Bitch Get Off Me, Gotta Have Coughee

DJ Kid Slizzard presents
For the Weed Smokers
Da Mixtape

A long time coming - this is the 5th and ultimate Twankle & Glisten cassettemix - 90 minutes of my favorite weed bangers disproportionately from Memphis but there's also a lot of West Coast classic junts in the bag. This is the tape in my pocket on a desert isle. If I never post here again its okay cuz I got this out my system.

My love of rap music and my preference for the rap music in this blog over the rap music not in this blog - comes from weed. When I was a teenager weed was like an iron and rap CD-Rs were like secret messages lemon juiced on paper. It seemed there was an evolutionary biology behind it, a perfect synchronicity. Rhythm'd tricks of sensation like smoke and mirrors, the non-linear flow of Mr. Show segues, samples that float like disaffected memories over a field of bass and slang - a drugged language...

Well, fuck. I can't explain it to you, you feel it or you don't.

I included a proper size jpeg in the zip so you can manufacture your own tape if you like (should fit exactly on a C-90). But I keep some of these around if you run into me IRL (sold at cost not profit) and the young burnouts of Gnar Tapes and Shit sometimes promise me they'll bake a batch.

But don't assume I agree with every statement on this tape. I, for one, would gladly split a bammer ounce with you. Where I grew up a "quarter" was a sensible name because it cost 25 dollars and if it wasn't moldy it was good enough for smoking. Boutique green has its merits but if for nothing other than nostalgia I could go for some weak, dry, seedy brick weed about now, junt after junt...

Mr. Pookie & Mr. Lucci - Roll Something / Odd Squad - Coughee / Al Kapone - Smoke One / 310 Hurricane - Skit / DJ Sir Swift - High, So High / Magnolia Crime Click - Smoke a Blunt / Tre-8 - Smoke Blunts / Lil Slim - Blunt After Blunt / Master P - I Got Dank / Ice Mike - Here Smoke This / Black Mystic - Blunts & Junts / Shawty Pimp & DJ Ace - High As Hell / 2-Nes - Light Green Weed / Mississippi Mafia - Roaches In My Ashtray / Gangsta Pat - I Wanna Smoke / Indo G & Lil Blunt - Let's Get Fucked Up / DJ Spanish Fly - Smokin Onion / Dre Dog - Chocolate Thai / Three Sides - I Wanna Smoke / Lil Gin - So High

RBL Posse - Bammer Weed / ESG - Smoke On / Guice - Fire It Up / Mac Dre - I Need A Eighth / Success-N-Effect - Roll It Up My Nigga / Dre Dog - Smoke Drugs & Rap / Playalistic Posse - Smokin Weed / Triple 6 - Pass That Junt / DJ Paul - Smoke A Sack / Legendary Lady J - Chronic Dope / Gangsta Boo - Smoke One / 8ball & MJG - Smokin Chicken / Lokee - Weed FIends / UNLV - Step It Up / Devin the Dude - We Get High / Harlem Underground - Cheeba Cheeba / Lil Gin - Shake Junt

The Gangstas & the Pussy Poppers

Ice Mike Hey P-Poppers
(????, White Lable) @ 320

Does anyone know what full-length this comes from? Ice Mike's discography is an elusive thing, let alone a full list of his production creds. I think nearly everything I have posted from New Orleans recently had at least one Mike cut on it. Bonus junt "Make Em Jiggle" is a hilite, and the "Ghetto" instrumental has all the sympathetic vocal tracks in tact which makes for weird listen.

2 tracks from Big Mike's "Hard 2 Hit" (1999) borrowed from here. I'm posting both mostly for their full-band lush funk arrangements. "Claimin Real" sounds like a prototype for that unreleased 6-Two collabo mystery wet-dream.

I recommend changing the setting from 360p to 480p for a significant sound quality upgrade, I don't know why you can't default that shit, but right now you can't.

