Sam's User's Guide

User’s Guide for
Sam’s kick ass CD

First off you have a valuable piece of plastic in your hand. When you asked me to make you a rap CD I decided to get real serious about it, so I made you a collection of everything I thought might be significant in rap, from the beginning until before 2 pac and biggie died. So for proper usage you need to listen to the whole thing through at least 3 times, if you feel the urge to get a beer or two while listening go for it. It takes me at least 3 times or so to be able to catch up with what people are saying. As far as the stereo that you are playing this on, you should definitely turn up the Bass, but don't neglect the Treble, that way you can hear the words, or the volume, so that way you can't hear other people complaining.

I put this on here in hope that someone will read it and pick up the torch and some other CD's cause classes start next week and I don't think I'll finish, nor do I think I'll do that good of a job either.

Below is whatever information I know about any particular song or the groups that made it.

Happy Birthday






1. Rapper's Delight – Sugar Hill Gang
By many accounts this song is considered one of the first rap songs, or at least the first commercial rap song. It debuted in 1979. The real song is a lot longer with like 7 dudes each doing their little verse, this version just has all the really memorable ones, including ‘the macaroni sour, the peas all mush, and the chicken taste like wood.’ They didn’t even have a hook in this song it is real old school.

2. Walk this Way – Run DMC & Aerosmith
If Rappers Delight was the first commercial rap hit the first commercial rap stars would have to be Run DMC. They were the first Rap group to go Triple Platinum, and showed to mainstream America that Rap is a viable art form that is here to stay. They also managed to be the first group to drink and sniff their careers away. In their Behind the Music, the one who says ‘see saw swinging…,’ DMC, or Darryl McDaniel, would drink a frigging case of 40’s of Olde English a DAY!!!!! They both cleaned their life up and are living better now. Run, Larry Simmons, is related to Russell Simmons the ridiculously rich founder of Def Jam records and owner of Phat Farm. Also, this song was performed with Aerosmith, and their permission, most rap songs at this time which used some other groups music didn’t have that groups permission, but more on that later.

3. Paul Revere – Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys actually started off as a punk rock group and Beastie stood for Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence. The co-owner of Def Jam Records, Rick Rubin, convinced three of them, Adrock, MCA and Mike D, to be a rap group. The Beastie Boys album was the second released on Def Jam after LL Cool J came out. They were pretty controversial for the time, people were all mad because they had a giant penis on stage at some of their shows. But rap seems constantly plagued with people being all mad at them.

4. It Takes Two – Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
I don’t know anything about this song, pretty sure these guys are broke now. They had some litigation problems with their samples on another one of their songs ‘Joy and Pain.’

5. You Say He’s Just a Friend – Biz Markie
I’m not going to say this is a bad song or anything, but isn’t this guy a little shittier of a rapper then some other people on this CD? Seriously?! If so there is a reason, he got into the rap thing as a producer and human beat box, he used to make the beats people would rap over, and then I guess he was just hanging around and got on a couple albums, he certainly isn’t the last guy to do this, or the worst. His second album was taken to court however because they used some other song to make the beat. It wound up being a big deal in rap, and some say it ended his career. Now all rappers have to pay an artist if they want to use part of their song in a beat.

6. Mona Lisa – Slick Rick
Slick Rick is a cool guy, he once said he wouldn’t show up to a show if they didn’t get him a Rolls Royce, and he wouldn’t shoot a video if they didn’t give him a fur coat (I think he used one of those Simmons guys mom’s coat actually). He had something happen to his eye so he always wore an eye patch. He got rung up on murder charges so he went to jail for a while, came out, dropped an album and then got extradited a few years back because he was actually born in London

7. 8 Ball – Eazy E
Eazy E could very well be the most influential Rap artists since Run DMC. According to some stories, Eazy E was a drug dealer and he had made enough money doing that to start up a record label. This record label went on to sign Ice Cube (Huge Rap Star/Movie Director) and Dr. Dre (Huge Producer/Rap Star) and they started the group N.W.A. This song comes off of their first album, which wasn’t all that popular, but their future albums would reach national fame to the point that the government was mad at these guys and began calling their music ‘Gangsta Rap’. Eazy E, along with Ice T and some others brought legitimacy to California as a place for rap music.

8. Fight the Power – Public Enemy
Public Enemy is a group of two people, and a DJ. it was originally three but the third guy, Professor Griff, made some ridiculously anti-Semitic comments and had to leave. The guy with the real deep voice is chuck D and the other crazy sounding guy that jumps in every once in a while is Flavor Flav. Flavor Flav is this guy who always wears sunglasses and always has a big clock hanging around his neck like a necklace. Chuck D is a very intelligent guy and most of his lyrics are about uplifting the black race and fighting against injustice. The video for this song was actually directed by Spike Lee.

9. Me, Myself and I – De La Soul
This debut song off of their debut album seemed to start off a whole new genre of rap. It kind of went against the growing trend of people talking about killing each other and also had more jazzy and interesting beats. One of the guys Q-Tip, who managed to make a brief cameo in this song ‘I know this so I point at Q-Tip, and he says "Black is Black."’ Q-Tip would go on to do his thing, you’ll see that later. Probably around this time, the late 80’s, early 90’s rap began to stop being a very clear type of music where, like with rock music, there are many distinct styles emerging within rap.

