LL Cool J - Loungin'

"Chanel on your feet"

This is a classic mid-period affair from Mr. Smith, but it's the sample that makes it. It don't mean I dislike it, I actually really enjoy it. It's an above average LL song, nowhere near as bad as 'Ain't Nobody' (lazy track/awful yet amazing video).

But it's all about the original. I never got exposed to Bernard Wright when I was younger, I think this song was from the mid-eighties, and I haven't got a bad thing to say about it. It really is a fantastic tune and video. There's something about this song (and Bernard Wright) that is really genuine and sincere. The chorus part of the video has a nice effect where they spin around on the floor and the world goes upside down and back again; it really gets the point across.

Ice Cube - Today Was A Good Day

"Hit the the three wheel motion"

Man I love this song - good for the months of summer, or for living in California where it's hot all the time. All the time. This truly is a classic, and so ingrained in hip hop history, there was no way the sample was ever going to work for Usher. I got a lot of time for Usher, but that song just doesn't go.

Based on the Isley Brother's 'Footsteps in the dark', Ice Cube's version goes in the complete opposite direction. The original is a brilliant Isley tune, and it's a pretty solemn and melancholie piece about infidelity.

Mos Def - Ms. Fat Booty

"Ass so fat, you could see it from the front"

I'm gonna be doing a few bits on soul songs from the sixties and seventies that have been transformed into modern day hip hop classics; this one is first up. 'Ms. Fat Booty' is a killer and come from one of those albums that steady mobs all the way through. 'Black On Both Sides' is a lot of people's all time favourites.

I have to admit I never knew the source material until recently, but it's a smash. A not so well know Aretha Franklin tune; 'One Step Ahead';

Blackstreet - No Diggity

No doubt, No Diggity is one of the finest pieces of music written. An overstatement? In terms of what makes up this song, no. No Diggity takes a history of black music and condenses it into four minutes. Starting at the beginning, there's the sample of 'Grandma's Hands' by soul's Bill Withers, a short, blues guitar ode to his aged relative, and her old and worn limbs. She'd have undoubtedly been alive at the turn of the century when life was hella different for a lot of people. Withers' 'Mmm-mmm' at the start and end of the song, strongly resembles the voices of the chain gangs, the field hollers, the work songs of enslaved or imprisoned black Americans one hundred years ago.

The 'shoops' of Blackstreet throughout the song are reminiscent of doo-wop era music, and those piano chords take it back to jazz. On top of all this, there's the perfect fusion of hip-hop and modern rhythm and blues, Blackstreet's smooth sounds, Dr. Dre's rap. Work songs, jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, R&B, rap, and more I've most likely missed. I know the very essense of hip-hop is to borrow, chop, sample and screw, but very few songs have done it quite so well as this.

Hype Williams is responsible for the video, and it's easily one of his best. Retrained and subtle, with a beautiful colour palette. Highlights are the little puppets playing instruments and the girls dancing on the wet floor in front of the limousines.

Bell Biv DeVoe - Poison

Bell Biv DeVoe: Splinter cell of New Edition. I don't even know where to start this one; the accompanying flick is appallingly amateurish, yet completely amazing in equal measure. The beginning is pretty fly with the lady scientist, And the super-imposed dancing through out is such classic effect. The clothing selections could warrant an entire essay, needless to say the Dennis The Menace shirt is hands down the best.

Overall, I'd describe it as "mentally hip-hop smoothed out on the R&B tip with pop appeal to it". I'd say that's fair.

Silk - Freak Me

Discovered by Keith Sweat, Silk released 'Freak Me' in 1993. It's a solid smooth track, but it's the mildly homoerotic video that stands out. There's two versions to be seen, the only reason I can imagine that a second one exists is that the original was too filthy for 1993 standards. From what I can gather, the complex narrative structure centres around women working out in gym with Silk in various states of undress. There's every possiblity that the video serves as some sort of deep political metaphor, but I doubt it.

Big L - Ebonics

"I talk with slang and I'm a' never stop speakin it"

Funnily enough, I first heard Big L (so called for being little) on a L'il Stevie Williams part (so called for being big). That was 'Size 'Em Up', an abrasive roof raiser, this is 'Ebonics';

2009 is the 10th anniversary of Lamont Colemans death; he was shot on the very same corner he was photographed on for his only studio album 'Lifestyles Ov Da Poor And Dangerous'. At only 24, he was already a Harlem hip-hop legend.

