogue A-lister like Max Minelli who I'm sure Noz is fairly familiar with as to be able to recognize his voice on Balls And My Word and the old Concentration Camp compilations. Say it ain't so????? (*1)

If I can add my tuppence worth here after ANU pointed you in the direction of Simple And Plain, be prepared to be disappointed by the sequel to Better Than The Last Time on there and skip straight to Take It Like A Gee and Simple And Plain.

(*1 : to be fair, the old Concentration Camp albums can get hella confusing with the Laylow/Lay-Lo distinction and Young Bleed's own barely-known weed carriers Lee Tyme and Lucky Knuckles all crammed onto a single posse-track with the core members.)

Brief thoughts on the Cocaine Riot 3 mixtape by Chinx Drugz

As a long standing weed-carrier's weed-carrier who went from polishing Stack Bundles' rhinestone skull belts to ironing French Montana's keffiyehs, Chinx Drugz finally turned professional last year with the release of Cocaine Riot 2. It was a surprisingly great mixtape which saw him finding his voice as a new Big Noyd for the post-Dipset NYC, where it's perfectly acceptable for one of its sons to interpolate Juvenile alongside more traditional fare like Royal Flush and LL Cool J. It also included the best use of the Owner Of A Lonely Heart drumbreak in years.

Unfortunately, he's abandoned everything that made instalment # 2 so good to walk the familiar path of a breakout weed-carrier mixtape Rapper following up a great hometown hero 'tape with a middlebrow national BLOCKBUSTER disaster featuring all the usual cliched guest-spot suspects (Juicy J, Rick Ross, Diddy, Ace Hood, Yo Gotti and even fucking DJ Khaled) over tepid regionally ambiguous beats including a godawful track featuring Lil' Durk which is almost as embarrassing as that time his near-30 year old boss shamelessly indulged in Chief Keef karaoke. None of this would be the end of the world if he'd thrown in a handful of joints which built upon the style he was beginning to nail on Coke Boy Wave and Pressure On My Head, but the tracks in that vein here all fall flat on their arse and the one song worth saving sees him linking up with Harry Fraud to retread ground they've already conquered a couple of years ago with a Superlight-lite.

In summary, this 'tape sucks and it's probably more dignified to be avoiding bum-rape in prison like Max B than it is to be a working New York Rapper in 2013. None of these guys should be allowed to record more than 4 songs per calender year from this point forward.

Martorial elegance # 70

This picture up top from the ASGER JUEL LARSEN 2013 S/S lookbook got dat Best of The Martorialist (So Far) Volume # 1 cover swag on a bajillion, huh?

Frick and LeFrak

Oh ok, so this is where some of those rhymes from that recent N.O.R.E Hot 97 freestyle ccme from, which means that Tragedy pro'lly ghost-wrote them for him?

N.O.R.E ft. Tragedy Khadafi & Havoc - Camouflage Unicorns
(From Student Of The Game album; 2013)


Much prefer this to that recent joint with Large Professor which was a bit too self-consciously retro for my liking. SMH @ Rappers fetishizing imaginary animals like unicorns on some Gentle Jones type shit, though, when they could be paying homage to actual IRL animals which look like they were created by Disney like Seahorses :

It's the Mob in ya motherf***in' face, hoe

LOOK AT MY FACE IT'S NOT A GAME!

Press rewind if Suga Free just blew your mind

To celebrate the amazing new Suga Free song with a posthumous Nate Dogg hook, here are 10 immensely rewindable little moments in the Suga Free catalogue.


1. The upskirt twerk solo as the Pure Pimp video draws to its conclusion.

2. The way he belly-laughs after finishing his verse on No Doubt by saying "I hope my name taste like dookie in your mouth!"

3. The immortal "what, cadillacs ain't gonna roll no mo' 'cause yo' ass gone, bitch?" boast during his fire 'n' brimstone closing monologue on Allergic To Bullshit.

4. The electro funk drum-breakdown in Don't No Suckas Live Here.

5. The crystalization of the Suga Free ethos that is his "'cause love ain't nuthin' but 2 people feelin' sorry for each other and then hittin' divorce court to pay child support to your baby's mother" lyric on I'd Rather Give You My Bitch.

6. His impression of a girl with a lollipop stuck to her tongue on Still Rather Give U My Bitch.

7. His mannerisms as he's trying to work out how old he is in dog years in the On My Way video.

8. The "killin' me" repeated rhyme-scheme on Why U Bullshittin'?

9. The way he manages to better Marvin Gaye's entire Here, My Dear album with his opening stanza of "You spent your whole life lookin' for her, that's cool/you spent the rest of your life tryna keep her, huh fool?" on She Get What She Pay Foe.

10. His eyes as he asks DJ Quik about eating chicken veins during the profound opening prelude of the Nobody video.

Martorial elegance # 69, dude!

Incontestable proof that black and Puerto-Rican ppl were the only ethnicities who could wear Dapper Dan gear and not look absolutely fucking ridiculous, as well as the obvious precursor to Datta Phuge and his solid gold t-shirt????


Truly yours,
The guy who always thought P. Miller's "Fool, I'm the kind to want a gold and platinum tank" boast on the clean version of Make Em Say Ugh was always way more impressive than his "N*gga, I'm the kind to want a motherfuckin' tank" claim on the explicit Ghetto D album version.

Reasons why I love YouTube # 39

Heavens to Betsy, it's only the video I've been waiting for ever since I lost a bag of VHS tapes over a decade ago - Onyx performing Throw Ya Gunz live on late-night British yoof TV show The Word the night before their 1993 infamous Manchester show which ended up in chaos after somebody started lickin' shots inside the venue :


This clip has everything you could possibly want from an Onyx performance on The Word : Dani Behr fluffing her lines, matching bespoke hockey jerseys, nice little live flourishes like the stuttered "It's..it's..it's..it's" intro and Suavé's "I'll set ya fucken' mother on fire" lyric-switch, Moss Side man dem invading the stage resulting in the turntables almost going arse over tit, poncey podium dancers who look like the main bloke from S'Express, and Terry Christian rounding off the whole shebang with his dulcet Mancunian tones.

It's taken forever for this clip to hit YouTube, so it makes sense that the person who finally uploaded it would be Terry Christian himself. Bar the time The Pharcyde did Ya Mama live, old Tel Boy's YouTube channel has pretty much every live performance from The Word, including the also never-uploaded-before video of Craig Mack doing the Q-Tip remix of Get Down in 1995 :


If memory serves me right, this was broadcast the night before Craig Mack and Biggie appeared on Westwood during the 1995 Bad Boy UK tour, so take a bow everybody at The Word for having Mack knock out a throwaway remix on the show instead of having Biggie do Who Shot Ya? or the One More Chance remix.