In 1993, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg was in some deep trouble (not cover). He was one of the up-and-coming stars in the rap world and was accused of being an accessory to murder. Apparently, his body guard killed a man that had previously threatened Snoop at some point. Both Snoop and his bodyguard were eventually acquitted.
So, what should we do now? Let's capitalize on that shit and make a short film and soundtrack about the death of Snoop (which was based on the original song from Doggy Style). I'm not saying that it wasn't self-defense or that there weren't mitigating circumstances that I have absolutely no idea about, but in retrospect, it seems really odd to flip the incident into an album. Again, the album came out after Snoop's debut LP, which originally featured the song, Murder Was the Case. I remember that LP being pushed and pushed back, which I'm sure was because of the incident, but it seemed like it didn't get a lot of press until 1994.
At the time, I was hoping that he would get off, but also hoped that he was truly innocent. And, he was acquitted, so story over... and out came Murder Was the Case in late 1994.
1) Murder Was the Case (remix) - Snoop Doggy Dogg - Both the LP version and this version are great songs. The remix is pretty damn similar from the original. Anyone that was around in the mid-90's remembers Snoop's performance on MTV
2) Natural Born Killaz - Dr. Dre and Ice Cube - From what I remember, this song was supposed to be on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, but I didn't find anything to corroborate this. This was something NWA fans were crazy excited about in the 90's. Rap's biggest producer teaming up with his former band mate, Ice Cube, one of the most popular and relevant MC's of the mid-90's.
"I'm down with Dre like AC is down with OJ." - Ice Cube
How's that for a sign of the times, as America was preoccupied with the OJ/Nicole/Ron Goldman murder trial? Cube also references that dude that got caned in the Philippines. Remember that? I can still see that dude being dragged through the press all cuffed up.
3) What Would You Do? - Tha Dogg Pound - Listening to this now, this may be my favorite track on the LP. Produced by Daz, this track had a great funk sound and Daz and Kurupt are on the top of their respective games.
4) 21 Jumpstreet - Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tray Deee - Another Daz produced song and a pretty solid one. A lot of that G-Funk stuff sounded similar, but that didn't mean it wasn't good. This track sounds like a lot of other funk stuff from the 90's, but it's nice.
5) One More Day - Nate Dogg - Nate Dogg is good in small doses. This song is okay, but Nate Dogg is better served singing a chorus, or in a song that isn't exclusively a Nate Dogg song.
6) Harvest For the World - Jewell - Not that Jewell. I think she only has one L. I'm not even going to bother doing any research on this, skip it! Filler.
7) Who Got Some Gangsta Shit? - Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound, Lil' Style, Young Swoop - This is a pretty good track, but nothing special really. Not skip worthy, but not significant.
8) Come When I Call - Danny Boy - Not the dude from House of Pain, not interested.
9) U Better Recognize - Sam Sneed w/ Dr. Dre - I don't know were this guy went as far as an artist. Sounds like he's still producing. I love this track. Produced by Sam and featuring him on the mic, this is one of my favorites from the LP.
10) Come Up To My Room - Jodeci and Tha Dogg Pound - I loved Jodeci. Some of their stuff was just okay and I wasn't a fan of K-Ci and JoJo being on every damn track in the mid to late 90's, but when they were together as a group, they made some good music. The best parts of this song are when Jodeci just put their thing, or thang, down.
11) Woman To Woman - Jewell - SKIP
12) Dollars & Sense - DJ Quik - I was never a Quik fan, but I dig this song, which is also produced by Quik. He does some MC Eiht dissing, which was fine with me, because I wasn't an Eiht fan myself. This is pretty much an Eiht dis track, but a good song.
13) The Eulogy - Slip Capone & CPO - Never got into this.
14) Horny - B-Rezell - Not B-Real under a slightly different name. Unfortunate. SKIP.
15) Eastside-Westside - Young Soldierz - Yeah, some R&B stuff, SKIP.
Overall, this is a must have with a few filler tracks, but anyone my age that is into hip-hop probably already has this. For anyone that slept, for whatever reason, or is too young (or old) to remember this, download it here:
http://www.yousendit.com/download/RmNCZFhrNkdxRTJ4dnc9PQ
3/03/2010
Murder Was the Case
10/14/2009
Hip-Hop Soundtracks Pt. 2
Here are some more soundtracks from the 90’s for you. I am saving some of the best for last, so I’ll be getting those up in the next couple posts I get up, but there’s some good stuff here as well.