Montell Jordan - This Is How We Do It

Montell rocks a fair number of looks in this video, the best is smoking a cigar on date Montell.

Now, Montell doesn't actually say these exact words, but this song got me thinking; What's the very first recorded example of the phrase 'Throw/wave your hands in the air, like you just don't care'...? The earliest I can think of is Cameo's 'Word Up' from 1986;

Now I might be able to find out if I could be bothered to do the research, but I can't. Your thoughts appreciated.

5ive - Slam Dunk Da Funk

Nah, only joking. 5ive were shit.

R Kelly - Bump 'n' Grind

"My mind's tellin' me no, but my body's tellin' me yes...". So begins one of Kelly's finest works. There doesn't seem to be any official video available, though there is this pretty fruity live performance right here.

You just can't deny the brilliance of this song - it's fire. When me and some friends when to an R&B night in Shoreditch recently, this came on. We drunkenly got on the stage and bumped and ground, we thought we looked amazing. We looked like twats. This is the power of R Kelly.

The Fugees - Zealots

At the time, this album was a monster. Absolutely everywhere. This track was my favourite from 'The Score', mainly because of the sampling from the doo-wop era song, 'I Only Have Eyes For You' by The Flamingos. Now that's a smooth song, kinda past smooth into dreamy, sleepy territory. Lovely.

Here's another one of my uncle's photos from New York. Hill looks quite young here, so I guess this photo was taken around the time of 'Blunted On Reality'. I love Lauryn.

Notorious B.I.G - Big Poppa

Sampling the Isley Brother's 'Between The Sheets', Big Poppa is a smooth slice of slack.

Slackness is also applied liberally to this video and at the pinnacle of its game in this respect. I think I like it so much because I can relate - it's pretty much how I live my life on a day to day basis.

My uncle is a pretty damn good photographer and shot a large portion of east coast hip-hop heads when he lived in New York. Here's one he took of Biggie;

Raphael Saadiq & Q-Tip - Get Involved

From 1999, Raphael Saadiq & Q-Tip's tune is a slept on classic.

I don't know who did the video, but it's a good 'un. The television heads are cool, interference periodically causes a number of scenes from 'The PJs' to appear. This track was never released on any studio album, but on the soundrack to the TV series. Slack.

Aaliyah - Try Again

Strictly (just) out of the Slack Vibes remit, but these things can slide for Aaliyah. Realeased in early 2000, this futuristic Timbaland production piece is pretty much near perfect modern R&B.

The Pharcyde - Drop

The Pharcyde are straight up ill. You know what time is it.

Not only is this 1995 track dope, but Spike Jone's reverse video to accompany it is brilliant, a favourite only before Sabotage. It's a technique that's been ripped off a million times since, but never bettered. Clever and comedic, The Pharcyde kill it.

Shabba Ranks - Mr Loverman

A version of Deborahe Glasgow's Champion Lover from the late eighties, Shabba Rank's Mr. Loverman does exactly what it says on the tin, "Mr Loverman; nice me up tonight". Check it;

A word of warning - there's so much gyration in this video, a cold shower might be advisable at the end of it all. Shabba's moves are faultless, as are the girls', plus his cell phone is sick.

Warren G & Nate Dogg - Regulate

Mount up!

This one is for Emily, though it was bound to come up sooner or later. From 1994, the classic and damn slack Regulate;

The Wikipedia entry for this is comprehensive, I particularly like the way the propositions in this track are approached with an almost philosophical analysis;

"The equality that "rhythm is life ... and life is rhythm" is first proposed in this song."

"Key insights from this song include the fact that if your ass is a busta, "213" (what was Long Beach, CA ... presently a subsection of downtown LA) will regulate."

However you dissect the song, by whatever methods or school of thought; it's a classic.

Busta Rhymes - Gimme Some More

As a shorty, playing in the front yard of the crib, I fell down and bumped my head. Later that night my dad accidently gave me some wine and I had an allergic reaction and went all red and swollen and had to go to hospital for two days. I was kinda cross with my dad, so when I got out I chased him about a bit. I recounted this story to Busta and Hype Williams, and this provided the inspiration to the music video of 'Gimme Some More' (except Busta goes all blue in the film).

