Album Review- Black Rob- Game Tested Streets Approved

Black Rob has been through hell and back. He has been signed to Bad Boy, been to jail a couple times, and battled serious illness. Through it all he has persevered and remained one of the few artists who can seemingly make a decent single yet keep it real. with a gravelly voice BR is back an on Duck Down records, an underground NY powerhouse of street mc's with his latest release.



"Welcome

Marley Marl Meets Kurtis Blow

In 1988, Marley Marl made history with by assembling one of the greatest collective of hip-hop artists ever, The Juice Crew, and releasing perhaps the most legendary posse cut of all time, "The Symphony" off his debut album. And on practically the complete opposite end of the hip-hop spectrum, that same year, Kurtis Blow put out his eighth and final album, Back By Popular Demand. But for a brief moment, those diverse paths crossed, as the lead single and title cut of Blow's album featured none other than Marley Marl.

To be clear, Marley didn't produce this "Back By Popular Demand;" it was co-produced by Blow and Van Gibbs and Eddison Electrik, with "Music By" credit going to Kurtis himself. Also, interestingly, big-shot producer Salaam Remi gets "Concept By" credit ...which is odd because "hey, I'm back" isn't really the sort of clever or complicated concept you'd think you'd need to bring in another guy to come up with. I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that Salaam is Van Gibbs' son.

Now, let's talk about the production for a minute. Like many, many hip-hop records, this one is based on a slamming James Brown sample, specifically "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose." But where a lot of hip-hop tracks will base their entire on instrumental on that record ("Give It Up" is a cornucopia of fantastic samples), Blow and co. (heh) just take their drums from the breakdown at the end of the song. And making that loop seems to be the majority of the work Electrik, Gibbs and Blow really did here.

The bulk of the rest of the music, certainly the stuff that really stands out here, is the "Scratch Production," done by none other than our man Marley Marl. The hook is all vocal samples being cut up: "Kuh-Kuh-Kuh-Kurtis Bluh-Bluh-Bluh-Blow!" mixed with a little "Al-Naaflysh" and a few brief distorted samples taken right out of the Marley catalog. It's certainly possible that any of the other producers added the "Back! By popular demand!" vocal sample or something, but it's sure got that classic Marley Marl sound. One really cool element is that the song has looped crowd cheers throughout... you know, like those early Run-DMC records where they're faking like the song was recorded live? But then at the end, the crowd sounds get cut up, and it sounds fresh!

Unfortunately, Blow the MC isn't up to the track. Gibbs and Blow share credit for the lyrics (the album just says "Written by: K. Blow/V. Gibbs/E. Sainsbury," but the 12" specifies credit to those two for the lyrics. It's a bit mind boggling that it took two men to come up with such simplistic, corny stuff as, "I know you missed me, so don't diss me; be down with the history... of rap! So let your fingers snap. Or whatever makes you move... to the groove," or one-liners like, "I'm sure to deliver... like US mail!" And before you say, "oh, it was the 80's, all raps were corny," bear in mind, not only was Marley bringing Kane, Tragedy, Master Ace and G Rap at the same time as this; but this was cornball even for the oldest of old school. Caz, Kool Moe Dee and Melle Mel wouldn't ever have spit silliness like that; and even Blow himself was capable of much smoother rhymes on earlier stuff like "Rappin' Blow." I really don't know what Blow was thinking putting those bars over this track; it's like he wanted to be written off as hopelessly old school. And that wish that came true with this album's reception.

So, this 12" has the 12" Version, which seems to be exactly the same as the album version, and the 7" version, which is just a shorter edit. But there are some more interesting mixes on the B-side.

If you read the credits of the album, you'll see a "Trumpet Solo" credited to Marc Leford on this song. I was quite baffled by this as a kid, because there is no trumpet or anything resembling a trumpet anywhere to be heard. But they must be crediting the work recorded exclusively for this 12", because here there are two instrumental mixes called "Black[as opposed to Back] By Popular Demand," the first of which is the Trumpet Mix. While there is absolutely zero trumpet on the 12"/album version, there is a ton here. Blow's entire vocal track has been replaced by a trumpet. Then there's also an Organ Version, where his vocals are replaced by a plectrum banjo. ...I'm just kidding, it was replaced by an organ, of course. Nobody is given credit for an "Organ Solo," so I'm guessing it was played by Blow or Electrik, who share that "Music By" credit.

