Tag: rap

#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 19: Salt-N-Pepa

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music4 Comments

SArtist: Salt-N-Pepa
Best Album: Hot, Cool & Vicious
Best Song: Push It
This Letter Could Have Been About: Shock-G, Snoop Dogg, Speech, Sugarhill Gang

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Because I once performed the male part of Shoop live at a karaoke bar, altering the line “I’m 6’2″/ Wanna hit you” to “I’m 5’10″/ Wanna be my friend?” on the fly and actually getting a roar from the crowd out of it.  My favorite thing about Salt-N-Pepa is the raw sexuality; as much as I love Nicki Minaj she couldn’t exist if they hadn’t been there first.  Of note: they manage to make songs that are almost entirely about sex while still being, technically, clean.  Go ahead, listen to Push It and see if you can find something that a radio station can censor.  There’s nothing there.  There’s a line or two in Shoop that’s questionable but the worst thing about the song is actually the use of the word “retard,” which is the 1993 coming out.

Nowadays, Salt (I think) doesn’t want to rap anymore because she’s found Jesus, which hasn’t stopped Salt-N-Pepa from turning Push It into an ad for cars or insurance or some horrible bullshit like that, which makes me want to cry every time I see it.  But they were magnificent back in the day.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 18: Run-DMC

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music3 Comments

RArtist: Run-DMC
Best Album: Tougher than Leather
Best Song: Run’s House
This Letter Could Have Been About: Rakim, The Roots, Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock, The RZA

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Because Run-DMC was not only responsible for hiphop’s first real crossover hit in their Walk This Way collaboration with Aerosmith, they also produced the greatest Christmas song of all time in Christmas in Hollis.  Shut up, I’m right. Because they somehow made wearing Adidas shoes cool.

Fun fact: the second best Christmas song of all time is Eazy-E’s Merry Muthafuckin Christmas.

If you’re looking at mainstream success– in other words, success as defined by white audiences, basically– Run-DMC was the first and foremost.  They had rap’s first gold, platinum and multiplatinum album, rap’s first Grammy nomination, and were the first rap group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.  They were also the second rap group to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, behind Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Admit it: you already know at least one Run-DMC song.  I know you do.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 17: Queen Latifah

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music3 Comments

QArtist: Queen Latifah
Best Album: All Hail the Queen
Best Song: Ladies First
This Letter Could Have Been About: Q-tip, A Tribe Called Quest

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Honestly?  Watch the video first.  That’s why I’m writing about Queen Latifah.  Queen Latifah wasn’t the first female rapper, or the most talented female rapper (she gets upstaged by Monie Love on Ladies First, her best song,) but what she indisputably was was rap’s first and most outspoken feminist.  She may still be rap’s most outspoken feminist, actually.  Throw in a heavy dose of pro-blackness and African nationalism (check out the cover for All Hail the Queen) and the lady would have been a force to be reckoned with even if she hadn’t had tons of talent.  By now she’s got a Grammy and an Oscar or two and has taken over every medium she’s ever worked in, so she’s got nothing left to prove.  But hiphop had her first.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Sunday Supplement 3: Missy Elliott

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music2 Comments

A2Z-BADGE-0002015-LifeisGood-230_zps660c38a0Artist: Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott
Best Album: This Is Not a Test
Best Song: Get Ur Freak On

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Because, ridiculously, of Katy Perry and the Super Bowl.  Because discovering that Missy Elliott had been part of the Super Bowl halftime show made me regret not watching the Super Bowl.  Because that third video down there is staged, but is still how everyone who was listening to hiphop in the mid-to-late nineties reacted upon learning that Missy Elliott was in the Super Bowl.

“Wait.  Is that–”

“No way.”

“That’s Missy Elliott.”

“No fucking way.  God does not love me that much.”

“That’s Missy Fucking Elliott.”

And then, all at once, everyone in America yelled the same word at the same time:

“HOLLA!!!!!!!”

We done forgot, y’all.  Never again.

(Do not sleep on the video for The Rain.  Yes that is a motherfucking trash bag she’s wearing.  And she rocks it.  Because she’s Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, and don’t you ever forget it again.)

(Also: there’s a fun little visual reference to Ol’ Dirty Bastard during the Super Bowl clip.  See if you can find it.)

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(YouTube link of the halftime show went bad on me.  Click here.)

