A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario and Other Posse Cuts

The number of great posse cuts has seemed to dwindle over the years. In the past, the posse cut seemed to be a way to put on others in your crew, or posse, and make the public aware of their talents. Sometimes they were members of the same crew, and sometimes they were other label mates that were, at times, forced onto the same track. The nineties were a big time for such a posse cuts and featured many classic songs.

Some felt a bit forced as the overall talent level began to dwindle, and the posse cut lost it's legitimacy in some ways. I started to dread some of these tracks, because I didn't want to hear so-and-so's third cousin fumble through some lame verse trying to score a deal (which is why some posse cuts existed, in my mind, just to get some dude a record deal).

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites from the nineties and beyond:

Scenario - A Tribe Called Quest feat. Leaders of the New School

This might be the mother of all posse cuts. It’s a testament to how good this song is when you can hear various other songs that sample verses from this song. Basically, every verse is top notch, starting with Phife:

Aiyyo Bo knows this (what?) and Bo knows that (what?)
But Bo don't know jack, cause Bo can't rap
Well whaddya know, the di-dawg, is first up to bat
No batteries included, and no strings attached
No holds barred, no time for move fakin
Gots to get the loot so I can bring home the bacon
Brothers front, they say the Tribe can't flow
But we've been known to do the impossible like Broadway Joe so
Sleep if you want, like we'll help you get your z's troop
But here's the real scoop
I'm all that and then some, short dark and handsome
Bust a nut inside your eye, to show you where I come from
I'm vexed, fumin', i've had it up to here
My days of payin dues are over, acknowledge me as in there (yeah)
Head for the border, go get a taco
I'll be wreckin from the jump street, meaning from the get-go
Sit back relax and let yourself go
Don't sweat what you heard, but act like you know

This is also the song that threw Busta Rhymes into the hip-hop stratosphere. After hearing Busta’s verse, most hip-hop heads took notice and his energy was even more evident during live performances.

I also included the remix in the download. The remix is nice, but the original is so good that the remix seemed unnecessary.



Buddy - De La Soul feat. Jungle Brothers and Q-Tip

This is another Native Tongues flavored posse cut and the first time I heard Q-Tip. I think this is the first time I heard of male genitalia referred to as Jimmy, which became a very common term (see Jimmy hat) and they also used Jenny for the ladies. The basic theme of this song is about knockin’ boots.

Buddy (remix):



Bring It On - The Geto Boys (w/ just about everyone on Rap-A-Lot from the mid-90’s)

Man, everyone is on this track. We used to play this song all the time in high school and we had most of the lyrics down. Rap-A-Lot had some damn good MC’s with differing styles. Unfortunately, their LP’s didn’t always live up to their talent, as in the case with Seagram and Gangsta Nip (in my opinion). At over 8 minutes, this is one of the longer posse cuts that I’ve heard, if not the longest.

Rap-A-Lot definitely wasn’t anti-disabled people, as they had a couple little people and a blind, handicapped motherfucker, as that dude (not Devin the Dude, but Rob Quest) from The Odd Squad says in Bring It On.

Save the Children - Nice and Smooth feat. Everlast

This isn’t really a posse cut, per se, but I always liked this song and wanted to add it here because it was always a mystery with me. The title has absolutely nothing to do with any of the lyrics in the song and I have no idea why they decided to call the song Save the Children. The only time they saw anything about the “children” is at the very beginning when, I think Smooth B, says save the children a few times before the song starts.

Everlast starts the track and is followed by Smooth B, which is a sharp contrast in styles, which always amused me as well. That being said, Nice & Smooth were just different than most artists, so they kind of clash in general, but they’ve always been favorites of mine.

Back to the Grill - MC Serch feat. Nasty Nas, Red Hot Lover Tone and Chubb Rock

This song features the first time I heard Nas, before dropping the Nasty, and he kills his verse (This is Nas kid you know how it runs, I’m waving automatic guns at nuns.) That’s just a funny ass line, although, given Nas’s style (especially when he was younger), it wasn’t really meant as humor.

Overall, this is kind of a weird mix of MC’s. Pretty much all of them are bringing some humor here, and are kind of known for a sense of humor and then you have Nas waiving automatic guns at nuns. But, overall it’s a nice track.



Flava in Ya Ear (remix) - Craig Mack feat. LL Cool J, Biggie, Rampage and Busta Rhymes

Craig Mack had a huge hit with the original version, but the remix featured that up-and-coming rapper named The Notorious B.I.G., who Puffy was trying to get on everything he could, which was definitely the correct strategy. Basically, this version has the same beat as the original, but featured a few guest MC’s.

Enjoy the video with LL at the height of his roll-up-one-pant-leg phase:



616 Rewind - CunninLynguists feat. Tonedef, Sankofa, Kashal-Tee and Celph Titled -
Obligatory Posse Cut - Extended Fam feat. CunninLynguists, Jean Grae and more

I wanted to get something a little newer on here. Basically, the next 2 songs here are QN5 related and solid posse cuts. CunninLynguists and a lot of the QN5 peeps like to add humor into their music, so you have a fun track with a nice beat. Celph Titled adds a bit of a contrast with his rougher, masochistic, homophobic verse.