By the way, this isn't the only work Marley did for Blow. Also on the Back By Popular Demand album, Marley is credited with "Keyboard/Horn Arrangements" on the light-hearted tune, "Love Don't Love Nobody." It's also the only other song on the album also produced by Gibbs and Electrik (Blow produced most of the LP by himself). But unlike "Back By Popular Demand," you would never recognize "Love" as Marley's work if you didn't read the liner notes. In fact, the soft keyboard tones sound a lot like the stuff Blow put on a ton of records he produced back in the early 80s.

So, to wrap things up, this single is like the whole album. Sure, on one level it's wack and easy to dismiss. But it's all strangely endearing and catchy. And it's certainly got a unique mixture of musical sounds that nobody else was brave or goofy enough to match. This is a time capsule not only of the wild, unrepeatable 80s, but a brief period when rap albums were starting to get big budgets and no idea what to do with them. I mean, seriously, where was the Organ Mix of "Back By Popular Demand" supposed to play, exactly? And some of the stuff on the album ("Blue Iguana," anybody?) is even weirder. And, hey, it comes in an awesome picture cover! What's not to like?

I Hope MGK doesn't get screwed...

But he just signed with Bad Boy. Now I have love for the old Bad Boy Entertainment and what it used to be. However, over the past 7 years things have gotten worse and worse.I don't even know if they've put out an album in the past two years, and if it was, it was just Janelle Monae. I remember seeing the new face of Bad Boy in one of the hip-hop magazines and I even posted about it but it's been

Infinity and Grandmixer D.St.

(Youtube version is here.)

Where are the albums?

Hip Hop might just be dead in a way. Though there are more 'artists' (to use the term very loosely) than ever, there seems to be a lot less in the form of quality and quantity of albums for consumers to snap up...or not. There are thousands of unsigned artists and independent out there and believe it or not, labels still hand out deals. What doesn't happen is albums dropping. Let's look at

This Is By the Convicts

There's a couple reasons you might know of The Convicts. You might've read Unkut's king-making post some years back, dubbing the Rap-A-Lot duo "a testament to the genius of ignorant rap." Or you might know Convicts member Big Money Mike for going on to become an official Geto Boy when Willie Dee dropped out. But if you don't actually know them for their music, you're missing out.

The Convicts, who have an odd habit of contradictorily referring to themselves as The Ex-Convicts in their songs, consists of just Big Mike and 3-2 (later of The Blac Monks). They only dropped one album on Rap-A-Lot Records in 1991 before going their separate ways. And this is the one single off of that album.

Depending on your attitude, you might be pleasantly surprised or heartily disappointed that there's nothing particularly ignorant about "This Is For the Convicts" at all. Big Mike and 3-2 are both really just flexing their spitting skills, kicking your basic, "we're the toughest on the block" rhymes. Mike impresses more, coming off as a seasoned vet even though he wasn't yet one at that stage, but 3-2 comes nice as well. It certainly helps that they're blowing over the dark bassline Paris used for "The Devil Made Me Do It," but laid over a cracking, classic break that really ups the energy of the groove, but keeps it nice and hard. None of that later-year keyboard sound of later Rap-A-Lot releases, this is pure hip-hop.

The one drawback to the song is the minute long intro, where they sign a humorous song about life in prison. What you might find amusing the first time is a torturous minute to get through after you've heard it a few times. Fortunately, the music changes drastically enough that you can see on the vinyl where the song changes and you can needle drop right to the good stuff.

The B-side is another dope beat, slower and chunkier. It runs a bit dangerously close to the intro of the last song, however, in that, while it's not badly sung, it's still a jokey song that can wear out its novelty value with regular rotations. It's called "Wash Your Ass" and it's a collection of amusing anecdotes and complaints about people with poor hygiene.

Both songs are straight off the album, but the 12" does also include both instrumentals. That's nice for "This Is for the Convicts" just because it's a dope track, but even better for "Wash Your Ass," because at this point, it's the preferable way for me to listen to this song. If any of the less original producers out there would like to jack this beat and repurpose it for a more straight-forward acappella, I wouldn't be adverse. Either way, though, this is a nice, underrated 12" that deserves a little appreciation.

JoJo or Diggy which Simmons is heir to the throne

So a lot of people watched Run's House, I saw maybe 10 episodes over the series' run so I am familiar with the family. While much of the early attention was focused on Rev Run's daughters, more recently, Diggy has become the family's star, surpassing his older brother JoJo whom everyone knew wanted badly to be hair to the family legacy in hip-hop. Much of JoJo's problem comes from his struggles