Ode To DJ Clue

It was September 1996 and I had just begun my sophomore year at Grand Valley State University.  I had a history class and met this guy named Gary.  We started talking about hip-hop and he started talking to me about mixtapes.  Now, I’m from Muskegon, Michigan, went to a school only 30 minutes away and this was before the Internet blew up, so I didn’t know anything about mixtapes.  I remember my boy Shun, who went to Michigan State, let me hear a Bad Boy mixtape, but it was bad quality.  However, I started talking to Gary and he started telling me about mixtapes that were coming out of New York and featured unreleased songs.  He told me about this one DJ, named DJ Clue and he said Clue put out the dopest mixtapes.  Gary was headed to North Carolina to visit family and he said he could grab a couple of mixtapes for me, so I gave him the loot and told him just to make sure he got at least one Clue tape for me.

Gary brought back this Clue tape for me called, 4, 5, 6 (Going For Broke) and to this day, it’s my favorite mixtape of all-time.  It had a Mobb Deep joint on it called Drop A Gem On ‘Em that I had only heard about it in Vibe magazine.  It was Mobb Deep’s response to 2Pac’s diss on Hit ‘Em Up and it hadn’t been released yet.  Just for that fact, I loved the mixtape, but it had a lot of other gems on there such Nas’ Take It In Blood, Lil Kim’s No Time and Capone-N-Noreaga’s Illegal Life.  For the next five years, I would have a love affair with Clue tape’s and I made it a priority to cop every Clue tape that came out.  There was the Show Me the Money series, Clue For President series, the Cluemanatti series and countless others.

In the late 90s, mixtapes weren’t artist driven like they are today, they were DJ driven.  It seemed like each DJ was known for something.  Ron G was nice with the blends, Tony Touch had the scratches and dope turntable techniques, Kayslay was known for showcasing beef between rappers, but Clue had the exclusives and was known for breaking New York artists.  I first heard the Lox, Fabolous, Joe Budden, Stack Bundles and a bunch of other artists from Clue tapes.  I remember hearing Mobb Deep’s Quiet Storm, Puff’s All About The Benjamins and Jay-Z’s People’s Court for the first time on Clue tapes. 

Clue’s success would extend beyond mixtapes because he would sign with Roc-A-Fella records and in 1998 he released his debut compilation album The Professional that would go platinum.  He would later release 3 additional albums, the Backstage soundtrack (2000), The Professional 2 (2000) and The Professional 3 (2006).  His mixtapes connections enabled him to put together solid compilation albums that would feature artists such as Jay-Z, DMX, Fabolous, Noreaga and a long list of noteworthy hip-hop artists.

When you think of some of the greatest mixtape DJs of all-time, Clue has to be included because he was forerunner in revolutionizing the mixtape game.  In my opinion, Clue paved the way for a lot of DJs such as DJ Kay Slay, DJ Envy and DJ Drama.  Clue was also one of the first mixtape DJs to transition successfully to releasing major label albums and music production.  At the end of day though, my love for DJ Clue is for the mixtapes that he blessed us with.  I had an addiction for hip-hop and Clue was the pusher feeding my habit, so to DJ Clue, I owe you a huge debt of gratitude for blessing me with dope music over the years.

Step Your Rap Game Up

If you read XXL magazine, you probably already know what this article is about from the title.  In the magazine, there’s a section titled “Step Your Rap Game Up” where they put a wack lyric from a rapper.  I was listening to some music last week and heard a great lyricist drop a wack lyric and it got me to thinking about how some of the best emcees have dropped wack lyrics from time to time.  Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of 7 wack lyrics that were said by rappers that are considered to be dope lyricists.

Redman – 5 Boroughs

 “My paragraph alone is worth five mics/A twelve song LP, that’s 36 mics.”

Mathematically, I have no idea how this line works.  How many paragraphs are in a song?  Even if there’s only one, if the album has 12 songs and a paragraph is worth 5 mics, that should be 60 mics at a minimum, so where is the 36 coming from?  Redman is one of hip-hop’s most well-known weed heads, so maybe it is true that weed destroys the brain cells.

J. Cole – Dollar and a Dream III

“I let you feel like the s***, but boy, you can’t out-fart me.”

Unless we’re back in elementary, I have no idea why J. Cole is taking pride in out-farting somebody.  I mean, he actually wrote this lyric down and said it on a record.  Where’s the quality control?  Nobody in the studio said anything?  This line represents what happens when an artist surrounds himself with yes-men.

Eminem – Love the Way You Lie

“Now you get to watch her leave out the window/Guess that’s why the call it window pain.”

This was the line that inspired this article.  Every time I hear it, I’m disappointed in Em.  I just want to tell him that I don’t think that’s the reason they call it a windowpane.  I mean, what the hell, he’s supposed to be one of the greatest lyricists of all-time and he says this?  And he says it with such emotion as if we’re supposed to excuse the cheesiness of the line because he sounds pained when he says it. 