I still clearly remember my dad saying to me in hospital "Oh, so that mean you gon' switch it on 'em?"

Basically I love this song, it's the pinnacle of his rapid-fire lyrical prowess. But even more; Hype Williams is straight fire. Can't get enough of his shit. Busta is seen as a boxer, stock broker, police officer, miner, pistol-toting Texan, body builder, pimp and a person tied up about to get run over by a train. Hype is one of the greatest music video makers of all time.

Charlie Baltimore - Money

This one's definately a guilty pleasure. I don't really know too much about Charlie, but don't think she was very prolific. I'm sure she had a thing with Biggie at the start or her career. This the very silly 'Money';

Why were music videos so obesessed with high-stakes espionage and theft in the nineties? Perhaps I should do a whole week of entries based around this concept. The video is kinda standard for the time, though I do like the hologram bit at the end...

Souls Of Mischief - '93 'Til Infinity

Fast & flowing west coast remedy to the sometimes slow and heavy G-funked gangsta rap era. The album of the same name is an underrated classic.

Wu-Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M

Cash Rules Everything Around Me! This song had a big impact on me, I first heard it on a shitty Element advert on one of the earlier 411’s. I actually only heard the first few bars, ‘cos most of the ad had the singing part at the beginning. All time classic track, all time classic album (36 Chambers) and Meth’s all time classic line - Cash Rules Everything Around Me!

Nice video too, showing progression from the streets to the lap of luxury (bags of swag are a nice touch) – however I ain’t too sure how rapping with a toothbrush enhances flow.

I have big soft spot for the Wu – some Meth and ODB to follow.

DMX - Ruff Ryder's Anthem

First up, Dark Man X is brilliant. Some pretty weird tracks on some even weirder album covers. This track is from ‘It Dark And Hell Is Hot’, but for my money ‘Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood’ has a genuinely classic hip-hop album cover. It's a bouncin' tune, that pretty much gets me pumped for doing stuff, like doing wheelies down the motorway at night on my Kawasaki. This is the overtly masculine music video for the ‘Ruff Ryder’s Anthem';

Great stuff. Even better though is a version of the song I heard on 'Chomp On This' over Atiba Jefferson's part. I remember in the video, everytime the gang shouts 'What!' a little DMX Pac Man, complete with bandana, pops in to the screen and shouts along with the music...

During 'Welcome to the Jungle' at the start of the film, there's a little Axel Rose Pac Man wailing and screaming too! For fans of video game based hip-hop, be sure to check out Beanie Sigal's Macman. Anyway, the 'Ruff Ryder's Anthem' is good, but the remix is better. Listen;

More DMX to come. "Look what you done started!"

Mark Morrison - Return Of The Mack

Great, great song and a highlight of UK R 'n' B in the mid-nineties. This tune did really well in the states too, and made to to the No. 2 spot, only to be held off the No. 1 by Hanson's 'Mmmbop'. A travesty. You just can't deny the head bop during this song. In the official video, the image of Morrison sitting behind his big desk, stroking his chin with a leather clad hand is an iconic image in the history of UK music. Perhaps.

Even better than this run-of-the-mill video (although favoured by myself for being particularly evocative of nineties style), is his quite frankly incredible Brit Awards perfermance in 1997. In the early part of the same year he'd been sentenced to jail for three months for boarding an aircraft with a stun gun, and I swear he milked this for years after, protesting his innocence.

Anyway, this is one of the most amazing live perforances I ever saw (if you ignore Ben Elton). It's got everything. He enters rockin' a huge white chinchila fur coat, escoted by policewomen. Female fans drape themselves over him on stage and he continues to sing on live, as security drag them away. More policewomen join him, as they all strip down. When he whips his coat off, he's got a shirt with the words 'Only God Can Judge Me' on the front, 'Not Guilty' on the back. He stage dives backward into the crown and continues to sing. Live. He's got a mental amount of presence on stage.

Better than the Jarvis Cocker stage invasion at the Brits.

Fuckin' incredible.

Mariah Carey - Honey

Bangin' song from her Butterfly album in 1997. The then monikered Puff Daddy was involved in writing this, as was Q-Tip. Before this track, Mariah was know mainly for her pretty wet, wailing pop ballards, which my little sister loved. It was Honey that paved her way into RnB and a complete image change. Anyway, it's crackin'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUM8IKquyrQ

However, the music video is completely demented. It's unecessarily mad. I don't even know who was responsible for it, some thought at the time it was some sort of metaphor for her failed marriage to Tommy Mottola. Whatever it's about - bits of it are pretty awful. There's like two whole minutes of this terrible gangster acting, with possibly with most annoying male voice ever recorded. When the song actually starts Mariah strips down to a bikini within literally about ten seconds of the music starting...

