Uncle L drops 2 songs in the lil clip here. This is from his famous Mtv Unplugged episode. You remember the one where L looked like a walking Old spice commercial “Residue is Evil”. He starts this one out with his clothes on kicking a slowed down version of “Jingling Baby” followed up with a hyped crowd aided rendition of “Mama Said Knock You Out”.
Rap City used to be pretty live! Are there even live performances on it these days?
The things that I like about this video are as follows:
1. They filmed it at night. A lot of the best Rap City performances were in the afternoon before shows, but this performance has a different, darker vibe. The video for this song was mostly daytime shots too, but they do have a night shot that makes a couple quick edits in the video. I like the way it sets off the Attic beat, just fits the mood.
2. The crew is always in the shot. This was an early Much staple and I always wonder if they enjoyed the music or even felt comfortable being in the middle of an impromptu rap video? It’s a great contrast either way.
3. Infinite! He wasn’t in the group for that long but he clearly had a big role in this particular performance. He just jumps off the tables and grabs the mic to kick his verse with youthful energy. What’s up with a reunion fellas? Attic still has beats! I did like the Infinite song on the newest Rich Kidd mixtape so he’s still circulating. Where are Quadro and Dolo?
4. Their camouflage kits. They are wearing similar joints in the video, you know that wasn’t a stylist getting their outfits. That was some Yonge St military surplus for sure and they were keeping that look consistent.
I hope that the recent energy and attention towards the music scene in Toronto helps motivate the elder statesmen like Ghetto Concept to leak out some new tunes, even old music we never heard. We have videos and audio for days, but there’s probably so many songs that never saw the light of day. Hit us up. Toronto, stand up!
Spike Lee is probably best known by the current generation of hip hop fans as the little dude that sits courtside at the Knicks games. But, at the time of Do The Right Thing’s release, there wasn’t a bigger director in the world. The message the movie conveyed along with the film’s main song Fight the Power hitting the world like a ton of bricks AND his Mars Blackman commercials, helped catapult Spike into another stratosphere. This video clip here is actually 3 different segments merged together. Fab 5 takes the lead again here, breaking a little PE news as well as getting Spike’s feelings on the 2 Live Crew’s Free Speech court battle.
Fab 5 is hangin with the N.W.A boys “EFIL4ZAGGIN” style. They give a comical response to Freddy bringing up Ice Cube’s name. Later in the clip F cubed is cold lampin in the pick up with the group as they film the “100 Miles and Runnin” video. Take notice of Dre and how much he has “matured” in front of the camera since these days. What’s that word Fab is droppin that Mtv doesn’t allow today?
Haha Fab 5 Freddy was always droppin the street lingo, “Forward ever, backward never”. My man is always layin down the catch phrases. Some slammin guest appearances in the clip especially when Fred shows you the new school, up and coming artists who all turned out to be the early 90’s biggest hip hop stars.
Humpty tries his best to convince T-Money that Who’s the Man is a movie based on his life. T tries to get Hump back on track by asking about upcoming events for Digital Underground, but the conversation quickly deteriorates back tomfoolery.
Ice-T talks about the roles he tries to choose when acting. Guess Law & Order had to pay the bills? Looks to be from the time of Trespass .
Run DMC circa “Down with the King” time period. How many times do you think the group appeared on Yo!?
Fab 5 Freddy meets up with D-Nice to help promote his 2nd album “To tha Rescue”. I think it gets lost that he was a big time producer for Boogie Down Productions and even produced the Stop the Violence anthem “Self Destruction” . D now is a photographer and DJ.
This vid is from a period right after “Kill At Will” came out. I was a little bit surprised to hear Ice Cube talking about his life while growing up. Turns out that he was pretty much a suburban kid. Cube and a few other members of the Lench Mob smack the crowd in the face on the stage show section of this segment. If you can over look the quality and the little bit of french narration, this is a nice little clip. I think the quality suffered due to a PAL to NTSC conversion.
In 1991, Motown rap artist, MC Trouble, dies in her sleep from complications due to a seizure. This event brought some of the top female rap acts of 1992, together for a Pay Per View event. Fab is visiting with the ladies of “Sisters In the Name of Rap”. He talks with Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Yo-Yo, Latifah about MC Trouble and how empowering it is to be such a large event celebrating females rappers.