Here are a couple highly quotable verses from 616 Rewind:

Tonedef: From parts of the south so dirty, you’ll want to be given a bath.

Kno: I’m so nice, Mr. Roger’s sued my ass for copy write infringement.

You have a bit of a sequel with Obligatory Posse Cut from Extended Fam’s only LP.

http://www.zshare.net/download/691940954dc2de6b/

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Philaflava's 100 Greatest Obscure Tracks :The Bonus Tracks aka Trav's Picks Part III

It's time for more "hard-to-find" goodies from my arsenal of tracks that I've managed to find in my visits to records stores, back of magazines, and of course the world wide internet. I honestly didn't intend to do more than 10-20 tracks for the "Bonus" tracks of my "Obscure" Philaflava post, but people seem to dig it plus I haven't had the time to move onto the next project I have in mind, at least not yet. So if you don't like them, tell everyone else to shut up, or if you do like them, keep the comments coming. Easy enough.

LINKS FOR ALL

Beastie Boys - Scenario (Grand Royal, on the "Drum Machine", "Scenario", "I'm Down" 12 inch, 2002)

At first you might see the Beastie Boys listed and think "Is anything the Beasties done actually "hard to find"? And my answer to that would be, actually, yeah....The Beasties have lots of b-sides, unreleased and remix joints out there. "Scenario" happens to be one such track. I don't know much about the origins of the cut. I'm sure some Beastie aficionados can probably fill in the history better than I can, but I'm venturing out on a limb here and will say it was probably done before "Licensed To Ill", so don't let the year fool you, that would be when it was released to wax by the Beasties. Movie buffs might remember it being in the Christian Slater movie "Pump Up The Volume" about a pirate radio DJ and this would be a track he would play. It was also that movie that sent me on a 15-year search for "Scenario", finally finding it when my man Tommy B from Miscreant Productions hooked it up. Needless to say, it was a great day. Song wise, it's pretty much a rip off of another personal favorite artist in Schoolly D and his classic "PSK". The drum effects are there along with the other sounds present on "PSK", but what the hell, I can look past that in this day in age. If you are fan of the Beasties such as I am, especially their earlier work, then you have to check this track out.

Da Bush Babees - Love Song Remix feat De La Soul & Mos Def (Warner Bros. from the "Love Song Remix" 12 inch, 1996)

Another example of a song that isn't horribly "obscure", but one that is need of mention just in case some kids are sleeping on it. The remix for the Bush Babee's "Love Song" track has long been one of my favorites, mainly because it contains De La Soul and Mos Def when he was still focused on making music. The remix is actually done by Da Bush Babee's Mr. Man, which is a nice twist on the original beatwise. Mos really does his thing on the hook, reminding us older heads why we thought he would be the next Chuck D or the first Kanye West. Of course since I would probably consider De La Soul my favorite hip hop group of all-time, I'm on this tracks proverbial jock because of their shining appearance that almost makes this song sound like a De La song. In fact when I first heard it, I thought it was a De La track (I didn't fuck with the Bush Babee's back in the day), it's got that De La flavor to it. Nothing wrong with that!

Constant Deviants - Can't Stop (Brooklyn Pipeline, from the "Can't Stop" b/w "Fed Up" 12 inch, 1998)

A couple of weeks ago I kind of clowned the whole Indie boom that happened toward the end of the 90's decade. It made many kid go out and buy a Jansport back pack, some big ass Kross headphones and bitch about the mainstream. While they had a point about the mainstream around that time (shiny suits anyone?), the whole genre would soon grind down to boring, monotonous, and straight up garbage type of hip hop and these little hipster nerds would become just as condescending as their mainstream thug counterparts. BUT, some of the early Indie stuff was pretty tight. This is one such little gem that I know next to nothing about, but I LOVE this track. I can't even remember what caused me to download this track from the almighty Audiogalaxy (anyone remember that shit?) back in the day. I'm glad I did, but I've never been able to find much out about them. This track was released in '98 on some small label. The beat is some fly jazz shit with dope piano keys and a nice string rift, horns, shit it's got everything. I couldn't even tell you the name of the MC, but he does a nice job talking about the old days. The hook is nice as well, it's basic but sticks in your mind and it actually has one of those DJ fellas and he is making squiggy squiggy sounds....weird...don't hear those anymore. Anyone have any material by these cats, hit me up.

Alright, so I'm cheating a bit here, this was something I posted up a year ago when I first posted this track. Since then, I've managed to track down all their 12 inch singles and there was also someone close to M.I.C. and DJ Cutt (who produced this track) educated us as well:

"lead rapper M.I.C is now solo and DJ CUTT does remixes and produced
a gang of stuff for NORE (In House Production Team for Thugged Out Militainment), RICK ROSS, and he was a former producer for Crazy Cat Catalogue(Derik"D.Dot" Angelettie) - Notorious B.I.G, Black Rob, 50 Cent, Lil Kim..etc,
They still grind together with Impact Music Group a multimedia entertainment Co"

Eminem & Royce Da 5'9 - Renagades (Original Version) (Never officially released?)
As far as I'm concerned, this version shits all over the one with Jay that appeared on "The Blueprint", and I actually liked that version. Royce and Em share great chemistry on everything I've ever heard them on, so it's only natural that they killed this. Their work as "Bad Meets Evil" and the 12" they dropped made me hope they would release something back when they were both hungry.