Rakim – Paid In Full

“Me and Eric B., and a nice big plate of fish, which is my favorite dish.”

It seems almost blasphemous to include Rakim in this article, but my boy Shun pointed this lyric out to me a few years ago.  I didn’t want to believe it was a wack lyric at the time because it’s Rakim and Rakim is supposed to be the greatest.  I mean really, it’s Rakim, but then when you hear the rhyme.  “A nice big plate of fish, which is my favorite dish.”  This could have been avoided if he had just eaten before he came to the studio.  Then he wouldn’t have been sitting around thinking about the big plate of catfish he was going to get when the session was over.

Jay-Z – Glory

“You’re a child of destiny/You’re the child of my destiny/You’re my child with the child from Destiny’s Child”

Jay released this freestyle shortly after the birth of his daughter so he was probably still emotional over that, so maybe he gets a partial pass for this line, but come on, “You’re my child with the child from Destiny’s Child”?  Didn’t Jay learn from the Super Ugly debacle about what can go wrong when you release emotional freestyles?  It has been my belief that family life has made Jay get lazy with the lyrics and this line is a prime example of that fact.  When Jay has these types of emotional moments in his life, I’m going to need him to start waiting 24 hours before he releases music so that it can go through the quality control process that he’ll be implementing for himself and J. Cole.

Ghostface Killah – Nutmeg

“Scooby snack, Jurassic plastic gas, booby trap/Ten years workin’ for me, you wanna tap s***?/Bung, bung, bung, your bell went rung, rung, rung”

Jay-Z once said, “Cause you don’t understand him, it don’t mean that he nice/It just means you don’t understand all the (mess) that he writes.”  That sums up how I feel about this Ghostface line.  This line is like hearing the adults on Peanuts talk.  I have no idea what he’s talking about.  What is Jurassic plastic gas?  If someone knows, please tell me and I understand that my bell went rung, rung, rung, but what exactly was going bung, bung, bung?

Eminem – Space Bound

“Love is evil.  Spell it backwards, I’ll show ya.”

I almost feel bad for putting Em on this list twice because if I had thought or looked harder, I’m sure I could have found another great lyricist that said something wack, but this line stands out almost as much as the window pain line.  When I spell love backwards, I get evol.  Because it’s Em, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that evil was somewhere in there, but I haven’t been able to find it.  I also think that I may be getting dumber as I age, because I swear it seems like I try to spell love backwards every time I hear the rhyme and each time, I come up with evol.

So that's 7 wack lyrics by otherwise dope emcees.  I know there are a lot more than that floating out there, so if you can think of any, let me know.  Until next time…peace

My Intro To Let U Know

Welcome everyone.  This is my first official blog.  I think every now and then, I would attempt to start a blog a few years ago, but never stuck with it.  However, this time it is a class requirement and I’m hoping it’ll turn into something that I’ll stick with even after the class ends. 

I was told to blog about something that I’m passionate about and the first thing that came to mind was hip-hop.  I remember in the movie Brown Sugar, Sidney’s first question to interviewees was “When did you fall in love with hip-hop?”  My answer would’ve been 1990 when I was 13.  Before then, I was just in “like” mode with hip-hop.  I remember my older brother playing LL, Beastie Boys and Kool Moe Dee, but I remember the first hip-hop tape I bought was Digital Underground’s Sex Packets and after that I became obsessed with hip-hop.

As I’ve gotten older though, my passion for hip-hop has remained, but it’s had its fair share of ups and downs.  When I was younger, I swore I would always be into hip-hop and would stay on top of the new artists.  I turned 37 recently though and I feel like I’ve turned into some of the older people I used to criticize.  The ones that always cry about the good ole days of music.  Sort of like Steve Harvey’s crybaby rant in the Original Kings of Comedy when he talked about why he couldn’t get into hip-hop because they didn’t talk about anything. 

I cussed Steve Harvey out for that rant and now I’m the one sitting around criticizing today’s hip-hop artists, but I swear the music today isn’t as good as when I came of age in the 90s.  I had Wu-Tang, Biggie, Pac, Tribe Called Quest, Redman and the list goes on.  Now my nieces and nephews are stuck with Wacka Flocka, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne.  Don’t get me wrong though, there are some dope artists out there now like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, so hip-hop’s not entirely dead like some people would believe.

Don’t worry though, not all of my blogs are going to be about trashing the current state of hip-hop.  Part of my purpose for this blog is take you back to the 90s era of hip-hop as I reminisce on what it meant to me, but I also want to give some shine to some of the artists that I think are carrying on the tradition that I fell in love with.  I know we won’t agree on everything, but I hope this blog entertains you and please feel free to contact me with any comments, criticisms, suggestions, etc.

One last thing, for those that don’t know, the title of the blog was inspired by Common’s song from 1994 titled I Used To Love H.E.R.  With H.E.R. standing for “Hip-hop in its Essence and Real”.  Peep the video.