Artist: Z-Trip Best Album: Shifting Gears (I guess) Best Song: Breakfast Club This Letter Could Have Been About: Uhhh… Arrested Development did a really good album called Zingalamaduni, but I think that’s probably cheating.
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: For the last, a first: Every individual person mentioned during this project has been an MC, not a DJ. Z-Trip is the sole exception. He’s a DJ, and he’s worked with everybody. He’s also done a few solo albums, and by “solo albums” I mean he’s done Slash-style compilation albums where he produces beats for a bunch of other musicians who rap for him. I don’t think he’s ever recorded a verse of his own, and if I’m being honest the only reason Shifting Gears is listed up there as his best album is that it’s the one that I own. I’ll stand by Breakfast Club, though, a collaboration with Murs and Supernatural about getting up early in the morning on Saturday and watching cartoons while eating cereal. It’s fun, and as Murs says early in the song, if you can’t relate to this song, you’re taking shit too serious.
(This was fun. I look forward to doing it again next year.)
Artist: Yo-Yo Best Album: Make Way for the Motherlode Best Song: You Can’t Play With my Yo-Yo This Letter Could Have Been About: Uhhh… YG, maybe? Young MC? One of the lesser Youngs? Nah.
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Uhh… this one’s kinda weak. I’ll admit it. I thought of Yo-Yo immediately for this letter, realizing after a couple of minutes that I really couldn’t come up with any other alternatives. Everybody else on this list was someone I had music from on my computer already, and for most of them I still own the CDs I bought back when they were new. I had to redownload Make Way for the Motherlode to make sure it held up, otherwise I was gonna be writing about Bust a Move, which I didn’t really want to do.
Here’s the good news: Motherlode actually holds up pretty well. Ice Cube discovered Yo-Yo, and has a prominent guest role on her most well-known song and a couple other spots on her debut album. She’s talented, if perhaps not on his level. This song at least is a classic, although she’s kind of a one-hit wonder. It’s still worth a listen.
Artist: X Clan Best Album: Xodus Best Song: Heed the Word of the Brother This Letter Could Have Been About: The X-Ecutioners, Xzibit
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: I love that I genuinely had to think about what to choose to write about for X. I suspect most people didn’t have many choices for this one, and a lot of them are cheating. Nope! I had three without even thinking about it, and I could probably come up with a few more if I tried for a few minutes.
One movement in hiphop that I haven’t talked about very much during these posts is Afrocentrism. It came up in the Chuck D and Queen Latifah posts, if I remember right, but it wasn’t dwelled on. Enter X Clan. I still clearly remember seeing the video for Heed the Word of the Brother on Yo! MTV Raps for the first time, and it blew my damn mind. Africa medallions were a thing back then, although as a chubby white kid there was absolutely no chance that I was ever going to own one much less wear it outside the house, but X Clan took Afrocentrism to an all-new level, filling their lyrics with references to Egyptian gods and African magic and ramping the political content (which I was already used to and comfortable with) to a new level. They never saw a huge amount of commercial success, but they made a hell of an impact on me.
(Fun fact! The one contribution I ever made to a lyrics website was for an X Clan song, where I was entertained by the sheer number of wrong ways people were misinterpreting the admittedly uncommon phrase “unguent jar.” These guys got themselves some vocabulary.)
Artist: Wu-Tang Clan Best Album: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) Best Song: C.R.E.A.M. This Letter Could Have Been About: Watsky, Whodini, Wyclef Jean, Westside Connection
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: This is another one of those “Where do I start?” artists. How about the roster? From memory: The RZA, the GZA, Method Man, Raekwon the Chef, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck. The ones I had to hit Wikipedia to remember: Cappadonna and U-God. Understand that each of those guys has multiple solo albums along with the seven albums the Clan released and a few under pseudonyms or “related” acts like the Killa Beez. It would take a dissertation to explain how the Clan’s various works fit together and I’m trying to limit myself to 500 words here. Let’s just say this: by 1993, when Enter the Wu-Tang came out, the golden age of hiphop was drawing to a close. In fact, I’d be comfortable calling Enter the Wu-Tang the final album of that era.
It was… different. For starters, there were like 600 guys in the group. Then there was the constant references to Eastern mysticism and the near-constant sampling of kung-fu flicks. The Clan was a breath of fresh, if insane, air. And they blew the hell up, starting a clothing line and who knows what else. I’m pretty sure you could get Wu-Tang action figures at one point.
Add, at the very least, Enter the Wu-Tang to your record collection immediately if you don’t already own it.