Friday – 1995
https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=Y1RxWUhuTWNEa1h2Wmc9PQ
I don’t think I have to say a lot about this movie. Most hip-hop heads have seen this movie and know that it’s a classic to us. The movie was written by Ice Cube and DJ Pooh, who became one of the many people to be closely affiliated with Cube to end up feeling shafted in some way by him (i.e. Kam, King Sun, Da Lench Mob, et al). This is a pretty solid soundtrack that mixes new songs (at the time) and some classic r&b/funk.
1) Friday – Ice Cube – A great song that contains quite a few commonly used funk samples.
2) Keep Their Heads Ringin’ – Dr. Dre – Dre and Cube patched things up and Dre provided this head nodder. Hey you, sitting over there, you better get on out of your chair.
3) Friday Night – Scarface – A funky track from Face. There’s another dude on this track too and if I ever knew who it was at one time, it escapes me now.
4) Lettin’ Niggas Know – Threat – Threat made a few small waves in the mid-90’s and I like this track. I’m not too familiar with his career and he has one of those names that makes it hard to search the web for more information. One thing I did learn is that rapper Asher Roth apparently helped foil a bomb threat. That’s what I got for searching Threat and rapper. For some reason, I think of him and Mista Grimm as having similar careers that just never quite took off.
5) Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up – Cypress Hill – A bit of a departure for Cypress, as they didn’t usually talk too much about smoking weed usually. This song is okay, but I always found it hard to listen to songs that were exclusively about weed. Yeah, I know the movie has a large weed plotline.
6) Take A Hit – Mack 10 – This is a Cube produced track and it’s pretty solid. I can’t place the sample, and for some reason, it isn’t listed in the liner notes.
7) Tryin’ To See Another Day – The Isley Brothers – Not my thing.
8) You Got Me Wide Open – Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell – A blah song produced by Cube and Bootsy.
9) Mary Jane – Rick James – Classis Rick James song that I assume is about a lovely lady named Mary.
10) I Wanna Get Next To You – Rose Royce – Love this song.
11) Superhoes – Funkdoobiest – Hey, it’s that group with that dude that did that porno, Sun Doobie. You’ll have to ask Eminem about the acting ability of Mr. Doobie. Decent song and I always liked his unique flow. I think he’s making albums in Canada w/ Battle Axe these days.
12) Coast II Coast – Tha Alkaholiks – This was the name of the Liks’ second LP, but this song is only on here. It’s not one of their best, but solid, from one of my favorite groups.
13) Blast If I Have To – E-A-Ski – Kind of a generic West coast track.
14) Hoochie Mama – 2 Live Crew – Big booty ho’s hop wit it!!! Pure crap. But, play it for your friends and have a laugh.
15) I Heard It Through the Grapevine – Roger – Not sure if they made this for the soundtrack, or if this was around before. Pretty crappy cover if you ask me. It would fit in today w/ all of the auto tune we have going on now.
Overall, I think this is a solid soundtrack and one of the ones I’m glad I purchased.
High School High – 1996
Grab It Here
I never saw this movie and I never once thought about ever seeing it. Sorry, Jon Lovitz. This soundtrack is a mix of hip-hop and r&b, so there’s some filler.
1) So Many Ways – The Braxtons – You might like it. I don’t.
2) I Got Somebody Else – Changing Faces – Okay, EPMD used this sample as well, but I can’t place what song. Help me out if you know.
3) Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance – Rza feat. Method Man and Cappadonna – My favorite song about a line of clothing with a list of preservatives.
4) Get Down For Mine – Real Live – Another EPMD used sample, this time I know what it is, Manslaughter. I don’t know anything about this group, or person, but I would rather listen to EPMD. This song gets some points for the scratching though; I can never get enough scratching. I wish more artists would feature a DJ cutting it up.
5) I Just Can’t – Faith Evans – This song is okay.
6) Your Precious Love – D’Angelo and Erykah Badu – An Ashford and Simpson cover. It’s not great.
7) The Rap World – Large Professor and Pete Rock – Nice song, even with Pete Rock on the mic.
8) Queen Bitch – Lil’ Kim – Hey, it’s Lil’ Kim before she looked like a plastic doll. I’d have to say she’s my favorite Lil’ next to Fame, but it’s a really big drop off.
9) Why You Wanna Funk? – Spice 1 feat. E-40 and The Click – I feel like for every 1 artist that was doing some great things with funk in the 90’s, there were another 10 that were butchering it. This song falls in the butchering category.
10) I Can’t Call It –De La Soul – Nice track from De La. I haven’t listened to this in quite some time, but I’m going to be adding it to my rotation again.
11) Bohemian Rhapsody – The Braids – I always dug this cover of the Queen hit. I know this group had an album sometime after this soundtrack came out, but I don’t think it did much, and I haven’t heard much of them since. By much of, I mean nothing.
