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.

Boom Worship

Nemesis Temple of Boom
(1993, Profile) @ 320

The gap between this post and the previous is longer than any other in T&G history. Its easier and easier for me to see how someone falls off from doing a charity share like this. Its good news in a way, it signals me doing more rewarding things with my own music instead of archiving the past. I'm an unqualified historian but an excellent organizer. I should work at the post office.

The physical object behind today's datashare comes from a far-off place - I bought this Nemesis CD from an antiques street market in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, for 30,000Rp. Don't worry, its not much money. I didn't see a lot of other American rap music for sale but either bootleggs or legit int'l cassettes of Banned in the USA were on display in every record store I went to. Oh and to clear up an old T&G question - there is a lot of weed grown in the country, but in concentrated places and elsewhere people don't smoke nothin but cloves. It seems the military is behind the operation and they will cut off your head if you interfere.

Glad I found this, though, because my DL'd vers. skipped during "Go Ron C". Since so often this blog is like the Triggaman Where's Waldo I should point out the bells in the title track and I always do this but what is the sample on "Hard from Birth" that is also in Al Kapone's "For the Low-Low"? Btw, thanks for the youtube DJFUGANO!

Hard and Cool as the Fuck

Ruthless Juveniles Hard as Tha' F**k II
(1995, Mobo) cassette -> 320 kbps

The bloody pacifier. Raised on blood or mouths just oozing it. Part infant, part wolf. A pack of predator children at war - cruel, merciless, cool. An uzi, a tec in a bloody crib. Toddlers smoking tricycle blunts. The singular production of Death: orderly restraint, smooth sampling, thoughtful panning. Eerie West Bank funk, hard as the fuck.

Underground

In the process of making the next T&G cassettemix - For the Weed Smokers, and for the first time noticed this sample. Reminds me of Cee-Lo's Primus sample.

Where They At?

Here I am slow-blogging per usual, meanwhile Allison Fensterstock & Aubrey Edwards have put together the most comprehensive archive of NOLA rap history on the web. Their project Where They At?: New Orleans Hip-Hop & Bounce in Words & Pictures is part photo / essay / ephemera museum exhibit, part extensive historical documentation, part transplant live performances (such as bringing Bounce acts to SXSW). Its a big thang and depending where you're at there might be various ways to get in it but you can start from anywhere, like me right now, reading all these interviews.

Psychedelic, Epileptic Loke

Lokee Voodoo Gangsta Funk
(199?, Tombstone)
cassette ->320

This shit is sticky like weed you can't roll joints of. Great maximal production from Ice Mike on "Torture" and the classic "Weed Fiends" (with Magnolia Slim). He does a few other tracks on here too like the short remake of Chuck Berry's novelty hit "My Dingaling". Not that Lokee, a producer in his own right, needs any assistance - he's manning the boards on as many tracks as Mike. Written, arranged, conceptualized and freaked by Kenyatta "Lokee" Ruth. What else did Lokee release?

Your T&G homework this week is to refine/correct this transcription of Lok's opening "Weed Fiends" verse:

Skee make my heart beat, doochie make me duck
But give me a big fat goo and nigga I'm cool as fuck
Buck, buck, I steal niggaz like Randy Polo, with low blows
Well worth the weight, in the 8-98, straight kickin' it
With some brick niggaz out that Eastside
Bout to take you all on this hellafied sweet ride, I
Gotsta have it when I rides in the A.M.
Shotguns to the brain, nigga never strain, nigga never say when
Nickels don't do nothin' but tickle the real smoker, I'm bout it
I be blowing zones with my chauffeur, pull over, I need another optimum posse
So I can my lil thing, while me smokes weed up my nostril
There go Jekyl & Hyde, take my guns from the side
Motherfuckers seem to make a nigga do ya
Motherfucker ???????? that nigga's eye, alright, heart bussa
Don't back up nigga, suffer
Cause thats the only way a real soulja get enough of
Tryin' to twerk somethin', tryin' to hurt somethin'
Bump somethin', dump somethin', nigga, hump somethin'
Fuck, so my nose stop runnin' track, say dog
Pass that fuckin' dollar back and watch me pull a vicious act
Speed ballin', all in, torture, look what the bundle man brought ya, caught ya

Weakest Links

S.A.W. Soldiers At War (1999, Military Recordz)
Ghetto Twinz Surrounded By Criminals (1995, Big Boy Records)
Ceaser The Life And Times (199?, Fat Bank Records)

Triple Threat! 3 cassettes I ripped without preview and won't be listening to again and I need to get rid of them. But I think of this site as an archive and I think of my preferences as singular. It seems like the internet should have conquered the human desire to have opinions made for you but all it did was shift who the makers were. Download, try, delete - discover gems in trashcan rap.

Otherwise, enjoy the cover art.

Nigga Behind the Trigga

Code 6
Let's Go Get'Em
(1998, Ice Mike Ent.)
cassette -> 320 mp3

My return visits to HQhiphop.net leave me asking this question: should I be posting FLACs? All interested parties raise hands. Space is cheap!

I was going to post the "Let's Go Get'Em" 12" with the instrumental to accompany this, but that will have to wait on account of turntable tech issues. Ice Mike Ent logo! And some of the best production I have heard from him though I bet there is a lot of shit he worked on I don't know about. Official request for listing Ice Mike prod creds in the comment box and Official T&G endorsements of the following tracks "Only in the Fischer", "This a Stick Up", "Load Up Yo Tec Pt. 2".

Curious to see if Treme makes cameo room for Bounce legends, I'm picturing Lester Freeman in the Lets Go Get'Em vid (peep the comments btw). In my opinion The Wire used way too little local club music for a show committed to uncompromised realism.

More Ice Mike and a Magnolia Slim feature coming with the next post...

Everyfuckinbody in the world a Player-Hater.

B for Bounce

Ricky B (B for Bounce)
(1994, Mobo) [MOBO1]
cassette rip -> 320 mp3

Back to work, if thats what you call this and finally upping something you don't yet have. Ricky B - I heard he was the Bounce Legend Still Unaccounted For, but maybe thats changed. 2 feel good bounce anthems featured on a later CD release and also the Greatest Rap Hits Down South New Orleans compilations but this tape, I think, is the only home to the "nite" version of "Shake It" tailored for the "rastafaris" by way of ad-libbed imitation horn mouth sounds. Blowin shit out of proportion like a trombone. It may also be the only place to find this Mobo records commercial and let me also say that I've appreciated every word of history posted in the comments section lately.

I'm surprised no one save Tommy Wright has made a living bootlegging these sort of easy-replica demo cassette classics.

Yall fuckin with Jdownloader yet?

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.