Put Out the Fire

Sporty T Chromed Out
(1997, Ruff Era) @ 320

Wow, imagine a time when Lil Wayne had a small head. This one is heavy on Hot Boys disses which, without any actual information, I would attribute either to the similarity of group names (Hot Boys vs. Wet Boys) or to the jealousy of watching your former music partner rise up high and past you. I'll be making it a habit of upping a single representative track from every full-length I offer because the internet is getting so big and so is the headache it's giving me. Can you imagine having to show ID to ride around these highways? My favorite from this full-length is "What Kind of Playa", definitely the heaviest bounce/chant junt on here though the electro/old school influenced "If We Got Beef" (produced by Ice Mike) is a close contestant (I mean in the contest of My Favorite Track, not Heaviest Bounce/Chant Junt) and probably a more unusual track, all things considered.

Speaking of "All Things Considered", thank god Treme is over. It was way too much like music features on NPR, which can suck the life out of anything.

NOLA Tapes: 96 sounds of Cise

Fiend Won't Be Denied
(1996, Big Boy) cassette -> 320

I'm reflecting on the expression "Rest In Unimaginary Peace". More excellent prod work from "Precise" - man, my favorite thang about the guy is those lone crybaby guitar notes. Actually, zoom the thing out and its like a single line split four ways masterfully. Basketball-like teamwork in part-writing. And I'm thinking about early work by Magnolia Slim, Mac, KLC and this tape providing both great evidence against the claim "No Limit Had No Talent" & for the claim "Rap Might Have Been Better Off Without Them". And not that it needs to be said but P&P productions at their peak here, wtf.

Sorry, anyways, for so diligently and obnoxiously ripping every tape on the rack and then writing one small blip of surprise about some record that everyone who wants already has but its surely more social and more meaningful than me reorganizing records from by-BPM to by-region-based-alphabetized then back again and besides Sharity is a respected blog format even without Noz's endorsement. I saw a headline about in the Wire Adventures In Modern Music. I wish, though, that I could justify this post on the basis of fidelity but shit! I don't have a "chrome" setting on my deck! Sounds kinda like I rubbed motor oil on the tape heads.

Like other Rap Bloggers I like the sound of my fingers smacking away at the keyboard. I type in rhythms like a middle-schooler playing pens.

I haven't been keeping complete track but I think this is the first tape feat. Wild Wayne since Da Rangaz.

We Remember... "It's All on U"s

ß G∑∑zy
It's All øn U & It's All øn U Vøl. II
(1999, Ca$h Møney) cassette -> 320

Funky. Dirty. Serious. I know these are higher profile releases than I usually post but I wanted these up here as contemporaneous context to the other tapes I'm posting. Because sometimes you have to take it to that triller level. Also, I thought a nice white-noise water-in-the-ears tape rip would help you relive the experience of hearing these for the first time in your older brother's jeep. I'm still thinking about replacing the CD player in my car with a tape deck.

I was thinking recently, listening to these and to "Chopper City" how much I like how his old records have these long-winded unhookable hooks. Its shit R. Kelly should have been listening to when he was working on the later chapters of Trapped in the Closet.

Hearts pumping Battle Juice.

NOLA Tapes: Fonkey Monkey

Tim Smooth Da Franchise Player
(1998, Mobo) cassette -> 320 kbps

This Smooth Playboy needs no introduction.

NOLA Tapes: KC Redd

K.C. Redd It's a G-Thing
(1999, Take Fo) cassette -> 320 kbps

I uploaded more or less every Take Fo release from this period to this blog last year, but had to skip this one because I lost my disc. In a way my empty jewel case was fitting since Kasey "K.C. Redd" Segue is no longer with us. I'm not sure of the details of her passing, may she rest in peace.

It seems her recorded output was limited too - several tracks on here reappear on other Take Fo' releases including its strongest singles, "Hot Girlz on Fire" and "Do the Mario."

NOLA Tapes: Karaoke to a Trophy

Blaxuede Dey Don't Kno
(1999, Avatar) cassette -> 320 kbps

Good single on this one, "Bring Da Pain" f/ Lil Wayne & Turk. I kind of miss Turk and also Wayne before he was the monster brat prince of radio rap. Video is up on youtube via jjcenterprises who must have 4 yrs worth of the Box on home vhs's in his closet.

