Old Shit Sunday

So, my pal and former partner in DJ-crime Vivian -- aka DJ Aunt Viv -- has been asking for song suggestions for an old-school hip-hop night she's doing in Busan, South Korea. (That's right, my homegirl's gone global.)

This inspired me to do a post of some of my favourite classic hip-hop tracks. Now, I realize that these songs aren't "old-school" hip-hop. In fact, they are part of hip-hop's "Golden Era," and were referred to as "new-school" hip-hop at the time. I'd also like to point out that if you're getting all uptight about the use of the term "old-school" to refer to hop-hop of the post Def Jam-era, you need to learn to relax.

1) "Spellbound" - K-Solo (1990)

K-Solo came to prominence as part of The Hit Squad, the crew of EPMD protegés that included Keith Murray, Das EFX, and most notably, Redman.

He had two moderate hit albums between 1990 and '92, then largely dropped off the face of the Earth for about six years. In 1998, DMX inadvertently forced him out of retirement.

At some point in the late '80s, the Darkman and K-Solo did time together. While in jail, they both battled each other and rhymed together. According to DMX, he gave K-Solo the idea of putting spelling into his rhymes while they were doing time together. Solo got out first, and recorded "Spellbound." Four years later, X released a song of the same title. In 1998, X had his first hit, "Get at Me Dog," where he told K-Solo to "suck [his] dick" for biting his idea. Solo responded with an mixtape track called "The Answer Back," DMX's big-label backing meant that Darkman effectively had the last word.



2) "Come Clean" - Jeru the Damaja (1994)

Jeru the Damaja is one of my favourite rappers of the Golden Era. His first two albums are sheer genius. If you haven't heard The Sun Rises in the East or Wrath of the Math, do yourself a favour and get a hold of both of those albums now.

Like K-Solo, Jeru came up by riding the coattails of an established hip-hop act, in this case Gang Starr. Gang Starr's DJ Premier did most of the production work on his first two albums, including "Come Clean," where Primo sampled the sound of a leaking faucet, then distorted it to make the sound you hear in the song.

At his best, Jeru managed to seamlessly blend anti-gangsta conscious-rap, Five Percenter theology -- although Jeru identifies himself not as a Five Percenter, but as a member of the Ausar Auset Society -- and straight stream of consciousness.

Later in his career, Jeru would part ways with Gang Starr, and the quality of his work would diminish as a result. (2003's Divine Design was straight-up mediocre.) But his first two albums have stood the test of time, and his performance at 2004's Toronto Hip-Hop Peace and Unity Festival was one of the best live hip-hop shows I've ever seen.



3) "Passin' Me By" - The Pharcyde (1992)

This song stands on its own. I'm just going to shut up.