Record collection recollections - rap special
(some lovely little numbers)
I don’t know about you but I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time watching other people eating food on Youtube. And not even particularly smart people either. These aren’t esteemed gourmands offloading their expertise, more chancers who have somehow conjured the millionth version of the same idea and made it fly. Going to the same places that’ve been visited umpteen times then taking a big bite of something highly instagrammable and chewing it slowly. Eyes widen, a face of pseudo-erotic confusion emerges as if experiencing the horn for the first time ever. A bit of groaning then some effusive words/noises about whatever alchemy they’ve just experienced at the hands of a piece of brisket/slice of pizza/cheeseburger. If they’ve got a sandwich they might even flaunt its ‘cross section’ to demonstrate a brand of ‘food reveal’ that feels dangerously close to pornography, almost like they’re parting some legs (gross) - in fact, were I of a Freudian bent I’d probably suggest that something very Freudian was going on. But that’s for others to chew over.
It definitely feels icky though. In the same way the word ‘patty’ is almost impossible to say without needing a shower afterwards.
I suppose the point being that these online feasts are entirely addictive, easy to binge on, but ultimately devoid of anything at all. A new phenomenon that celebrates the bizarre art of watching other people enjoy life for you. Actual porn has been at it for years, trading in vicarious sex, but now it’s fanned outwards into increasingly mundane areas of existence. Driving, eating lunch, trying on shoes. I wonder how long it’ll be before we’re all in bunkers transfixed by clips of people breathing fresh air.
Anyway, yes it’s a somewhat flimsy link (I’ll concede that), but it’s a link nonetheless that leads to this week’s post celebrating more great finds from record shops that, importantly, happened in real life. That involved standing up and leaving the house. Being out there in the world. And the theme for this little batch... great raps.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
Purchased from Avid Records (RIP) in Oxford, I love early rap albums because it was a music that hadn’t found its feet yet, a monster that’d yet to be fully formed. So on those early Grandmaster Flash and Sugarhill Gang LPs you’d also get genuinely excellent soul or boogie tracks interspersed with anthems that went on to encompass an entire musical movement. On the first Sugarhill album there was Passion Play before Rapper’s Delight, and here you’ve got the Stevie Wonder pastiche of Dreamin’ before the genre defining social commentary of The Message.
Bahamadia - Kollage
There have been some incredible female rappers (who, you could argue, are also just rapper-rappers) down the years. Yo-Yo, she doesn’t get enough props, Lady of Rage, Ladybug from Digable Planets. All underrated. Tanya Winley, daughter of Super Disco Brakes legend Paul, whose ‘Vicious Rap’ might be the first ever female (or even, if you can imagine this, male) rap record. But the one with the best flow if you ask this guy (which is me) is/was Bahamadia. Unless my memory is lying to me, which is entirely possible, I picked this album up from Purple Penguin in Bristol in the mid-1990s, which was the kind of record shop you’d nip into for a quick look before emerging four hours later with no more overdraft, nor the shirt on your back.
Camp Lo - Uptown Saturday Night
I bought this, genuinely my second favourite rap record of all time, on the back of hearing their hit single Lucini AKA This is It on The Box. For anyone who doesn’t remember it, The Box was a student staple, essentially a televised jukebox (hence ‘The Box’) on satellite TV. You’d call in, you’d enter the number of the video you wanted to see and you’d wait, and wait and then wait some more - and then just as you were passing out from exhaustion/weed, it’d appear right in front of your very eyes! Tracks like Lucini, Runnin’ by The Pharcyde, Watch What You Say by Guru and Chaka Khan. All purchased on the back of The Box. Though it must also be noted that my abiding memory is of Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio and Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre playing on loop for months. To the point where I can barely even say the word ‘box’ these days without conjuring images of old man Andre bogling in a lagoon.
Brand Nubian - One For All
The year was 1997, the place was Finsbury Park, the event was the ‘Roots Day’ (part of the Essential Weekender), which featured greats like Lee Scratch Perry, Gil Scott Heron (strung out), Mad Professor, and Gilles Peterson on the ones and twos. But the highlight for me by far was catching De La Soul, The Jungle Brothers and Brand Nubian all performing together onstage AT THE SAME TIME. Probably the rap equivalent of seeing Blur, Pulp and Supergrass forming an impromptu band for the afternoon, or Brandy and Ashanti getting onstage with Samantha Mumba in 2001, or if The Libertines and The Kooks and The Kaiser Chiefs did a thing (can you even imagine??). Point is, the next week I immediately went in search of this record. And I duly found it!
Various - America Is Dying Slowly
Weirdly, for a while there my favourite Wu-Tang track wasn’t on any of their albums but instead on this HIV/AIDS awareness compilation from the late 90s that I’d got from Our Price. Top preaching from the Killah Priest, featuring a sample from one of my favourite ever soul tracks, Let’s Straighten it Out. .
Souls of Mischief - Get the Girl Grab the Money and Run
Key components of the Hieroglyphics crew from California, there’s an argument that Souls of Mischief could’ve become the best combination of lyricists of all time, all distinctive and all (you suspect) secretly competing to deliver the maddest rhymes. Like so many who came along in the late 80s and early 90s, you get the sense that they arrived on the scene too soon and never entirely got their dues - to the point where they had to dabble in NORMAL JOBS - but if you look at them now, they’ve aged like a fine wine. And this record comes courtesy of one of the country’s many fine charity shops. Set me back all of about a pound.
Common - Like Water for Chocolate
It’s not quite the best album Common ever made (Be is probably the one), but it’s the first hip hop album I bought on the back of seeing it performed live the night before - when Common came to the Jazz Cafe in 2000, with the excellent soul star Bilal in tow. To this day it might be one of the best hip hop shows I’ve ever seen. Which mightn’t be saying much being that rap shows, particularly around then, were generally disappointing. Always dogged by tricky sound systems, tired rappers phoning it in for a UK audience. But not Common, Common did as Common does, which is to somehow give it 200% every single time. Next day I stepped into HMV on Oxford Street to part with around 15 entire quids.
Kool G Rap & DJ Polo - Streets of New York
Bought, I’m pretty sure, at the Music and Video Exchange on Berwick Street in Soho that used to be part of a relay of record shops that’d be visited every pay day. I’d go to Reckless, Selectadisc, Daddy Kool, and the Music and Video Exchange, inevitably spending far more than I could afford and heading home with excitement masking the sweaty chill of inevitability, knowing deep down that I was less than a fortnight away from needing to scavenge for sustenance. Thankfully tracks like this one, by the third or fourth greatest (male) MC ever (IMHO), just about made it worthwhile.
Next time: what the hell are these?
