With so many dead rappers and so many anniversaries to remember we get confused as to who died when. To complicate matters Big Pun and Big L died just a week apart. So to make life easier we’ve thrown ‘em all into one big dead rapper pot, gave it a stir and created our own little annual shrine to the fallen soldiers that are J Dilla, Pun, L and the latest addition to the roster, Apache who we criminally never mentioned until now.
First up…
Apache (December 26th 1964 – January 22nd 2010)
Little has been reported about the death of this Flavor Unit MC who made his debut on 45 King’s The Flavor Unit compilation back in 1990. Apparently he lived the high life at the peak of his career and after what was probably a concoction of booze, birds and bags of drugs he ballooned and his health took a long term proverbial ‘L’. Who are we to judge though, he was nice with his and went on to release the hip-hop classic that is ‘Gangsta Bitch’ produced than none other and Q Tip. May his soul rest in peace up there with another New Jersey legend who died less than a year ago, Tony D.
Apache Ain’t Shit
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I Feel Like Flowing
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J Dilla (February 7th 1974 – February 10th 2006)
Jay Dee’s contribution to hip-hop is well documented so we’ll let the audio speak for itself. First up a vocal version to the excellent ‘Louder’ off his Donuts instrumental album, followed by some classic audio taken from his interview on Dan Greenpeace’s All City Show which features a full Dilla interview, a freestyle with Madlib and more. Essential listening if you didn’t catch it the first time it was aired back in, gulp, 2003.
Louder feat. Oh No and Roc C
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J Dilla, Madlib and Peanut Butter Wold on The All City Show 2003
Tragically shot and killed by several bullets which by all accounts shouldn’t have had his name on them and were probably meant for his knob head of a brother. Big L was one of, if not the sickest rappers ever and true heads revere every demented line off his classic ‘Devil’s Son’ right through to his last recording ‘The Big Picture’ which was mostly assembled after his untimely death. Here’s the classic ‘Devils Son’ as well as two bonus freestyles, one where L goes back to back with Jay Z.
Devil’s Son
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Freestyle Back To Back with Jay Z
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Freestyle over The Symphony
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Big Punisher (November 10th 1971 – February 7th 2000)
We all know Pun died from a heart attack after Fat Joe gave him a nipple gripple, that and he was very very overweight. He was rumoured to have recorded most of his ‘Yeeeah Baby’ album lying down in a purpose built recording booth. Apart from being the worst album title, like ever, Pun died a lyrical legend, mainly for the bo diddly, fiddly, squiddly line in the Deep Cover, er, cover that was TWINZ with Fat Joe. A stone cold classic to this day, Pun will always be remembered as one of the greatest eater of pies and one of the greatest that ever blessed the m.i.c.
TWINZ
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R.I.P. to all the fallen soldiers who fell in the months of January and February, until the same time next year.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the Dead Perez alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Fat Lace Magazine.
Yeah snitches, live from HollyHood, CA, it’s me, Perez. Dead Perez. And yes, I am bigger than hip-hop you fags. You might see me but you won’t see me. Understand? Cos I’m mad incognito like that. Hey you, yeah you, rapper dude, I’m watching you. You’re not safe ‘cos I’m Dead Perez and I’m up in the clubs, up in your studio, up in your mom’s crib. I’m up in everything and I’m spilling beans, I’m pouring hot sauce on your beans then I’m eating your motherfucking hot sauce flavored beans and spitting them all out into the ether.
Please believe that this week I’m all up in the B.I. of the shouty NY rapper with the cross-dressing lover in Europe, or the now California based rapper who picked up ghostwriting duties for KanYe after Yeezy did Rhymefest like Dre did Royce, or the ATLanta rapper who got caught in the car with the teenage boy, or the rapper who was rejected by the WWE for using steroids, or even the extremely hard rapper who once sent a private message to a member of the Fat Lace team instructing them that they remove their post about him bumraping another rapper with a bat.
I’m even up in the business of the self-styled revolutionary rapper that constantly refers to his tough upbringing who actually went to a nice school in Manhattan and had a John Connor in Terminator 2 hairdoo.