And thanks for the recent comments. I'd like to stress that I am an enthusiast, not an expert, distant in both time and space from this shit and the only time my documentation and other clerical duties pay off is when yall fill in history.

I promise that more essential / classic tapes are coming along with these more disposable ones.

NOLA Tapes: Mo Mobo

Surrender Gangsta Gangsta
(1999, Mobo) cassette -> 320 kbps

Found an efforted though incomplete Mobo timeline on the Amoeba records blog. This guy has done a bunch of posts about bounce rap, and he probably lives here in Los Angeles. Another Californian scrambling to document New Orleans rap history from across the world. Anyways, I'll be upping a lot of the shit he mentions and hopefully a couple he missed this week as T&G's insane NOLA tape free-for-all continues.

The label does have this split personality with Bounce and Thug sides. What's strange is that its on the Thug side where shit gets the weirdest.

A short tape, considering 2/3 of the tape reappears in radio-friendly form. My favorite track on here: the Oomp Camp Bass styled "Get Da Club Start It"

It goes on!

NOLA Tapes: Socca Ball

S.A.C. Mafia Socca Ballin
(1998, Untouchable) cassette -> 320 kbps

This is one of several cassettes I recently purchased from an Ebayer out of Kentucky that has been handled so much that all of the white on chrome text has been obliterated. Its impossible to even tell which side is A, which is B. I imagine dude in his backyard methlab, popping open his yellow Sports Walkman with his nitrile gloved hands and flipping the thing over.

To my surprise the tape sounds great when played. This is already available on BotM but here it is at the better / worse quality you crave - clean rip, hi-res, grimey cassette. An immaculate portrait of a dirty street.

Production mostly by Sinista but T-Bone some (again). Feat.'s by Ms. Tee, Charlie Hanseen, Lokee, Fila Phil, L.O.G. and other rappers I've never heard of - Yada, Lil Rugged, Al Roc Capone.

Sorry but the only track I can whole-heartedly endorse on here is the Ms. Tee feature.

NOLA Tapes: Funky Lycanthropy

Various Artists
Too Loaded Records pres.
The South Coast Compilation • STR-8-BALLIN
(1997, 2 Loaded) cassette -> 320 kbps

I was watching LA Story the other day and noticed the pre-text messaging text-message style text and this tape title is like that too. The tracklist lists prod. credits but no artist credits. Is that indicative of who got paid? They do list the artists randomly to note "appears courtesy of" creds, so I can use that to let you know whose buried here: Skull Dugrey, Kilo-G, Tre-8, Zeeda, Ceasar, Lil E, Ms. Kim, Southern Comfort, Ace-Lo, Shorty Roc, Lil Jinx, Big Bop, Fischer Fools, Recon, Hell Raisers.

Fischer Fools - "Caps Peeled" is really good but DL this zip to hear "Loaded as a Wolf", a really genius narrative that subs out weed for full-moons in a psycho-werewolf fantasy. Getting the munchies, eating children's brains, its all in there.

NOLA Tapes: Mo Menace, Mo Drama

Black Menace Mo Drama
(Y2K, Menace Ent.) cassette -> 320 kbps

To follow the last post, a late tape from Threat's group, Black Menace. Not as strong of an effort as the Threat tape, but a piece of this Black Menace puzzle and I don't see it on offer elsewhere.

Producer Kajun Phunk borrowed Mannie's lasers and he can't let go. That name rings bells, give those bells names in the comments section. I like "4 of the Realest" from the B-side and I think the closing joint is an Insane bonus track intended to advertise for his record (see insert). Its good dessert, maybe better than the main course.

NOLA Tapes: Threat Williams

Threat (of Black Menace) Drama Az Usual
(1997, Strugglin' Strivin') cassette rip -> 320 kbps

I post a lot of shit with a completist's desire to unturn every rock, but this one's just really fuckin good. Rich, funk productions by Precise, Ice Mike, Tre-8, Carlos Stephens and Tha Jaz - who the fuck is Tha Jaz? He does expert work on "4 My Dawgz" and look at the cover, the mentioned "drama" here is Threat on an ice cream scoop of diarrhea at the cities farthest, wildest edge trying not to drown in this pool of nuclear waste that's ruled by alligators and is dissolving these handcuffs, bodies, knives, bills, cars, suitcases and this really small janitor or car mechanic but this is all in the future and Threat sees it as he lowers his shades or he's dead and he's looking down at earth, remembering it all. And the complementary image - grieving in a Black'n'Mild cloud.

