For many rap fans, myself included, the ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’ album represents the zenith for recorded music. It’s a cinematic tour de force that has not been matched since.
JOELL ORTIZ takes a mix pf OB4CL beats and creates this freestyle…
JOELL ORTIZ – OB4CL Tribute
Enjoy the Captain’s Soul Boogie Bar-B-Que as you head into your weekend cookouts.
And don’t forget to save him some ribs and potato salad.
When the majority of folks think of rock music and hair bands their minds turn to groups like Whitesnake, Poison or Def Leppard. No one really considers that one of rock music’s greatest Wig Owners of all time is actually Prince. You can’t tell me that Prince doesn’t play rock music. And you certainly can’t argue that Prince doesn’t own hell’a wigs either.
Thanks to the magic of YouTube we can reminisce today on all of the great Wig Brushers that have become owners themselves under the tutelage of Prince.
Morris Day and The Time
The Time was the gold standard for Wig Brushers. These brothers threads were so mean and their basslines were so focused. The band’s percussionist (read: weedcarrier) even sported a bald head so you know he had to be thorough when it came time to get his brush on. A few years ago I saw the Time perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in honor of the 20th anniversary of the film ‘Purple Rain’. The band was still tight as fuck and Morris Day’s doo was fried, dyed and laid to the side, but the entire audience lost their shit when Jerome pulled out the mirror.
BTW, Jerome = one of the greatest Wig Brushers of all time.
Only a group as awesome as the Time could have inspired this fantastically awful karaoke perfomance.
This is how that song should have sounded…
‘Fishnet’
Alexander O’Neal
Alexander O’Neal definitely had the chops to sing but I don’t think he had the temperament to brush wigs properly so Prince ended up taking back his wigs. O’Neal would still manage to get a wig with some help from other members of the Time. Peep the video for the classic jam ‘Fake’. You can see that O’Neal wasn’t too adept at keeping his own wig straight.
Mazarati
How could these fools NOT be a hair band? Their album cover lets you know from the gate what they are coming into the game as. Prince’s OG wig brushing homey Brown Mark formed this group and they managed to crank out a couple of hits, notably ‘100 MPH’ and ‘Player’s Ball’.
Klymaxx
Everyone knows that Appolonia 6 and Vanity 6 were Prince’s wig brushing ladies, but Klymaxx was an all girls band produced by former Wig Brushers turned Wig Owners Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Klymaxx dropped several hits like the classic slow jam ‘I Miss U’ and ‘Meeting In The Ladies Room’. Klymaxx was fierce for real. Think of them as the female version of the Time. As chauvinistic as Morris Day was is as sassy as Bernadette Cooper gould get. Her ad libs are ridiculous. I give these ladies the most credit however for having the prescience to create their futuristic “No Homo” anthem titled ‘The Men All Pause’. [ll].
‘The Men All Pause’
‘Meeting In The Ladies Room’
*Universal Music disabled the embed codes for these broads videos. Wig Brushers be having a hard time recouping. Heaven forbid some people might actually get to see these videos that were produced. I found a low quality joint though. Eff it, let’s rock.
CAMEO
Seriously speaking, how could these negroes NOT go down as one of the all time great hair bands?!? These fools have a hairstyle named AFTER them. Show me a band called the Mullets!?! True story is that CAMEO were official Wig Owners. There was even dance called the Cameo Slide. These brothers were trendsetters in music and fashion. Thank GOD that the thighboots and the candy apple red codpiece never caught on. Word up to that.
‘Back And Forth’
‘Attack Me With Your Love’ (LP version)
History is a motherfucking trip. You can learn some shit that just freaks your mind. You will walk around madder than a motherfucker for the rest of the day if you have a brain. That is how I felt after leaving the Weeksville Heritage Center. The site contains so many memories for me it’s hard to enumerate all of them.
Megatron was shot in the head on Buffalo Avenue and Bergen Street.
On Bergen Street and Ralph Avenues is this well guarded complex for poor kids with mental disability. The shit is clearly a prison.
A few months back when I was visiting Rumble and Headstrong, we were accosted by police officers, all Black and all younger than we are, directly across the street from Weeksville in the Kingsboro Houses. As is my custom I let my smart mouth reminisce with these officers about the story passed down from my elders that it was greedy Africans who delivered the Blacks to the shores of Goree Island, and it was equally greedy Blacks who upon arrival to this land would act as whipcrackers to the plantation owners. The idea was that some Blacks couldn’t wait to get the whips in their hands as opposed to their hands on the whips. The cops weren’t impressed. I’m lucky I wasn’t arrested.