Artist: Eric B. & Rakim Best Album: Paid In Full Best Song: Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: I’ve said before that the easiest way to see how influential a rap artist is is to check and see how often their lyrics are quoted or sampled by future artists. By that standard Eric B. & Rakim are the most influential rap duo of all time. Virtually every single line of Paid in Full has been turned into a hook or repurposed by someone. Rakim is one of the greatest lyricists in the history of rap, period. This was another “No way to leave them out” group. Go ahead, give the couple of videos here a listen and see how much of it sounds familiar already. It won’t be hard.
Artist: Vanilla Ice Best Album: To The Extreme Best Song: Ice Ice Baby This Letter Could Have Been About: Would I have written about Vanilla Ice if I had other options?
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: The music business kinda lost its mind for a while in 1990. The hivemind decided it was time for rap music to become more broadly known and accepted, especially by white people. It was time for rap to have some chart-topping hits.
And who received that honor? Who was the sure-to-be-immortal musician to write and perform rap’s first chart-topping hit?
Vanilla fucking Ice, whose debut To the Extreme somehow spent sixteen damn weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. And closely following him? MC Hammer, who wasn’t a whole damn lot better.
Sigh.
The thing is? The Vanilla Ice Project, his current reality TV series where he renovates a mansion, is actually kind of entertaining. But, Jesus, this guy being this popular is one of those things from the nineties that everyone wants to admit never happened.
A few other thematic videos following the obligatory Ice Ice Baby video here. Note that I genuinely love at least one of these songs; feel free to guess which one in comments.
Artist: Digital Underground (shut up, it counts) Best Album: Sons of the P Best Song: Good Thing We’re Rappin’ This Letter Could Have Been About: U-God, except no, not really
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Because Digital Underground pulled off the greatest con in the history of music. Yes, the history of music, not the history of hiphop, although it’s entirely possible that I was the only one fooled.
Here’s the deal about Digital Underground: They’re mostly a duo, although there’s a few other members of the posse who pop in every now and again, the two main rappers are Shock-G and Humpty Hump. Humpty wears a hat, thick glasses and a prominent fake nose every time he appears.
The two trade verses. They appear on screen together. They argue with each other on albums.
And they are the same fucking guy.
I never knew this. It never even occurred to me that they might be the same guy. Sure, they looked alike; lots of guys look like other guys, especially with that much other junk on their faces. But they sounded different enough that it never occurred to me, until, god, maybe two decades after buying my first Digital Underground CD I heard an interview with Shock-G where he, in mid-sentence, dropped his voice a register or two and slid straight into concluding the rest of the interview as Humpty Hump, without bothering to put the glasses on. It blew my fucking mind.
The fact that their music is fantastic is utterly beside the point. The gimmick alone makes them one of hiphop’s greatest bands. Shock-G’s solo albums are pretty damn good too; check out Fear of a Mixed Planet.
(By the way, yes, that’s Tupac in the Yankees jersey in the final, ridiculous video. He got his start as a backup dancer for Digital Underground and I’m pretty sure this is his first recorded verse.)
Artist: Tupac Amaru Shakur Best Album: Me Against the World Best Song: Thugz Mansion This Letter Could Have Been About: A Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Goddamn, where do I even start?
I mean that literally. It usually takes me no more than 10 minutes to write one of these. I’ve been staring at a blank screen for at least that long.
Let’s just do this:
Dear Mama, don’t cry, your baby boy’s doin good
Tell the homies I’m in heaven and they ain’t got hoods
Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me shook
Drinkin peppermint schnapps with Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke
Then some lady named Billie Holliday sang
Sittin and kickin it with Malcolm till the day came
Little LaTasha sho’ grown
Tell the lady in the liquor store she’s forgiven, so come home
Maybe in time you’ll understand only God can save us
When Miles Davis cutting loose with the band
Just picture all the people that you knew in the past
That passed on, they in heaven, found peace at last
Picture a place that they exist
Together
There has to be a place better than this in heaven
So right before I sleep, dear God, what I’m askin
Remember this face
Save me a place
In Thugz Mansion
The first time I heard this song, it brought me to tears, and I still have to struggle every time I listen to it. Some context may be necessary: Thugz Mansion was on the album Better Dayz, released in 2002. Tupac was assassinated in 1996. In other words, he’d already been gone for six years when this song came out.
It was as if he was talking to us from the afterlife, telling us everything was going to be okay.
I am not a religious man, to put it lightly. But this song– a description of Heaven literally from the mouth of a dead man– touches me in a way few songs ever have. Pac could have been a one-hit wonder and this song alone would justify his immortality as an artist. Instead, he was so prolific that the idea of choosing a “best song” becomes completely ludicrous and he has had more albums released since he died than he did when he was alive. Almost all modern hiphop owes him a debt. He is the greatest rapper who ever lived, one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, up there with Marley and Hendrix and Joplin and Cobain and who knows how many others lost far too early. And even if you don’t count yourself a fan of rap music, you should know his work.
Artist: Z-Trip
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