100 Mandatory Golden Era Hip Hop Tracks By Order of the Inquisition: #11-20
Your tired, obvious throwback playlist has been purged from Imperial records.
Below: Writeups for tracks 11-20. (Xtra thanks to Glyxphagor the Executioner)
11. Super Cat, “Ghetto Red Hot (Hip Hop Mix)”
You can play around with the original dancehall version if you want, but this is the joint. Full of well-traveled samples, but whoever remixed this made it feel more like a hot, hair-trigger night in the Kingston slums than the original producer did. One of my fave head-bobbers and most hypnotic city driving songs.
12. 2 Live Crew, “Move Somethin’”
Miami Bass still rules. Rudy Ray Moore samples and scratches, filthy rhymes and possibly the hottest bridge in hip hop outside of Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads.” RIP Fresh Kid Ice, who, with the possible exception of MC Hammer, had one of the weakest pen games and lamest delivery of any major US rapper ever. Pour one out for him anyway.
13. Heavy D feat. Absolutely Fucking Everybody, “Don’t Curse”
Still the #1 crew joint of all time: Pete Rock, CL Smooth, Heavy D (RIP), Grand Puba, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G. Rap, Phife Dawg (RIP) and Q-Tip, all putting their own twist on the theme of making a big party record without dropping any cusswords in their bars. Cue Booker T and the MGs sample and go. A great day in hip hop.
14. Ultramagnetic MCs, “Break North”
Frankly, this whole album (Critical Beatdown) is break-out-the-beers-and-just-play-it-all worthy. I came to it in 2008 and it still gets better every time I hear it. Rapper/producer Ced Gee allegedly apprenticed with BDP’s Scott LaRock (RIP) and applied his newfound chops to...this hyperactive, hard-hitting tableau of freewheeling creative violence. I love “Break North” because the beat is SO DAMN TOUGH. Ced Gee’s verses always get overshadowed by Kool Keith and the way he patiently laces his bizarre rhymes over Ced’s big, big tracks. This album never hit it big, but it’s baked into hip hop’s DNA and everybody knows it.
15. Roxanne Shante, “Go On Girl”
A blistering challenge to the world from the Queen of MCs, propelled by a properly minimal and catchy track. That voice and cadence make it feel like you picked the wrong one to jaw at on the subway platform and now you’re getting roasted in front of your whole squad. Before all the perfunctory, inflatable gun molls du jour, there was Shante. After they are all forgotten, there will be Shante. (She was aligned with the Juice Crew during the Bridge Wars and did a pretty killer diss track of KRS-ONE, too.)
16. Digital Underground, “The Way We Swing”
“The Humpty Dance” will forever brand them as a novelty act to the filthy casual, but these dudes were hella fun on the mic and absolute monsters in the studio. Sex Packets was the chief piece of evidence that the West Coast wasn’t all Jheri curls and Uzis; a deep, rich soundscape heavily propelled by Funkadelic samples and a hedonistic, witty spirit. “The Way We Swing” lets Humpty’s alter ego, Shock G, do his (somewhat goofy) warning shot to MCs who don’t take them seriously, all built on licks from “Who Knows” off Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. If you’re not wide open by the time DJ Fuze’s scratch solo hits, you’re beyond help.
17. Gang Starr, “Code of the Streets”
Sometimes an MC can project invincible authority and intelligence on the mic without being lyrically flashy. That was Guru (RIP). One of your finer Golden Age duos here. Production and turntable legend DJ Premier pairs a catchy string sample with a snapping beat and some entertaining frisson in the form of a high-pitched scratch on the chorus. Like almost everything Guru and Premier did, it’s pure, studiously uncomplicated and wildly effective.
18. Public Enemy, “Shut Em Down (Pete Rock Remix)”
Apocalypse ‘91...The Enemy Strikes Black was the last of a four-album run that had kept PE front of mind, but it’s still PE, so we’re talking degrees of awesome here. Not sure if the Bomb Squad was still producing them by the time this platter came out, but whoever shelved their ego and let Pete Rock have a go at reinterpreting “Shut Em Down” deserves a fucking medal. “Pete Rock Remix,” roughly translated, means “Way hotter than your original.”
19. Original Concept, “Charlie Sez”
Despite being on the white-hot Dej Jam imprint and having some built-in star power from Dr. Dre (the East Coast one from Yo! MTV Raps), Original Concept never made much of a splash. But, as they will remind you on this track, they did have two DJs. An accent cut or a scratch on the chorus? Fuck that. How about we let both of them go off for the WHOLE SONG? The results speak for themselves.
20. The D.O.C., “Lend Me an Ear”
Dr. Dre (the West Coast one) discovered The D.O.C. in Texas and produced his solo album, No One Can Do It Better, in ‘89. He crushed his vocal chords in a drunk driving accident not long after (and is relegated to croaking over skits in The Chronic), but he can always point to the day that Dre put his vocals over a stack of dynamite, wrapped them in C4, put them on a nuclear warhead, stuffed it all in the trunk of a ‘64 Impala and suicide-bombed it right down your earhole. Dre must have woke up mad the day he mixed this. It’s incredible.