“hip hop” DOES have six letters in it, so…

this one came from shane yesterday…

…and may have fit better than he planned.

he sent me an article on the smithsonian dropping a NINE cd set next year on hip-hop. the article was purposely skewed against one particular song rumored to be included, and while the 120 song playlist is supposedly “under wraps” (pun intended? i’m quoting the article using that phrase) the washington post took a break from trump bashing to leak six songs they found out about. six. not five or seven. so, yeah…this had to happen:

(listed in the order they appear in the article)

ll cool j – i need love – this was, i will admit, technically the first rap ballad ever to hit the radio, so i see a bit of cultural significance here. that being said, the song is weak as shit and nowhere NEAR a track cool james should be remembered for. he did much stronger shit, even on the album this was on. i’d have much preferred “i’m that type of guy”, which didn’t even make his greatest hits collection, but WAS a single off that album and a much better track with a great bassline. “i’m the type of guy to leave my drawers in your hamper”

public enemy – fight the power – cut for spike lee’s seminal cinematic opus “do the right thing” and included on “fear of a black planet” this is one of several cuts from PE i love and for the social statement it made then (and still makes now) i’d have been pissed if this was left off the collection. a quick side note: the smithsonian has done this with other musical genres; the delta blues box came out while i was working at sundance in the 1990’s. this is long overdue. as we were…

ice t – 6 in tha mornin’ – by no means my favorite track from ice t by a long shot, but again i can see the cultural significance because to many this was THE first “gangsta rap” track and the first such thing from the west coast. much grittier than his cinematic debut cuts were:

ice t – in “breakin'”, circa 1984

original gangsta my ass…i love almost everything he does EXCEPT when he can’t be bothered to get other folks to do voices in skits and side bars so he does them. that’s bugged me since i bought “power” back in high school…

lauren hill – doo wop (that thing) – this is one of those songs that gets stuck in my head every time i hear it. smooth molasses from front to back. that being said, while it’s nice to have some female voices on the collection, i’ll assume this was leaked because people KNOW it, but i will also assume some salt ‘n pepa and queen latifah will also be included, possibly alongside some moni love or jj fad (beats by dre, repped by eazy e). i guess we’ll wait and see.

run dmc – walk this way – while the writer of the article shane sent blasts this for it being included, but “sucker mc’s”, which was a big thing because of it’s stripped down production NOT being so, i have two points to support this:

1. only twenty of ONE HUNDRED AND twenty tracks have been leaked, so you don’t know “sucker…” won’t be on there

and…

2. i love me some run dmc. i have been on stage with run dmc. i have a memorial to them, signed by all three of them to me personally, in my office. but without “walk this way” there’s STRONG possibility a lot of their career would NOT have happened. sad, but true.

and finally…

vanilla ice – ice ice baby – it outsold hammer. it was the first rap record i remember where the guy got sued for stealing the beat from another song (despite his retarded arguments to the contrary):

and why did he shave his eyebrows? “because i wanted to see if i got popular if other folks would do it, too” (they did). again, this being on here doesn’t surprise me. but if the beasties are omitted this becomes a bigger tragedy. it was by far not the best hip hop honky track, but was also by no means the worst.