Ah hell, I like the rest of the video, I just don't get the whole spy business. And it was instumental in shaping the future Mariah.

Genuwine - Pony

Classic nineties track by Genuwine, with his surprisingly eighties face. I think it's the sleazy pencil moustache. A colleague of mine met him at the airport in the last year or so and showed me the photos. He still looks like he's from the eighties, still with pencil 'tasche.

Released in 1996 and produced (amongst others) by Timbaland, I've never tired of those deep 'blurps' in this song, good dirty noises, apparently formed from deep vocoded voices. Incidentally, this always makes it onto dirty lists. The Guardian recently published a '1000 Songs To Hear Before You Die' booklet series. Genuwine's place in the sex section of this list is well deserved, and the filth is none too subtly refered to in his gestures from the accompanying music video; "Ride it - my pony".

Michelle Gayle - Sweetness

Ah, Michelle Gayle. A lot of people, probably everyone, has a celebrity crush. These crushes are in their very nature unlikely to ever manifest into anything more that simply that. I've made mine that extra bit unlikely by having a crush on Michelle Gayle circa 1994. Post-Eastenders, she embarked on a pop career, which I think was somewhat sucessful and that she still works on to some degree these days. I know I saw her on Celebrity Come Dine With Me recently.

It's a pretty mediocre pop song really, but I still got love for it (and Gayle). More than this; I love the video for just how nineties it is, specifically the UK nineties. Everything about it just takes me back. I never actually saw this video when it came out, and I'd never actually heard of Michelle Gayle. But it was her peformance on Top Of The Pops that got me on it.

Favourite part of Sweetness? The "Yeah bwoy!"

Anyway; I love Michelle Gayle (circa 1994).

LL Cool J - Hey Lover

As opposed to R Kelly's 'Down Low', where a simple song about an affair is spun out in the music video as an epic story of love, loss and Kelly's massive ego (the R in R 'n' B), LL Cool J's video for 'Hey Lover' is pretty much a literal conversion of words to pictures. Which I like. I'm from the MTV generation and as a result have an attention span of about one and a half minutes.

Watching this video now it's actually pretty unremarkable - but this song is smooth as hell. I think the sample used is from Michael Jackson's 'The Lady in My Life'. I went through a phase this summer of listening to it at least twice a day and it holds a special place in my hip-hop heart though, probably solely for the signature LL stood atop a car special move (See the 'Bad' album cover).

I never know what period LL I prefer - eary LL (Radio, Mama Said Knock You Out), or the sleazy mid-perod LL (Doin' It, Loungin). On balance I'd go with sleazy LL - "tounging you down with vanilla ice cream".

One more thing; a lot of people I've spoken with lately are under the impression that Mr. Smith is dead. He ain't!

R Kelly - Down Low

This is an amazing song. Secret lovers on the 'down low' and the video is pretty much up there as an all time favourite. Released in 1996, this is also one of R Kelly’s first outings as music video director, and it shows; a massively self-indulgent fantasy. I’m sure I remember watching a Hype Williams interview on MTV in the late nineties, where in some cases Kelly would think up a video concept and then base a song around that – I love dat style. I can’t remember if he said it directly about this song, but it’s a technique I think only Kelly could pull off with such aplomb.

Now, if you were going out of town ‘on business’, would you leave R Kelly to look after your wife? Would you give him ‘a pile a’ cash’ and the keys to the Bentley? And what would you do with the kids? Mr. Big got checked. That’s Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers, and the love interest ‘Lila Heart’ is played by Garcelle Beauvais, who ‘spoke to me’ as a teenager… fuck yeah.

All in, it’s a slack, slack song, and easily one of Kelly’s best. The video only serves to make this a classic. Favourite part? Has to be the part where he’s dragged out to the desert in convoy, dumped on the cracked ground and told ‘I did this to you!’. Isley drives off and leaves Kelly to raise his bloodied fists to the sky and wail! Oh, and any bit with Garcelle Beauvais.