I've heard multiple reasons for Jay ending up on the final version, all from Royce's label wouldn't allow it, to Jay paying more money for the beat, to it was part of the fall out with Dre and Royce. I'm not going to venture which one is true, although I would go with the label issues. I hope they can work together again in the future, maybe working with Royce will make Em hungry again. Excuse fuckin' Kay Slay screaming all over the damn track.

Ghostface feat Raekwon & Slick Rick - The Sun (Never officially released)

This is my favorite Ghostface track. I've seen this on some of those "unofficial" Ghostface releases, but I think it was left off of "Bulletproof Wallets" due to sample clearances. I looked up to see where he got the sample from, but no dice. Ghost is typical Ghost, while Rae comes off and adds to their obvious chemistry. Slick Rick bats cleanup and this sounds like this was made for him, even the chorus sounds like something rick would come up with. This is a great song to wake up to on an early spring morning...who said we didn't have feelings??

Kid Sensation - Ride The Rhythm Cruise Control Mix (Nastymix, from the "Ride The Rhythm" 12 inch, 1992)

I've always liked the remix for Kid Sensation's lead off single, "Ride The Rhythm", so much that I had to include in my "bonus" picks. I can remember picking up this bad boy on the cassette single back in the day. I was shocked that the remix was just as good as the original version. To this day, I'm still not sure which I prefer more, although I think this remix might have a slight edge over the original. I remember this track having a killer bassline in a decent car studio, with it's stuttering drum break laying underneath it, it was something for the trunk 'o funk for sure.

Lord Digga - My Flow Is Tight (Game Recordings, from the "My Flow Is Tight" b/w "Sacks 5th Ave" 12 inch, 1998)

As big of a Masta Ace fan as I am, I was surprisingly never that big of a Digga fan. I thought he made for a decent hype man, but I always kind of cringed when he did full verses on the Inc albums. Yeah, I know, some of you will call me crazy, I just thought he was never that good of a lyricists. I still don't, but this solo single he dropped in '98 did prove to me he could at least carry a song on his own. Even if the track is almost a novelty in its approach. If you haven't heard this track before, Digga flips the "Price Is Right" theme from the legendary game show and makes it his own. I can never argue against the fact that Digga was a extremely talented producer and he does his thing with this track and keeps it from just being a corny disaster, which could have happened rather easily. On the mic, Digga is still Digga, but he is easier to handle in the smaller dose of one track. Also include the fact he is a little more mellow on the track, which also helps me enjoy the track more as well.

Erick Sermon - Rock Da House (Rush Associated Labels, from the "Stay Real" 12 inch as a b-side, 1993)

Being a big fan of Erick Sermon during those early 90's days, with both his production on the first two Redman albums along with Keith Murray's debut and then combine both his production and mic duties on "No Pressure", I thought E Double could do no wrong. This track came from the "Stay Real" 12 inch which I once again bought as a cassingle back in the day. For some reason, I lost it fairly quick, so I wasn't able to enjoy "Rock Da House" as much as I would have liked back in the day. My man Jaz over at Cold Rock Da Spot went on a hunt to find this, which I think finally popped up at Dr. OK's blog about a year ago. The track is full of the funk, something that I love to this day. It's all about the dirty bottom and only E Double, Redman or Keith can do a track this sloppy justice. Great stuff.

Nice & Smooth - No Bones In Ice Cream Original Version (Fresh Records, on the "Funky For You" b/w "No Bones In Ice Cream" 12 inch, 1990)

This original version of "No Bones In Ice Cream" took awhile to track down. I've always thought the original version was head and shoulders above the "No Bones" (Remix) that is found on the Jewel of the Nile LP. Nice & Smooth excelled in making non sense rhymes, concepts and ideas sound dope as fuck, probably more so than anyone else. The beat takes a familiar piano loop and lays it over another familiar sample (I'm horrible with naming samples) all over a simple drum break, but in true Nice & Smooth fashion, the shit is nice. It's nothing new from the duo, but true fans of their work should appreciate hearing when they were on top of their game and a track that could have easily been on any of their albums and still been one of the better tracks.

Zhigge - Rakin' In The Dough Uptown Bounce Mix (PolyGram, from the "Rakin' In The Dough" 12 inch single, 1992)

There are always tracks that hold some special memory and this happens to be one of them for me. I bought a DJ Red Alert tape out of the back of the Source magazine back in the day. The Uptown Bounce Mix for Rakin' In The Dough happened to be one that Red played on that show. I never heard the version before and spent the next 15 plus years (yes, again) trying to track down the version. Thankfully for the internet, I once again have it in my collection. I wasn't big on Zhigge back in those days, but I've learned to like them since then. The beat and the bangin' drums, both supplied by Salaam Remi, or the true treat found on this album.

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