My First Cube: Kill At Will [EP]

What in the HELL was goin' on back in winter of '90? I was in high school with minimal prospects of getting laid. We were about a month away from the Gulf War(which I was old enough to participate in as my pops constantly reminded me). and there was no N.W.A. Dre, Eazy, Yella and Ren were still there but there ain't no N.W.A. without Cube !

Amerikkka's Most Wanted had gone platinum off the success of the title track and Who's The Mack?(which is still a funny ass video and song today) and I thought to myself: "OK, Cube got his shine on. Now he'll go back and they'll make more hits, right?...right?" That wasn't about to happen and in December of 1990 Cube put out the Kill At Will [EP] With production by the Bomb Squad and Cube himself, the album hit hard and showed his growth as an artist.

The first single: Jackin' For Beats was Cube goin' East Coast on our asses rhyming over familiar samples from D-Nice, EPMD, Public Enemy, X Clan and a few others. This was my favorite song back then. I didn't think anyone was gonna do a song like that for a long time. It was hot and it hit hard and Cube was saying he didn't care, he was gonna rhyme over anybody's beat. Other highlights include Dead Homiez (a serious song about coping with the death of a friend) and Get Off My Dick And Tell Yo' Bitch (Remix), whose title pretty much defines the whole cut.

The Product is now my favorite piece from the album. It describes a troubled black male from conception to a life of crime(an unfortunate consequence of poverty). As a young black male from the Bronx, I often laughed at the gang banger shit out west because I always thought it was kind of corny. Cube laid it out for me and the lyrics in the song showed the futility that many men in that situation faced. My least favorite is the Endangered Species (Remix) featuring Chuck D. While the message is good, the song just didn't hit me and it's the one I always skip. The album ends wit the 3 plus minutes shout outs on I Gotta Say What's Up!!! where he name checks everyone who was hot at the time in the Hip-Hop community.

This was the first Cube album I purchased and it forever changed the way I viewed West Coast rap. As a lyricist, Cube was the exception and I never really cared about N.W.A. again after that because he was the driving force that made them what they were. Of course he went on to release Death Certificate which had No Vaseline (The GREATEST DISS TRACK EVER!) and the rest as they say is history.

To enjoy the full range of Ice Cube's talent, please seek out his discography and purchase it. Even though he comes off as a hypocrite now, he's still an important part of the Hip-Hop puzzle.

Ice Cube-Kill At Will [EP]

http://www.zshare.net/download/anditsstillallgood-blogspot-com-presents-kill-at-will-ep-rar.html

Have You Seen Me?: Bo$$

"I don't really wanna beeeeee your..." No disrespect to the Chili Peppers but if you're into Hip-Hop, that's Bo$$. It was 1993 and like the song said: "everybody wanna sound grimey..." Onyx had the market cornered on the growling, gutter sound that was turning rap into Grit-Hop. You had the aforementioned Official Nastees, Hood Ratz(Bootlegga) and Raw Breed(Remember Rabbit Stew? OK other than any of their relatives and me, do you remember it?) There was no female representative of that hardcore genre until Lichelle Laws a.k.a. Bo$$ stepped up to the plate and she did just that, REPRESENT...then she Keyser Söze-d.


Early summer of '93 I got my hands on the "Deeper" single and I was impressed. This was a woman who was talking about strugglin', , drinkin', gun violence and didn't give a shit if she was fly or not ("so who the fuck cares that I got gray hairs and can't sleep"). Her no-nonsense attitude and lyrical contenet was embraced by the masses. She was for female empowerment but took a different route from Latifah and others by calling herself a bitch. Born Gangstaz was a bonafide hit for the female MC(soundscan of 370,000+ uheard of for a female back then) but an unflattering article in the Wall Street journal, a huge Hip-Hop publication(*gagging*) made it a wrap for her.


It turns out the thugette from Michigan wasn't as "hood" as the purists would have liked her to be. She came fromn a *gasp* middle-class background and was raised by both her parents(WHAT?) She also had a decent education and participated in many extra-carricular activities such as dance, etc. Funny thing is: THIS WAS ALL EXPLAINED IN THE FIRST TRACK ON THE BORN GANGTAZ ALBUM VIA A RECORDED PHONE MESSAGE FROM MOM DUKES! I guess people thought it was funny hearing an old lady talk about someone they just knew had to kill like 50 people before she dropped her first single. All rappers are killas, dealers and pussy beaters right? Bo$$'s second album never came to be and she wasn't heard of after '94.

In these days of Killa's living in Connecticut and thugs walkin around with security details, does she seem like such a travesty now? This chick could rhyme better than most chicks then and probably could hang now. So what she didn't rhyme about men treating her right or how everybody wants to eat her, she rapped about what she liked and more importantly WE liked it...for the moment.

This is my favorite song from her "Deeper", of course. Check it out and give Born Gangstaz a listen even if it's just for nostalgia.

Bo$$ if you read this holla at your lad.

Deeper-Bo$$
http://www.zshare.net/audio/02-deeper-mp3.html