Weeksville resides on what was the border of “civilzation” for the occupiers settlers that came to the Americas. Blacks were encouraged to settle these tracts of land because they provided a buffer between the indigenous people and the Europeans. The Dutch needed the Blacks to make the area safe and habitable. The idea was that the Blacks would deal with the savages until a time when the land was cleared and arable. Then the Europeans would have the Blacks evicted and forced to settle elsewhere.
Fuck around and the 1700’s has become the 2000’s. Blacks are being evicted from the lands again to make room for the European(and midwestern) settlers. When people tell you that history will repeat itself they ain’t never lie. The photo above is of the high rise portion of the Kingsboro houses. Twenty five stories positioned on less than acre of land. Forty acres and a mule has become a New York Housing Authority apartment and a Cadillac Escalade. Just like the land agreements granted to Native Americans were surreptitiously altered I won’t be caught sleeping when these deals are changed as well.
Now, more than ever, I am determined to find a homestead in Brooklyn. The historical relevance at stake is too great. Freedom was never for free. Thanks to Dr. SHERILL D. WILSON for her history lesson of New York City that preceded the GAME Rebellion concert.
GAME REBELLION gets focused on the job at hand.
Family always comes first. GAME REBELLION is for the kids.
These dudes rock.
GAME REBELLION will be part of the Afro Punk festivals Wednesday night stage show and you can still copp their mixtape ‘Searching For Rick Rubin‘ online at iMeem.
Biggup to Immortal Technique.
I have to give Immortal Technique mad credit for releasing ‘The Third World’ album. After some of the shit he spit on that disk there is no way a major label will be able to touch him. He willfully made himself an industry pariah. I hope it pays off for him in the long run by giving him a loyal fanbase to perform in front of.
Fuck album sales in today’s world anyhoo. Artists don’t get shit from that retail sale. What the artist had already is a fan that was serious enough to consume their art from a retail pricepoint. Artists need shows to get that money in their pocket. I check for one of my favorite rappers, Joell Ortiz, to see when he is performing in New York City. Then I go out and attend his show.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t buy records either because record sales will tell the t.I.’s whose music should be distributed on a grand scale. This doesn’t always mean that the best music will be broadcast to the most people. The underground scene in Hip-Hop has a greater percentage of lyricists than does the mainstream movement. However promoting lyrics in rap has become something akin to selling cod liver oil fruit punch.
Immortal Technique, and even Joell Ortiz now since his separation from Aftermath Records, are part of the underground scene in Hip-Hop which is seeing a revitalization. It isn’t as full blown as it was in the early 90s, but it is getting there. Part of the reason is because of the two rappers I just mentioned. Master lyricists attract a higher caliber fanbase than do pop music artists. The fan that takes out their time to study and memorize lyrics will support their favorite artists through many seasons.
Immortal Technique deals with some hardcore themes on his latest project. He isn’t just spitting fire on the corruption of our government and the countless conspiracies they have set in motion to keep the poor disenfranchised. Im Tech is punching rappers in the nose as well when he tells them that “Jaob is a jeweler, he ain’t your friend.” There’s a lot of real talk on this album that too many rap fans today are allergic to. Im Tech got that Claritin bitches.
Between the NaS mixtape and Immortal Technique’s new project Green Lantern has positioned himself as the next great producer for lyricists. A new millenium Preemo. The beats on ‘The Third World’ are classic head nod boom bap rhythms. I almost want to copp a pair of those headphones that surround my skull like a helmet so I can go into these tracks completely without a peep from the outside. This album is an all-time underground manifesto. Poison Pen even features on this joint and you already know his steez.
I also dig that Immortal Technique can rap about real world economics like property ownership and the agriculture industry. I will avoid giving him the label as the ‘thinking man’s rapper’ and instead I will call him the ‘acting man’s rapper’. Too many people think but don’t act. Immortal Technique’s ‘The Third World’ is the soundtrack or all of you motherfuckers who decide to get up, get out there and do something.
A lot of motherfuckers claim they fear nothing, but then they don’t challenge something. Nothing isn’t a challenge. Something is. Challenge something. Change the world.
But first, declare your independence.