Can u guess who he is?
So what’s up with Kanye and Amber suddenly hitting the catwalks and going all Donatella. I Guess Brand Ye is bigger than the music now huh? Saying that, Kamber (it’s not easy making a Brangelina out of those two) make a nice couple, if that’s his mommy replacement so be it, even if she is a blonde dykey looking replacement. But who am I to deny someone happiness.
Oh hang, I have every fucking right. I’m Dead Fucking Perez.
Been a minute since we gave you a dose of Westwood on a Wednesday so here you go, boom, a double dosage. First up we’ve drawn a selection from November ‘89 courtesy of the Capital Rap Show. Listen out for some bangers from EPMD, The Jungle Brothers, T La Rock and the much slept on Mighty Mike Tyson by Spoonie G. In the gig guide this week the Capital Rap Show Live to London blasts off on Sasturday 10th November at The Dingwalls Nightclub with special guests MC Duke and The E.L. Posse. This Saturday Westwood touches down at the Prestatyn Soul Weekender, not literally, this was 21 years ago. Sorry but the tape cuts off after Unique but what better track to end on?
As an extra dose of flavour we’ve got an even older show from 92.5 LWR. This vintage Westwood show finds Afrika Islam and Jazzy Jay on the wheels dropping classic breakbeats. There’s a live segment from the Cold Crush Brothers as well as the hottest cuts including Lesson 3 by Double D and Steinski. In the coming weeks we’ll delve deeper into the LWR archives courtesy of DJ Scott La Harris.
Unlike the rest of the Fat Lace team, who are all dyed-in-the-wool b-boys that grew up ciphering on the corner of 36th and Main, I didn’t come to full rap standom until slightly later in life. I played around with being an indie kid for a long time, mainly because I wanted to wear blazers and fuck second-generation Pakistani girls. But what can I do with that knowledge now, writing for the rap game? Well… usually, when someone tries to school rap blog readers on other genres, its yet another lecture on what hip-hop has taken from elsewhere, where this drum sample came from or what dead funk singer dropped that bassline or da da da. Today, we’re uninterested in that. Today, we are focussing on what other genres have taken from rap. We’re talking about indie cover versions of rap songs, truly proof that God hates you all. As far as we can tell, there are three main reasons that hip-hop tracks get covered by whitey. Allow us to break them down for you.
White people swearing
I’m far too fucking lazy to get my Nate Silver on and provide hard statistics, but I’d estimate that maybe 90% of rap cover versions committed to wax are novelty songs. A novelty song lives or dies by its ability to do one of two things: either birth a dance, or put across some sort of “humour” value. Now, being as Nina Gordon’s take on “Straight Outta Compton” doesn’t appear to hold much thread to DJ Bobo, we can only assume she’s going for the yuks here.
And what’s the wry, sophisticated, Del-Boy-falling-through-the-bar level of hilarity at the centre of all this? A white woman saying “nigger” repeatedly! Man, if I found that funny, I could just go for a night out in Otley. I think Nina Gordon used to be in Hole or something, idk, ask one of those barren single yatches in their late 30s who ignored the clarion call of their biological clock in order to spend more time posting comments under Jezebel articles.
Nina’s not alone, though: the crux of a lot of rap covers is “wouldn’t it be funny if a white person, especially one of bodrick appearance, said some things that rappers normally say?” In this context, the Ben Folds adaptation of “Bitches Ain’t Shit” is an alt.rock version of one of those scenes in crappy family movies where Eugene Levy or an animatronic kangaroo puts on a backwards baseball cap and “busts” some “phat” “rhymes”.
And Folds’ fans have a consensus take on this track: mans is having a pop at “misogyny” in rap. So XxgrayfoxXXX says “Ben folds is definitely making fun of these fucking guy’s who just use women”, while 0incorporeal notes “Folds is making fun of the misogynistic side of the rap scene”. Which is a little weird, considering Benny’s best known joint is arguably this little ditty, an aggressive bout of woman-loathing that even Tweedy Bird Loc would baulk at. Heck, even Kenneth Erskine would probably find it a little rapey. You can mentally insert your own “that’s racist” gif here.