Tre-8's track ("Abrokeni-Astressing") is crazily dissonant and cool.

"Ohh-Ohh" bangs hard and I can't believe a sampled vocal imitation of Enigma's "Return 2 Innocence" chorus works as well as it does.

I want Ice Mike to, like Quincy Jones, score major motion pictures, like Death Wish.

NOLA Tapes: It Ain't the Same No Mo

Mobo Click & Da Grace DJs present
Marvelous & Peaches Wobble on Dat Stick
(1999, Mobo) cassette rip -> 320 kbps

Posting a lot of Mobo releases coming up (including the label's first release). This short EP is fairly pure bounce in the sense that it obeys more rules than it breaks. Strong Female vox except when they are weak and per usual, I like the weed anthem (the first one). Although I don't like the cover artwork, I do like the name of the designers - Blue Dog Graphics.

Interested in whatever paraphernalia accompanies Becoming A Mobo Soldier by way of a 3x5 postcard mailed to the Mobo Soldier PO box. Did anything ever come out by the P-Cola click? This blog is like an arcade magic 8-ball. I drop money in (in the form of mp3 archives) and ask questions.

NOLA Tapes: Da Rangaz

Da Rangaz All Night Flightaz
(1999, Last Chance Records) cassette rip -> 320 kbps

Production by Kenneth "DJ Chicken" Williams & Terrance "T-Bone" Johnson, shout-outs by Wild Wayne. Excellent a capella weedhead skit, stranger telephone comedy on "Buncha Bitches". Good, hype bounce on the title track and "Score It, Roll It". Very Brown beats throughout. Actually, "Get Wild With It" sounds like a Bounce adaptation of a Ying Yang riff, and "All Night Flightaz" is built around a similar two-note piano line to "Fuck the Ying Yang Twins". I'm not trying to say this connection means much, just that I saw it.

NOLA Tapes: The Wickie Wickie

South Coast Shorty The Hot Girl
(1997, South Coast) cassette rip -> 320 kbps

I realize T&G has been full of empty promises of late, but this time I'm shouting "We're Back!" and meaning it. The good news is that at the breaking point where most blogs like this die, this one just paused.

The first in a line of many: South Coast Shorty aka Trinice Ricks. As fond as I am of P&P style photoshop composites, I think I might prefer an alternate reality where colored pencil fantasy art like this drawing by Jay "Genisis" Alexander (who must've done the Southern Raw Females comp art) blew up in the same way. But to each his own - you can find this cover included on this list of Worst Rap Covers along with all my other favorite record covers. www.thug.com is a fucking masterpiece of a cover and in my dreams I'm blogging this on Thugscape Navigator.

I've heard that bird chirp siren sound from 'From the Back" in a Jubilee track before. What is that thing? Lots of sort-of 1980s hyper-melodic synth lines that it seems like only became popular a few years ago when mainstream rap turned so overtly pop.

Nows a good time for re-up requests, btw.

Highlights: "Represent", "Hott Girl", "Gots' No Time (Wickie Wickie)"

On Vacation

Enjoy this brief SMK footage until I return...

Bring Your "A" Game, Spread the News

...Romeo is back. Have yall heard this? I haven't heard this. Recent or recent enough solo track from G-Style's Romeo. Its confusing enough that G-Style's only or just only known release was a single called Romeo. Anyways, this video's been up for a couple of years and it definitely does not have a couple years worth of views. The track's guitar-heavy production is a somewhat of a turn-off for me but this guy is credited for bringing the gangsta-walk to Memphis so its interesting to seem him take it all in, bring it all back. Still, slack cut for being involved in the best classic gangsta walking footage around.