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 16: Proof

On By Luther M. SilerIn MusicLeave a comment

PArtist: Proof
Best Album: Searching for Jerry Garcia
Best Song: Kurt Kobain
This Letter Could Have Been About: Public Enemy, PM Dawn, Paris, Professor Griff, Parliament Funkadelic, Puff Daddy

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Proof only released one album to my knowledge– certainly only one major release– before he was murdered in 2006.  He was one of Eminem’s closest friends, and Em’s tribute song about him follows the video for Kurt Kobain.  He was also supposedly the inspiration for the character of Future in the film 8 Mile.

The thing is, Searching for Jerry Garcia is a brilliant album.  I mean, hell, just the title lets you know right away that you’re in for something different– who the hell references the Grateful Dead in a rap album, much less ends the same album with a song about Kurt Cobain?  I wish to hell I’d seen more music out of this guy; he was lost far, far, far too soon.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 15: Ol’ Dirty Bastard

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music2 Comments

OArtist: Ol’ Dirty Bastard
Best Album: Return to the 36 Chambers
Best Song: Shimmy Shimmy Ya
This Letter Could Have Been About: No one. Absolutely no one.

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: I don’t know how to write about ODB.  The brother was an insane, drug-addicted, criminal hiphop genius.  There’s three videos attached to this post– the first for his best solo song, Shimmy Shimmy Ya, the second a few clips from an episode of Yo! MTV Raps where he was famously blasted out of his mind but that kinda shows some of the crazed energy that the man had with him pretty much at all times, and the third is actually a Rhymefest song from well after he died that I still really enjoy listening to from time to time.  ODB died of a drug overdose in 2004, just short of his 36th birthday, and spent most of his career getting arrested and locked up for dumb shit.  I have no idea what he could have been had he gotten clean, and he may well have been one of those artists who wouldn’t have been able to function if he had ever gotten clean.  But … shit, the man was a lunatic genius as it was.  Genius.  There’s not a single track on Return to the 36 Chambers that isn’t amazing in one way or another, and I’ve written all of this without even mentioning the Wu-Tang Clan.  RIP, Big Baby Jesus.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 14: N.W.A.

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music4 Comments

NArtist: N.W.A
Best Album: Efil4zaggin
Best Song: Automobile (Yes, it is.  Shut up.)
This Letter Could Have Been About: Nicki Minaj, Nappy Roots, Nas, Naughty by Nature, Notorious B.I.G., Northern State

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: This is another crowded-as-hell letter, guys.  N.W.A, which stands for Niggaz With Attitudes.  Point blank: They’re the most important group in the history of rap music.  Period.  Not necessarily the most talented, not the best, but absogoddamnlutely the most important.  In fact, I’d say that there’s a large gap between them and the second most important– which, to my mind, would be Public Enemy, with the Wu-Tang Clan a reasonably close third.  A lot of rappers and rap groups call themselves notorious; one guy who you might have heard of actually named himself that.  N.W.A released a song called Fuck Tha Police in goddamn 1988.  

Think about that shit for a second.  Think about the effect that Dr. Dre and Ice Cube all by themselves had on the music business.  I don’t have the space here to get into the history of the group– the Wikipedia page doesn’t do a half-bad job, actually— but when the authoritative history of hiphop is finally written (and maybe I’ll write it) N.W.A deserves a couple of chapters all by themselves.

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#ATOZCHALLENGE, Day 13: Monie Love

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music9 Comments

MArtist: Monie Love
Best Album: Down to Earth
Best Song: Monie in the Middle
This Letter Could Have Been About: Mac Lethal, Macklemore, Murs, MC Lyte, MC Hammer, Missy Elliott, Mos Def, Nicki Minaj

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Annoying fact: On the first run-through of my list of posts for the Challenge, I got to M before I featured a female artist.  A later draft had me stick Jean Grae in at J instead of Jurassic 5, but here’s the really annoying part: the first letter I featured a female artist on had three other women who could easily have owned the letter, and basically forced me to do the special bonus points on Sundays, because I cannot ignore Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj.

But:  Right.  Monie Love.  Monie wasn’t the first female rapper by any means, although she came to prominence in the late eighties, making her an early pioneer.  I would argue that few debut albums start off as strongly as Down to Earth did, because both Monie in the Middle and It’s a Shame are classic, classic hiphop tracks that everyone should know.  Included as a bonus here is the video of Queen Latifah’s Ladies First, which came out before Monie’s album did and was thus the first place where most people actually heard her music.

I’m not going to point out how the lyrics in Monie’s guest verse blow Latifah’s rapping out of the water, because that would be rude.  I’ll let you watch it, and realize that for yourself.

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