Earnest attempts at proving “inner beauty”
There’s a long and storied history of musicians “proving” how great the original version of a song is by stripping any life out of it
whatsoever and turning it into an acoustic version. For instance, those of us past the age of 25 can remember the delightful turn-of-the-century trend when it was de rigeur for every shitty shambling singer-songwriter to knock out a bloodless three-chord take on “Baby On More Time”, for instance.
Rap hasn’t been left out of this ill-advised movement, though. Take “My Life” by JJ, who has gotten a little paler and grown breasts since his glory days helming the Nigerian and Bolton Wanderers’ strikeforce.
A generous man would suggest this is an honest attempt at showing the emotion behind the average shitted-out Weezy hook on a Game single everyone has already forgotten about. The pessimist would twig that it’s just some Swedish broad trolling for attention from Pitchfork. She’ll get it, as well.
So if you take a rap track, slow it down, and stare at your audience after each line as if to say “do you see?”, are you proving any point whatsoever? Patron saint of the almost raped, Tori Amos, certainly hopes so.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a track that better encapsulates the problems with these covers. Track back a bit: “My Life” isn’t a great song, but you can kind of see how “Dear Lord, you done took so many of my people/ I’m just wondering why you haven’t taken my life?/What the fuck am I doing right?” could be a pretty powerful lyric to the right person in the right mindstate? If you draw tortured attention to it, though, engaging in the musical equivalent of underlining it in marker pan and writing “I R SERIOUS SINGER THIS R SERIOUS LYRIC” in the margins, you blow it completely. And the aforementioned Spears pastiches: “My loneliness is killing me/ I must confess, I still believe” is good for a six-second spat out piece of lyrical filler in a bubblegum pop track marketed entirely on a video encouraging people to get into the party van. When you start drawing specific attention to it like that fucking scene in Reality Bites where Ethan Hawke gets his Violent Femmes on, you’re on to a loser. And so with Amos here: if you honestly don’t credit your fanbase with enough intelligence that they could work out that “97 Bonnie and Clyde” is a song about a man killing a woman… then your fanbase are idiots. Don’t pander to them by tortuously hamming up every single line in Eminem’s original until someone in your audience turns to their friend and goes “Wow, murdering people is wrong… I’d never though of it like that before”.
Of course, when you’re not trying to prove a point, and are just intending to prove how beautiful the original is, then what you want to do is not cover it whatsoever and just play the original instead. What you don’t want to do is “interpret” it in your own manner and end up with this:
And somehow… that’s not the worst song we’ll mention in this article.
Live Lounge
The Automatic do “Love In This Club” (pretty sure the only lovemaking the Automatic have ever done in a club involves a glory hole). Busted do “Where Is The Love” (this actually sounds like Rancid, except with slightly more intelligent lyrics). Embrace do “How Come” (Bizarre took to comfort eating after hearing this, he used to weigh 7 stone). Enter Shikari do “Day N Nite” (this is a parody, and yet it doesn’t sound that much different than the kind of dubstep dreck FACT magazine readers pop boners for). Both Fall Out Boy and The Gossip separately choosing to do “Love Lockdown” (one of those bands is led by a fat bitch with droopy tits and the other one is led by I can’t be bothered to finish this joke). Rooster do “No Diggity”(because the world needed a Brit School Black Crowes). Lostprophets do “Empire State of Mind” (featuring that guy from LMFAO! This is what your licence fee goes on). Hadouken! do “99 Problems” (for the uninitiated, a sample Hadouken! lyric goes “I may be a white limey/But I like it grimey”). And, just to end it all off, the worst track through this entire 1400 words: Jamie Cullum’s version of “Frontin’”
Jo Whiley is a dreadful human being, that much is apparent: she ruined foot fetishism for everyone in the 90s, and despite being Northampton born and bred, claims London as her manor. But her role over the past decade, foisting these covers onto the unsuspecting public, is John Demjanjuk-levels of crimes against humanity. Words by Dom Grande
Aaron in action, dramatically adjusting the position of his computer screen
In the interests of a fair trial it’s always a pleasure to give label head honchos the right to reply when obsolete rappers fire shots clouded by twenty years of cocaine abuse and over eating. Here’s Aaron’s eloquent response to Funk Wiz courtesy of Unkut. Search Tuff City on our front page for more from the vaults of Hip-Hop’s only remaining legendary stable. Word has it that Fuchs even got Wiz a juicy cheque from the Beastie Boys for a sample clearance and he still fired shots, no surprise, rappers are a particularly ungrateful species.
