Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
Every now and then, MTV or BET will play an old video that gets me nostalgic and sends me running to my cd collection to see if I have a copy of that album. That scenario played itself out last night when one of the MTV channels played Cru's Bubblin', and I went looking for my copy of Da Dirty 30. Severely underrated album -- lyrics come up a little short, but the production holds up well 9 years after its release.
Anyway, this post isn't about CRU (maybe sometime in the future I'll get around to that subject), but about a sad fact I realized after going through most of my cassettes and cds: For every Reasonable Doubt or Straight Outta Compton that I own, there is a Dazzey Duks or Shyheim album acting as its tone deaf counterpart in my collection. Now, don't get me wrong -- even with the very worst of the albums that I own I can find some redeeming quality about it that will make me play it at least for a minute or two. Still, there are some albums that I've bought that I just don't have a good excuse for owning, and that make me cringe whenever someone accidently discovers them hidden among my cds.
So here are 5 of the most inexcusable hip hop albums that I own (I have a lot more than 5, but for now we'll stick with these):
5)The Wonderful World Of Cease A Leo / Lil Cease. Its not that this is all that bad of an album -- its a fairly generic album representative of what Puffy and the Hitmen were producing in the mid to late 90's. The real problem is when I have to explain why I own a cd that has a cover photo that looks like something from a very bad male porno (uh, not that I've ever seen one of those), with Cease oiled up, naked and with a big grin on his face.
4)The Riddler (cd single) / Method Man. I own damn near every cd that has even the slightest connection to Wu-Tang. Killarmy, Sunz of Man, GP Wu, ODB the Roc-A-Fella years, whatever, I got it. The one Wu-related cd I own that causes me shame is this promo cd from the movie Batman Forever. Meth dropping rhymes from the point of view of Batman's archvillain The Riddler while slipping in a few P.L.O. and 5 Percenter references? A RZA beat that samples the 60's Batman tv show? This is a show stopper when it comes up in the cd rotation.
3)Can't Nobody Hold Me Down (Remix) / Puff Daddy (cd single). There was a point in the late 90's when I was copping Bad Boy cassingles like it was an addiction. Every single that Bad Boy put out, regardless of which rapper it was, had at least two obscure remixes to go along with it and I made it my mission to find them all. Fortunately, my addiction was cured after seeing Puffy rap over a Led Zeppelin sample with Godzilla chasing him through the streets of NY, but by then it was too late. Every time someone hears this pseudo-techno remix, which Puffy put out right about the time he was producing his never-released electronica album, I have some explaining to do. I still think the beat is kind of dope, but as far as I know I am the only one who holds that opinion.
2)Rule 3:36 (Clean Version) / Ja Rule. Not only does my street cred take a hit for owning this cd, but even worse its a version with the curse words bleeped out. When I bought the album, I didn't even bother to check for the "Parental Advisory" warning sticker, so I had no idea I was about to listen to some pop rap clean enough for even a 4 year old to listen to. When I played the cd and realized my mistake, there was no way I was going back to the store to explain that I wanted to exchange a Ja Rule edited cd for the Explicit version. I still had some pride left. As for why I actually bought the album in the first place....well, Ja Rule's first album is actually decent and I figured his follow up album wouldn't be too bad. Wrong.
1)Street Fighter The Movie Soundtrack (cassette) / various artists. This is the album that gets me laughed at the most, hands down. This album is actually a good metaphor for my music collection: while it has great rappers like Nas, Chuck D, Paris, Ice Cube and Ras Kass on it, it also has appearances by Ahmad, The B.U.M.s and a collabo between MC Hammer and Deion Sanders! Ice Cube dropping references to Dhalsim and Ryu? Not a good look. Way back in the day, I made a mixtape on a cassette that originally had a dub of the SF Soundtrack on it. One of my boys was over and I had the mixtape playing when all of a sudden the mix cut out and the Ahmad verse from one of the Street Fighter tracks cut in. Every time this dude wants to clown me, even today, 10 years later, all he has to say is "You got a mixtape with motherfucking Ahmad on it" and that's the end of that.
Here's the Ahmad track:
Ahmad, Ras Kass and Saafir
Unrelated: AOL customer attempts to cancel his AOL account. If you've ever had to deal with AOL at any point in your life, no doubt you will have gone through something similar to this.
6/22/2006 8:32:48 AM posted by Fresh