The Beat Goes On

Big Mike Nawlins Phats
(2005, Blackstone) @ 320

Today I left my parents Grand Rapids, Michigan home to check The Beat Goes On, a record store in the middle of a (seemingly indefinite) going-out-of-business sale. I had first gone there four or five years ago on a blunt-fueled search for rap music in the city with DJ Prettyboi and was surprised to find discs like Al Kapone's Memphis Drama Vol 2 and Gangsta Pat albums from the early aughts. Most of it was too expensive to buy though (16.99+) so we walked out with some questionable no-name mixes with cracked cases. We were hunting for vinyl anyways, and they didn't have much to offer. Still, ripping off their Three 6 Mafia 12 x 12 promo posters was the closest we came to success outside of the smoke-filled car.

This year, I knew the store was going to offer me my only opportunity to cop some Twankle worthy bounty for yall. And the idea of irreversibility, of being located presently in a past one cannot return to, was enough for me to disobey the Buy No Records maxim imposed on this blog author ever since I decided to quit my job last summer.

Anyways, I got there. I leafed through the racks. My fingers felt the feeling of leafing, the memory of leafing, my eyes tightened to spy the diamonds in so much crap. For a while I lapsed into an obsessive state that lack of funds had temporarily shut down. Whenever I found something half-decent or even most-likely-less-than-half-decent-but-still-curiosity-sparking (like post tank Mr. Sev-on), I ran a cost-benefit analysis, applying the 25% of New, 40% of Used sale rules to the inflated tag price and weighing that against the value of listening twice, uploading, alphabetizing, storing, moving, case-breaking, case-replacing. Jewel cases crunch like the shells of cicadas. At least in the apartments I live in.

Meanwhile, some guy, as tall and white and lanky as I am, stood behind a camera and gave the store owner tips about how to perform in some in-progress video interview. "We're just talking, the camera isn't on". I couldn't tell if they were filming a public access commercial or this kid's undergraduate media studies homework. They spoke about the internet in a hilarious and alienated way that reminded me of my parents' facebook statuses and the smiley faces my dad inappropriately punctuates emails with. They talked about how vinyl has some value, some irreplaceability that "an itunes" doesn't. And this place, unlike the internet, has vinyl. Its in boxes on the floor and I already know better than to look there.

"What do you think has hurt you worse, the iTunes or the stealing, the Nero, the filesharing?"

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what is the most filesharable. My fingers have sifted through many good discs that I don't have, the Triple 6 Vol. 2 reissue, On the Outside Looking In, Chopper City. Stuff I have but don't have, stuff I know inside out. Laughing because I'm looking to buy something from this gentleman, but only so I can give it away. Sighing because if the right deal presented itself I would take loads off this guy. I would gut him, clean him out. There are things these sifting fingers can't resist. These Wicked Streets for 3 dollars. Buy 10 get 10 free. But the shift from 18 dollars to 13 doesn't do it. Should I tell him?

There are two other people in the store. One man is like a pint-sized bouncer. His red eyes meet mine every time I look towards him. I suspect he is like the Best Buy greeter. Maybe he's just one more of Michigan's long-term unemployed, looking for the feeling of work even without its traditional reward. The other is a woman, 30s, crutches. She keeps blocking the aisle.

There are stacks of CDs on top of the CDs. They all start falling down. The owner comes over and gives them a hard tap. "They were fine before people started mixing them up," he says. I'm not sure what he means, I can't dig without shifting them around. I continue to mix up his CDs.

I'm looking through 20 dollar DVDs. Luke video compilations, extended C-Murder advertisements, Adventures in Hollyhood. I want to absorb all the crap, find the crap's diamonds and share them with people lazier or less obsessed than myself. But the hunt is hopeless. I can't use more cracking shells and I wonder if this place ever moved good used records even before there was such a thing as an Ebay vulture.

I bought this excellent Big Mike record for the small advance in fidelity and another no-name mix with a cracked case, Best of DJ Melo-Mix Part 2. As I walked up to the counter the owner was answering another question.

"This is all I've been doing for 30 years. Ever since I was 18."

"No," he says, "I haven't thought about what I'll do next."

Time to make plans, I thought.