10. Express Yourself – Dr. Dre and Ice Cube of NWA
This song primarily features Dr. Dre on the microphone, with Ice Cube encouraging him to show the people what time it is. Dr. Dre wasn’t really a rapper, but a producer. He would spend his time making the beats and making sure the whole songs sound tight. Yet, in the tradition of Biz Markie and what seems like all producers , he manages to find himself rapping on this track. Dre and Ice Cube would leave N.W.A. pretty soon after this song. Dre would start a record label called Death Row, you might have heard of it, and Ice Cube would start a solo career and both would record songs explaining why N.W.A. and Eazy E were a bunch of Punks. The Beef between the two and Eazy E would continue for years, yet at Eazy’s bedside when he passed away from Aids later in the 90’s.

11. If My Homie Calls – 2pac
I don’t know too much about 2pac, or at least not enough to really do him justice in a little paragraph. He was from California though, and his emergence began to make California and the West Coast very popular for rap. He began his career as a dancer for the digital underground (the ‘Humpty Dance’ people) and put this song out on his first album . I heard one cool story about ‘pac, he saw these cops messing with somebody and got pissed and decided to do something about it. He went over to the officers started an altercation with them which resulted in him shooting both officers. He got off Scott free because the officers were intoxicated and the weapons they were using came from the evidence locker.

12. Protect ya Neck – Wu-Tang Clan
Wu Tang Clan coming on to the scene was friggin’ huge. At a time when Dr. Dre’s first album, the Chronic was looking like the most popular album ever, and the East coast is looking like they’re no longer making popular rap music, the se guys drop this song off of their debut album. These guys’s were pretty underground, their video for this was shot on some old school super 8 camera in New York some where random. They also had a guy named the Ghost Face Killah, whose face was actually ghosted out on the cover because I guess he had some charges that needed to blow over. Other members are Method Man, he was in How High, Old Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, Inspektah Deck, RZA, who was their producer, The Genius (GZA), who handles the last verse with his thoughts of the rap music industry. All of these guys would have their own solo career and then come back and do another album and then have more solo joints or compilations with other people, they may have more albums associated with them than any other group that is still together.

13. Ain’t No Fun – Snoop Dogg with Nate Dogg, Daz, and Warren G
Snoop Dogg’s Doggy Style album was huge in at least three ways. It was huge for his career because it was the best album he’s had, it was more than a decade a go, and he’s still famous as all ever. It was huge for Death Row records because they became the hot record label on the West Coast and in the Country in general. Death Row’s records were some of the first rap records to be getting regular spins on MTV and other non-rap oriented places. It was also huge for the whole West Coast as other California groups began to get more prominence. Nate Dogg, the deep voiced singer, would have a long career of singing the chorus for other people’s songs..

14. It Ain’t Hard to Tell – Nas
Nas is a guy in New York again who dropped one of the best albums ever. It was kind of hard to pick a song to take off of it. Any ways your boy Jay – Z thought Nas was a punk because he really hadn’t had an album as popular as this one, and this one came out in friggin‘ ’94. So a couple years back he recorded this song, the Takeover, saying ‘Nas’s albums suck, I’m better than him, etc.’ It was a huge deal so Nas had to respond, so he made a song. Ether, where he completely tore him apart, so bad, in fact, that your boy couldn’t respond. Jay came up with some trash, Super Ugly, that everybody thought sucked, and now he’s retiring. Nas just can’t be messed with.

15. Scenario – A Tribe Called Quest with Leaders of the New School
Tribe was one of the groups that followed De La Soul’s lead. Q Tip is in this group along with Phife Dogg, and their producer Ali Shaheed. Also on this song is Busta Rhymes who goes on to become a rap star on his own and continues to be prominent today.

16. Southern PlayalistikCadillac Musik – Outkast
Outkast, the one’s you know and love from such songs ‘Hey ya’ and the ‘Way you move’ have come a long way from their playa days on this, their first album. This definitely opened up the south as viable place for rap music in contrast to the previously bicoastal view of the music. However Outkast is only one group, and it would take some time before the south would be considered significant. Even today, Outkast still seems, ironically , outside of the traditional rap world, I mean look at Andre 3000’s clothes. And this is true from their first album as well.

17. Friend of Mine – Notorious B.I.G.
B.I.G. and his album, Ready to Die, were probably one of the biggest additions to the rap world ever. Both because of his lyrical ability, and his relevant songs, combined with the beats of Puff Daddy, who was probably working harder on this than he has on anything because he needed to get the brand new Bad Boy Records off to a good start , since this was their initial offering. Off of this one debut album he was immediately thrust onto MTV, all over the radio, and all around the country. He was featured on countless other Bad Boy artists songs which managed to then bring the label to the point where it is now. I think the woman rapping in the song is Lil’ Kim who is another star who got fame from B.I.G.

18. Old School – 2pac
This song is a tribute to older rap and lists many other artists that aren’t on this CD. This song came off of the Me Against the world Album. This album was very popular, after this he began working with artists all over the country including one of the hottest rappers of that time, the Notorious B.I.G. Before a recording session with B.I.G. and Puffy 2pac was shot, right outside the building. He went upstairs, and reportedly requested that some one ‘roll him some weed.’ But from this point on he swore that the two Bad Boy stars planned the attack and were shocked when they saw him still alone. From this point on he had serious beef against the two. He also had at least a few years of jail time coming up for a rape charge. However, after 8 months of his sentence, Death Row records exec Suge Knight arranged to pay 1.4 million for 2pac’s bail in exchange for 3 records. The West Coast accelerated from this point until death s of 2pac and B.I.G.