February 1, 2010
I’m sorry that it has taken so long, but I don’t troll the net obsessively and there were some remarks by Funkmaster Wizard Wiz in your interview from February 25, 2009 that I feel I must correct.
In the early 80s before rap was a business and any of us were businessmen, Tuff City’s calculus for signing a rapper was, “Does their level of artistry make them worth the trouble?” and no artist was more trouble despite being worth it than Funkmaster Wizard Wiz.
Wiz was the king of bad behavior. When we finished “I Stink ‘Cause I’m Funky,” Marley Marl turned to me privately and said, “I respect what you’re doing with him [Wiz]. When Biz [Markie] goes out there, people know that they’re in on the joke. With Wiz, it’s the real thing.”
Some things don’t change. The interview that you printed is so filled with inaccuracies, so many of which are meant to marginalize my efforts, the talent-to-trouble ratio Wiz & I share remains the same.
It is important that I make the following corrections:
A) I did not rush out his first solo record to make the other members of The Undefeated Three look bad. In those hardscrabble days, no label could afford that luxury.
Wiz’s verbal superiority and expansive personality separated him from the crew; taking him a solo was as natural as separating Kool Moe Dee from the Treacherous Three.
B) I was responsible for almost every A&R decision throughout his career (not to mention every other Tuff City artist), picking and employing an all-star cast of beat masters from Master OC, to Pumpkin, to Marley Marl, to the Ultramagnetic MC’s Ced-Gee. Perhaps no other artist of that era had access to such a constellation of talent. If anything, I took too few production credits.
C) Wiz never beat me up, and I never sent him or any other rapper to jail. In contrast, I got rappers out of jail. In Wiz’ case, I made sure he knew that he would have a recording career waiting for him when he returned from jail. If you listen to the storyline in “She Flipped On Me,” about a guy whose best friend took his gal when he was incarcerated, you will see how quickly I resumed his career.
Though it’s disappointing that he would say these things even as we’ve “matured,” I still think he’s worth the trouble, as we have just resigned for the purpose of fleshing out other phases of a career that only gets more critically worthy with time. On the boards for reissue is an anthology of early 80s recordings with his first crew, The Undefeated Three, and the fleshing out of a late 80s project, a full-length narrative of his incarceration, Behind the Wall.
So we check our daily RSS feeds today from various hip-hop blogs and what do we see? Apple this, Steve Jobs that. Nothing about the new Wu Tang Corp album, a new Weezy leak, the latest on Yeezy and Amber, Drake’s latest V log or anything else we couldn’t give a flying shit about. So what’s the new iPad got to do with the price of fish? Do you think Apple need your help? Hell Nah Right. So in true Crap Graf style, allow us to introduce the new Fat Lace iDob. Blog this motherfuckers.
O.G. hip-hop Bambatty man has joined forces with fruitiest of fashionistas Marc Jacobs to produce a ‘Death Mix’ USB hub, an homage to Bam’s classic high- school musical on Winley Records. If you don’t believe us peep it. We called the numbers on his card for a quote on his foray into haute couture and got this spot. Whatever next?
