Underhated: (The Rapist) 2Pac – Me Against The World
Here at the Fat Lace HQ we don’t have much love for That Rapist 2pac. Okay, we might secretly bump ‘Pour Out A Little Liquor’ and ‘2 Of Americaz Most Wanted’ (the latter mainly because of Snoop doing his best Melle Mel impression) when nobody is around, but the man was a confused buffoon who ripped off Scarface, Mac Dre and Treach in equal measure but managed to somehow completely bypass the interesting nuances which made those rappers so good in the first place during his pre-prison days, who then went on to waste numerous great Dre and Daz beats which could’ve ensured the first Dogg Pound album was as good as ‘The Chronic’ or ‘Doggy Style’ during his tenure at Death Row. We also can’t stand his silly strained voice, any of his movies other than Juice and Above The Law, his gay nosestud, his homoerotic fans, and the items of the Makavelli Brand clothing range currently cluttering up any TK Maxx store we’ve been in over the last 5 years. What, no takers for those lime green and canary yellow patent leather bootleg AF1s or them XXXL knee-pocket jeans with his face screenprinted across the arse?
‘Me Against The World’ is usually lauded as the album of his which even us hardened ‘Pac Hataz have a grudging respect for, but we ain’t tryna hear that shit here at Fat Lace. ‘Dear Mama’ simultaneously makes us hate our respective ma dukes and De La’s WRMS interludes, ‘So Many Tears’ and ‘Death Around The Corner’ are decent Scarface songs with a 5th rate Brad Jordan doing kareoke over them instead, the 2 joints Easy Mo Bee did really should’ve gone to Biggie or even Big Scoob, and the rest isn’t even worth wasting any more words on because we’re listening to ‘Cross ‘Em Out And Put A K’ by Westside Connection right now and that shit has got us in the zone, son.
So, we’ll leave you to also point out his annoying insistence on rhyming drink Hennessey/ride on our enemies more times than JVC Force mentioned that they were the group who made Strong Island on their second album, as we throw up dubs to Westside Connection and sip on some wild nettle tea we’re using as part of our post-Xmas detox.
Underrated: Slick Rick – Behind Bars
Def Jam done fucked up too many times with some of their baffling decisions over the years, but we still breath an occasional sigh of release that they didn’t get Ricky D to do an X-Raided – recording an album with him rapping over the phone from the bing – and instead waited until he managed to secure a few days of work release to herd him into the studio to lay down vocals for the ‘Behind Bars’ album when all he probably wanted to do was get blowjobs from his wifey and sink a few tins while giving thanks that his arse was safe from potential fellow rapists for a few days.
The long-awaited Doug E. Fresh re-connection ‘Sittin’ In My Car’ was the main single and every time you listen to it all you can think is : damn, why didn’t someone get these two to do an album together at some point?; with its cod reggae synth backdrop and use of whistling ‘A Love That’s True Part 1’ should have been an utter abomination or, worse still, a Lily Allen backing track, but it somehow works and comes off as a more mature take on ‘Treat Her Like A Prostitute’ with the grown-up Ricky lamenting he’s not given up on finding a sweetheart even though all he ever seems to meet are skanks, crazies, golddiggers and junkies; ‘Cuz It’s Wrong ’ is an Easy Mo Bee thumper with a sax sample which just epitomises everything good about 1993/1994 boom-bap; and we even got Large Pro’s classic remix of ‘It’s A Boy’ right at the end before the decent Dum Ditty Dum remix of ‘Behind Bars’ with Warren G.
Alright, it’s probably Rick’s least essential album, but there’s a killer EP in here with a little fine tuning, and we’ll take a Slick Rick album with 5 good songs on it over the in-prison album of a derivative rapist in a bandana all day, every day.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Word // Jan 16, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Word?
There are as many Pac haters as dick riders… don’t think he’s under hated tbh.
Slick is only underrated by people who don’t listen to Hip Hop like that and the unappreciative and uneducated “Rap” fan.
2 Alan Partridge // Jan 16, 2010 at 6:25 pm
YES!
Excellent shout on ‘Behind Bars’. I bought it on cassette when it first came out, and although it’s not “classic” in the, erm, classic sense of the word, it was, and still is, a really enjoyable listen. ‘A Love That’s True Pt. 1′ is an odd one. It was definitly my favourite song on the album (excluding ‘It’s A Boy Remix’). You’re right, it shouldn’t have worked as a song. I remember thinking the beat kinda sounded a bit Ace Of Base-ish, but somehow Ricky D makes it work. It goes to show the difference giving a beat to the right emcee can make, as it would’ve sounded wack with anyone else rhyming over it.
I really loved the Warren G remix too. Personally I think Warren G actually adds something to the song lyrically too, but if you disagree there is a version of the Warren G remix which appears on the single which has an extra Slick Rick verse instead of Warren G’s verse. So there!
3 Smooth Da Hustler // Jan 16, 2010 at 6:56 pm
No respect for the dead.
4 sg // Jan 17, 2010 at 9:51 am
always liked the first three 2-pac lp’s, not classics but a good listen. Like all things when people die they always become better in the eyes of the world. Big pun (the Duncan Edwards of Hip Hop) being the finest example. Lets hope soulja boy lives a long and happy life.
5 tu-park (as timmy would say) // Jan 17, 2010 at 12:04 pm
slick rick could possibly be the only old school mc still doing it who still sounds as fresh as when we first heard him back then.. Behind bars, underated? Everyone I know thought it was dope. As for pac, the only solo tunes I liked were ‘i get around’ and a couple of others off the ’strictly 4 my…’ lp, I can see why he’s an icon and all that, but to me he’s way down the MC-ometer compared to ricky d.
6 monster beat // Jan 18, 2010 at 7:07 pm
anyone else got a 12″ called ‘why you doing that’ by slick rick? The shit is ridiculous, one of those you can play all day on repeat, I don’t know much about it, some bootleg ish I think, but it may have been on an album. Such a tune.
7 brian beck from wiscompton // Jan 19, 2010 at 5:04 am
It was an unreleased tune. Slick Rick has the best catalogue of unreleased gems this side of Mobb Deep.
He Kills, A Letter 2, Captain Caveman, Star Trek and Sleazy Gynecologist are all classic Rick.
8 monster beat // Jan 19, 2010 at 7:05 am
yeah, defo brian, the audio quality’s a bit poor on some of them, but I’d rather listen to some low quality slick rick gems than a lot of second rate MC’s. He always picks nice beats too, the kind of shit you wish other great MC’s would rap on instead of what they do use.
9 brian beck from wiscompton // Jan 19, 2010 at 11:07 am
I Sparkle by Rick is up there with the best soundtrack-only rap songs of all time too.
Top soundtrack-only rap songs, anyone?
Ice-T – Colors
UGK – Pocket Full Of Stones remix
MC Eiht – Str8 Up Menace
Melle Mel – Beat Street Breakdown
Biggie – Party And Bullshit
Dre & Cube – Natural Born Killaz
Lady Of Rage – Afro Puffs
Tha Dogg Pound – What Would U Do?
De La Soul – I Can’t Call It
Slick Rick – I Sparkle
10 monster beat // Jan 19, 2010 at 2:15 pm
yeah, all them and not forgetting:
L.O.N.S. ’shining star’
nice & Smooth ‘pananoia’
eric sermon ‘hittin switches’
lord finesse ‘you know what i’m about’
11 Mr Bozack // Jan 21, 2010 at 10:07 am
Yeh and, following on from that^ Finesse joint off Trespass – how about the Gang Starr and Black Sheep tunes on there?
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