12) High School Rock – KRS One – This is a pretty dope track from the Blastmaster with a Rakim sample as the hook.
13) Peace, Prosperity and Paper – A Tribe Called Quest – Never heard of them. I like this song and wish this group made an album. That’s a joke, yo.
14) Wild Side – Jodeci – I liked Jodeci a lot. I just hated when K-Ci and Jojo sang all over every rap chorus in the 90’s. If you liked Jodeci, you will like this song.
15) The Ultimate – The Artifacts – This is a great song and it’s on their second (last) album.
16) The Next Spot – Sadat X and Grand Puba – This is another song worth your time, so download this and check it out if you don’t have it.
17) Skrilla – Scarface and Facemob – This is a nice song, I’m not really feeling the chorus, but it’s solid. The little De La interpolation in there is nice. I’m not too familiar with him to be honest, but I think Devin the Dude is in there, as part of Facemob.
18) Semi-Automatic: Full Rap Metal Jacket – Inspectah Deck, U-God and Street – I always loved this beat. It’s definitely something you can pin on Rza, that’s for sure. Nice song.
19) The Good, the Bad and the Desolate - The Roots – There’s not much too special about this track, but it’s good. I never really liked the reggae dude over the chorus.
20) C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train), Pt. 2 – Quad City DJ’s – These guys sure made some junk. For some reason they were able to get some songs tagged on the end of soundtracks. I really don’t think a sequel was necessary. A prequel on the other hand, might have been refreshing, as I would love to know what the Quad City DJ’s were doing before they rode the train.
Overall, I think this is an average soundtrack. There are some songs worth checking out and some filler you don’t need. This is pretty standard for a lot of these soundtracks.
Menace II Society – 1993
Download Here
I loved this movie, although it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. It came out after Boyz N the Hood, but I liked it more. For those that might not know, Pac was supposed to be in this movie, but was dropped for some reason. So, in true Pac fashion, he had some associates beat down the Hughes brothers, who ended up suing Mr. Shakur.
1)Nigga Gots No Heart – Spice 1 – Not a bad song, nice and mellow. Spice 1 never had the tightest flow, but this is a good song.
2) Streight Up Menace – MC Eiht – Jeah. He really overused his jeahs. This is a good song, again real mellow, but I like the orchestral-type sample/beat. I think he had a small role in the movie as well.
3) Packin’ a Gun – Ant Banks – This isn’t my favorite track, but it’s listenable.
4) Top of the World – Kenya Gruv – Not really my cup of tea.
5) Only the Strong Survive – Too Short – Beeeeyotch! Not a bad song, but not one of my favs.
6) All Over a Ho – Mz. Kilo – I can tolerate this song. She was in the same mold as Bo$$, who ended up getting her second LP shelved because she was CB4ing it. I couldn’t find much on Mz. Kilo though.
7) Guerillas Ain’t Gangstas – Da Lench Mob – I always liked this song and I think Lench Mob fans would enjoy this track. Don’t worry, no Maulkie on here.
8) You Been Played – Smooth – I always enjoyed this song. I think this is one of the best tracks on here, but I’m sure a lot of people would disagree. I remember hearing a few other songs from Smooth and I wasn’t impressed.
9) Lick Dem Muthaphuckas – Brand Nubian – A little East coast rap here. I like this song and you should check it out.
10) Death Becomes You – Pete Rock and CL Smooth w/ YG’z – NY again. I definitely skew to the East, but I’m an equal opportunity listener. Anyway, this is a nice song.
11) Unconditional Love – The Hi-Fives – Generic r&b for that ass!
12) ‘P’ is Still Free – Boogie Down Productions – We’re in a little East side run here. Pretty dope track.
13) Stop Lookin’ At Me – Cutthroats – Man, I forgot about this song, as far as I can remember, these guys were Onyx-like and affiliated w/ Guru.
14) Pocket Full of Stones – UGK – Mellow track. I was never a UGK fan, so feel free to savage me.
15) Can’t Fuck Wit a Nigga - DJ Quik – I was never a Quik fan either. I did enjoy Quik dissing Everlast by saying he looked like a woman, this coming from the skinny dude with jheri curls. I don’t remember who started this beef, I think it may have been Everlast on the Legend single, but I think this came out first, so maybe this was the start of it.
16) Trigga Gots No Heart – Spice 1 – See track 1.
I enjoyed this soundtrack at the time it came out and it really fit in with the film. They packed the album with a plethora of West coast artists and smattering of East coast and Southern artists. How’s that for mastering the English language? I think this is definitely worth having.