[Verse One]
Just wakin up in the mornin gotta thank God
I don’t know but today seems kinda odd
No barkin from the dog, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog (damn)
I got my grub on, but didn’t pig out
Finally got a call from a girl I wanna dig out
(Whassup?) Hooked it up for later as I hit the do’
Thinkin will I live, another twenty-fo’
I gotta go cause I got me a drop top
And if I hit the switch, I can make the ass drop
Had to stop, at a red light
Lookin in my mirror and not a jacker in sight
And everything is alright
I got a beep from Kim, and she can fuck all night
Called up the homies and I’m askin y’all
Which park, are y’all playin basketball?
Get me on the court and I’m trouble
Last week fucked around and got a triple double
Freakin niggaz everyway like M.J.
I can’t believe, today was a good day (shit!)
[Verse Two]
Drove to the pad and hit the showers
Didn’t even get no static from the cowards
Cause just yesterday them fools tried to blast me
Saw the police and they rolled right past me
No flexin, didn’t even look in a nigga’s direction
as I ran the intersection
Went to $hort Dog’s house, they was watchin Yo! MTV Raps
What’s the haps on the craps?
Shake ‘em up, shake ‘em up, shake ‘em up, shake ‘em
Roll ‘em in a circle of niggaz and watch me break ‘em
with the seven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven
Seven even back do’ Lil’ Joe
I picked up the cash flow
Then we played bones, and I’m yellin domino
Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.
Today was a good day (shit!)
[Verse Three]
Left my nigga’s house paid (what)
Picked up a girl been tryin to fuck since the 12th grade
It’s ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic
The Lakers beat the Supersonics
I felt on the big fat fanny
Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny
And my dick runs deep, so deep
So deep put her ass to sleep
Woke her up around one
She didn’t hesitate, to call Ice Cube the top gun
Drove her to the pad and I’m coastin
Took another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motion
I was glad everything had worked out
Dropped her ass off and then chirped out
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn’t even see a berry flashin those high beams
No helicopter looking for a murder
Two in the mornin got the Fatburger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read, “Ice Cube’s a pimp” (yeah)
Drunk as hell but no throwin up
Half way home and my pager still blowin up
Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day (shit!)
[Ice Cube]
Hey wait, wait a minute Pooh, stop this shit
What the fuck I’m thinkin about?
INTO:
The angular ice] it is broken, the eye ‘ somethin em which leaves [is sucked] is said every [wa].
[It spits out] Yo. Yo. uhh.
[Poem 1] I don’ which obtains the fact that mornin as for wakin you appreciate exactly in God; Just a little strange you know to, but the dog the present way, the smog is not there is no empty barkin and as for momma the cover is not with breakfast was cooked (is ugly) as for me my area insect, didn’t You obtained; The call was obtained from the girl you think that the cover of to I would like to dig lastly, (Whassup?)
Me do’ As hit, afterwards it is hooked because of that; Thinkin has lived me, another twenty-fo’ I finding in regard to cause decrease with me in me, the fact that it goes was obtained if and it hits against the switch, as for me with the red light which is possible to decrease the donkey, you must stop as for my mirror of vision and Lookin and everything of jacker which is not as for me who am without something to say from the gold dialing tone profit, as for her homies and I’ which all night are possible to have sexual intercourse; It called; m askin y’ Entirely y’ Which park, is?; The basketball of all playin? Courthouse and I’ Profit do me; Like M.J. which m trouble last week has sexual intercourse, can obtain triple double niggaz of everyway Freakin.
I can’ t believed, the good day when it was today (it is every [wa]!)
Didn’ which [poem 2] it drives to the pad, hits against the shower; The cause of not obtaining atmospherics from the cowardly person exactly yesterday those idiot me passing the police who tried the fact that blast is applied and them me, flexin which looked at that it rolls just there is no t, didn’ nigga’ of t; Glance; Way direction I of s moved intersection, $hort Dog’ It went; The house of s, those were watchin Yo! As for MTV What’ which is hit; S which excretes accidentally?
Vibrating ‘ em and vibrating ‘ em and vibrating ‘ em and vibrating ‘ As for em ‘ You roll; As for em of the circle of niggaz me ‘ You observe at that you break; As for em of 7, seven-eleven and seven-eleven 7 back section do’ Lil’ Jaw I took cash flow, then as for us bone and I’ It did; Being killed with the domino of m yellin, plus Nakaminami L.A. whom I obtain who whom you have known.
