high powered

Maybe it's because I was a teenager in the early nineties but I have a lot of affection sample-based hip-hop of that era. I guess it's differentiating between hip-hop that has producers making a groove from mostly live instrumentation, and having someone cutting and pasting a track together from well documented breaks and records. The deeper that collection of breaks and records goes, the more interesting it is for me, and in those pre-internet days, hearing samples you'd likely never find the origins of was mind-bending! Of course, now we have whosampled.com to ruin that, but I think it's a good kind of ruining. If we never got to hear those original records, maybe we wouldn't have fallen in love with the other sounds we've found?

Anyway, I'm posting a few random tracks today that don't have much tying them together, other than two are from the early nineties, and one is something weird I'd never have found if it weren't for the modern internet.

First up, I guess Dee Barnes is homeless? That's a shame, and I guess she's been trying to raise funds to get herself somewhere better. I don't know much about Dee, other than her hosting Pump It Up, a show I never got to watch with my living in the suburbs of Northeastern Ohio, and the aftermath of Dr. Dre's appearance on that show where he assaulted her. As I understand it, her career stalled afterward and Pump It Up was cancelled. Whatever happened, Dee was clearly talented and I hope she gets the support she needs. That said, I had no idea that Dee was part of a group in the early nineties, Body and Soul, which were affiliated with the Delicious Vinyl label and Def Jef. They only released one 12" and a few other tracks before disappearing. I guess it could be argued they weren't different enough from Salt 'n' Pepa, but by that rationale, how many rappers have just bit someone else's style and gotten sales off of it? Is that what happened? I don't know, but Body and Soul deserved a place in the hip-hop world. Check out High Powered, the b-side to the Dance to the Drummer's Beat 12".

Also of that era, and also holding a peculiar connection to Dre and N.W.A., is Candyman, probably best known for his sex rap, Knockin' Boots. I never loved it all that much, but it was popular so it got played and Candyman got to put out another record for Epic. This one, Playtime's Over, seemed cheesy and dated before it hit the shelves, and if you need evidence, look no further than Oneighundredskytalkpinelevenotwosevenine, the first single from the album. And yes, that's the proper name of the track. It's kinda fun, but also suffers from serious ego trippin'. Not to mention, who decided that was a good name for the track? I've seen promotional stuff that listed the song under variations of the name like 1-800-SKYTALK, but perhaps they had issues with the service having their number printed on nationally available records? The song was also probably hurt by SkyTalk changing their name to SkyPager shortly after the record came out. Didn't hurt A Tribe Called Quest, but they weren't giving anyone their personal number to leave messages. This was also a long time before Mike Jones decided to share his phone number with the world, something that doesn't seem to have been replicated since. Or maybe Candyman's song was just lame. You be the judge.

And here's one more, the sole release from Pizzy Yelliott, a Norwegian group affiliated with the Mungolian Jet Set, who did the remix featured here. If you've ever wanted to hear a Bob Marley cover where the entire thing is filled with helium and you're supposed to dance to jagged synth rhythms, the original Pizzy version fulfilled that desire, whereas the remix just got weird and then weirder. Seriously, I can't accurately describe how bizarre this acid house freak-out is or how much I love it, just check it out and get weird with it.