Welcome to this week's installment of "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em," where, as always, Sammy Skrilla and Birdgang bring you their finest recommendations from hip-hop's dusty vaults. So sit back, check it out and, as Redman once said, "Light your spliffs up and let the funk be your guiding light."
If you like what you read, don't forget to tune in to WVAU every Thursday night from 10 p.m. to midnight to hear Skrilla and Birdgang spinning all their choicest hip-hop cuts on "Stunts, Blunts and Hip-Hop."
Birdgang's Pick Big L, "The Big Picture" Rawkus Records (1997)
Big L Corleone is simply one of the most ridiculous battle rappers to ever step onto a stage. On this album, "The Big Picture," he does nothing without insulting skill. Whether telling a lyrical gangsta fairytale or freestyling segments that could shame most emcees, L says it best: "I leave mics torn."
L is unquestionably remembered for his freestyle ability, as he says, "Always dropping a poem/I can write it or recite it off the top of the dome." He was also a Harlem slang aficionado, and there's a track on this album called "Ebonics," where he breaks it all down and spells it out nicely for you.
Big L was at his finest with his shit-talking on this album. His on-the-spot flows are better than what most can write. "Fuck all the glamour and glitz, I plan to get rich/I'm from New York but never was a fan of the Knicks/And I'm all about expanding my chips/You mad cause I was in a van with your bitch, with both hands on her." And if you can really handle it, "Before I buck lead/And make a lot of blood shed, turn your tux red/I'm far from broke, got enough bread/And mad hoes, ask Beavis, I get nothing Butt-head."
Ultimately, Big L was a masterful lyricist who maintained one of the quickest tongues in the East. Unfortunately, he is one of the many who crossed death's path sooner than expected. L was shot and killed by someone who thought he was shooting L's older brother, Big Leroy. But an unforgettable character he was. "What's this motha' fucking rap game without L?/That's like jewels without ice, China without rice, or the holy Bible without Christ/It's like the Bulls without Mike and crack heads without pipes/The village without dykes or hockey games without fights." How right he is.
Skrilla's Pick Das EFX, "Dead Serious" EastWest Records (1992)
Stop. Before you even think of dropping in on Das EFX, there are two moves you must make. One: "Yabba doo hippity hoo crack a brew," and two: "Figgity fee fi fo fum stunt light a blunt." Now you're ready.
Now you're prepared for the Das EFX duo, MC's Skoob and Krayzie Drayzie, for whom in 1992 no hip-hop listener was prepared. Indeed, Das blows both speakers and minds on their debut, "Dead Serious," and they do it all by simply spitting playful rhymes over funked-out beats.
Skoob and Drayzie's boundless imagination is the key to Das EFX's sound. On this album, both MCs stiggity stutter their way through verse after verse of pop-culture infused lyrical wild-style. On "Jusammen," for example, Skoob boasts, "I got more flavors than a pack on Now and Laters/Beg your pardon, Mr. Keebler, but I love Vanilla Wafers," while on "East Coast" Drayzie challenges uncreative rappers to "check the slang, boogity bang, umm I goes berserk/When I flex like Popeye, I fight like Cap'n Kirk/So Bozo, I'm knockin' em out the box by the pair/High strung, my tongue, got moves like Fred Astaire." And that's not all. Skoob and Krayzie Drayzie do not let up lyrically until the record stops spinning. They "Miggity makes 'em rock like Mr. Gillespie makes 'em dizzy."
At first, this approach to MCing seems nonsensical and silly. And it is, but in an important and absolutely wonderful way. Listening to "Dead Serious," one can literally hear Skoob and Drayzie tearing apart and then rewriting the MC rulebook. Unlike MC's today, they are not rappers trying to be something they're not. Instead, Das EFX is cleverly reminding the hip-hop world of something it seems to have forgotten: Hip-hop is anything you want it to be. Oh yeah, and that they've got "more skills than John Han got cock"