The good day when was today (it is every [wa]!)
[Poem 3] the left my nigga’ Girl It’ tryin which ever since the 12th class which (something) paid the house of s and is picked up has sexual intercourse has met; Sarcasm as for s me me who strike Supersonics jammy drawer and punanny which are felt with the rear end of large fat quality you killed [rekazu] which possesses brewing ones which have chronicity in her her donkey where and my hateful person moves sleeps so deeply and deeply so deeply her who puts approximately one her didn’ whom it makes awake; As for t, calling the angular ice the upper gun pad and I’ which hesitate; She was driven;
Her donkey dropping where another sip of m coastin rest I who am taken in the tricyclic movement which hits was delightful and solve entirely, today when you chirp next Didn’ one like dream of those growing; As for t flashin of the fruit the beam where those are high the helicopter which searches the murder which is seen it is not as for the two of mornin you looked at the light/write of the softball type blimp of Goodyear which obtains Fatburger and as for that, ” You read; Ice Cube’ pimp” of s.a; But (to be able to obtain) it is drunk, throwin it is not still blowin present me didn’ of the half methodological house or my pocket pager; t must use my A.K.. As for me the day when that is good (it is every [wa]!
)The fact that you say that was obtained, [the angular ice] just a little, waiting, the fool of minuteness, the sexual intercourse I’ which waits for every this it is [wa] which is stopped;
Here at Fat Lace we look at Radric Davis esquire as less Gucci Mane, and more Uniqlo Mane: a cheap solution for basics, but with an awful lot of trawling through ill-fitting tat required to arrive at the good stuff. Songs like ‘That’s All’, ‘15 Minutes Past The Diamond’, ‘I Move Chickens’, ‘Hurry’, ‘Murder Was The Case’, ‘My Shadow’, and ‘Wasted’ are the audio equivalent of Uniqlo’s gems such as their vintage Chinos, their Parkas from a couple of seasons ago or their underwear, while Gucci’s near-identical 609876 songs where he sounds like Eli Porter with a stuffy nose over sluggish Shawty Redd knock-offs are the masses of Uniqlo belly-shirt sized blank tees and arm’s-too-short-to-box-with-god zip up sweatshirts which turn to shapeless bin bags after 10 minutes of wear that we had to wade through to find anything decent.
So, we dig Gucci on occasion, but now that his ‘The State Vs. Radric Davis’ album sorta flopped and he’s back doin’ porridge, can we all just admit that he’s never been as good as Jeezy and never will be, please? You may think we’re contrarians out for hits from rampant Gucci-defending bloggaz like Brandon Whatshisfaceberg but we got valid reasons, yo :
1. We’re ultimately rap-nerds who value arcane formats like albums or well put-together mixtapes, and Jeezy’s ‘Trap Or Die’ mixtape and ‘Thug Motivation 101’ are genuine modern Southern classics which obliterate Gucci’s three patchy studio albums and 400 digi-mixtapes – which usually offer a three good songs out of twenty ratio – into Son Doobie’s cock sized dust particles.
2. While neither Jeezy or Gucci are what you would call svelte, Jeezy at least has the decency to keep his clothes on and not bare his pot-belly, crusty-nippled saggy pectoral muscles and crap tattoos which look like they were done by Waka Flocka Flame’s ma dukes at any given opportunity. De La may have once urged rappers to Take It Off back in 1989, but we’re on some Please, Mate, Keep Your Fucking Shirt On type shizznit in 2010.
3. In all seriousness we actually have nothing but love for Gucci and any success that may come his way. Hey, we all gotta eat, but no one is exempt from a quality check and, let’s face it, by and large he’s only as good as the beat he’s on, which unfortunately applies to most rappers these days. On the other hand we do despise white middle-class journalists pissing their pants about hood stars who they relate to on the same level they did with Public Enemy’s pro-Black stance back in 1988.
Basically the best track he’s done and even Jeezy stole his moment on this one:
