REM featuring Q-Tip : The Outsiders (from Wanderlust 7")

REM & Q-Tip : The Outsiders (Warner, 2005)

I usually don’t post anything that recent. I try to avoid covering records that are still in print for the same reason that I rip in mono : I want you to buy records. The point of B Side Wins Again is not to put another nail in the coffin of the music industry. Seeing major firing people and indie labels folding is not a good sign. My point is to have people realize that there are dope stuff to be found on vinyl. The mp3 are here as teasers only. I don’t want people to go out and play the joint they download here on their Serato or Final Scratch. To quote Bobbito : If you own an iPod or Serato you are contributing to the death of hip-hop. So go buy some vinyl, godamn ! Don’t you think that those 350X350 pixels jpg would look better on 12 X 12 inches ? Buy new releases, or old shit, grab reissues or try to hunt original copies if you’re a fetichist like me, but it’s really not good for your karma to rely on mp3 to get musical knowledge.

So why do I post a song from last year now ? Well, I realize it’s contradictory, but I’m a KRS One fan, so what the hell ! Actually The Outsiders shouldn’t really be on B Side Wins Again because it’s not a B side exclusive, it has been released on CD before. I guess it’s already easy to find it if you use Soulseek, Kazaa, Emule, or any of those illegal programs. But I assume that most visitors to the site are hip-hop heads who don’t regularly check 35-and-over rock group albums. At least I don’t. I hope this post won’t hurt the sales of their album, or of the 7”.

It’s funny how they structure the song, leaving a blank before Tip’s part, so I don’t know if they added his part after the song was finished, or (more likely) they knew most of their fans would want to skip the last verse with the rap guy talking. I turns out that in my case I’m happy to be able to mix the song without having to put up with the old white guy singing for two and a half minute... Anyhow, it's really one for the Q-Tip completists.

Jungle Brothers & Q-Tip : Promo N°2 (Mind Review '89) (from Beyond This World 12")

Jungle Brothers & Q-Tip : Promo N°2 (Mind Review '89) (Warner, 1989)
Heavy D, Kool G Rap, Grand Puba, CL Smooth, Big Daddy Kane, Pete Rock & Q Tip : Don't Curse (Uptown, 1992)
Cold Chillin Juice Crew : Cold Chillin Christmas (Warner, 1988)
Mix-Her-Hug (homemade edit)

Sorry for the lack of post lately, my internet conncetion was down. I won't be home for the next two weeks so don't expect too many updates this month.

Anyhow I finally managed to find my copy of Beyond This World. It was misplaced in my Expedit, as always. I was talking about this track in my post about If The Papes Come, when I was discussing the different songs Q-Tip did with The Jungle Brother. But honestly Promo N°2 (Mind Review '89) deserved it's own post, just so I can disgress and talk about anything but this song.

This record was probably the first song where I heard Q-Tip, or at least it was the first where I really noticed him. I remember hearing that for the first time on a tape of the Dee Nasty show, it was the week when they had my cousin's friend who rhymed in "chinese" (i guess it was in mandarin, but they simply said Chinese). Dee Nasty opened the show with this record and that's when my obsession with Q-Tip started.

Between the first Promo (see below) and the second one Hip Hop had went through a lot of changes as stated in Tip's rhyme : "Promo No. 1, Q-Tip had a fade, Promo No. 2, Q-Tip rocks braids". yeah back in those days MCs where really innovative in their haircuts. Nowadays it seems everybody is bald, but in 89 between the jheri curl, the afro, the dreadlocks, the cornrow... Hip hop hair were so versatile in those days, I really miss that.

The JB's and Q-Tip were rhyming over a famous Booker T loop, and Tip rhymed over it again a few years later on the Pete Rock-produced posse cut Don't Curse along side Heavy D, Kool G Rap, Puba, CL Smooth and Big Daddy Kane. A few years ago I wrote that bitter-sweet article on Kane for my Strictly Hatred column in Real, where I considered that he jump the shark when he did the video for this song, with the infamous purple silk shirt. It's a shame because his verses where still nice then.

Coincidentially Big Daddy Kane as well had rhymed on a song with the same sample before, the little known Cold Chillin Christmas with MC Shan and Roxanne Shante, from the Winter Warnerland compilation. Now that I think of it, I really should have make fun of this one too. As if having a christmas song wasn't corny enough, someone thought it would be a good idea to have Cold Chillin CEO Fly Ty to drop a verse. Bad executive decision ! Well once you agreed to do a christmas song on a compilation, between Pee Wee Herman and Los Lobos, you can't really expect people to take it seriously, so it's all good I guess.

Oh yeah, and since I had too much time on my hands I just did a little mix with the three tracks.

Ice T : Our Most Requested Record (from Pimpin Ain't Easy 12")

Ice T : Our Most Requested Record (Sire, 1987)
Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three : Request Line (Reality, 1984)
The World Famous Supreme Team : D'Ya Like Scratching (Charisma, 1983)
Eazy E : Radio (Ruthless, 1988)

I know people will soon dismiss B Side Wins Again as just another mid 90's New York-centric audioblog, so I have to show some diversity now. Back in the eighties I didn't have enough money to buy albums and 12", I was mainly dubbing tapes and occasionaly buying LPs. I had most west coast classics (Above The Law, Donald D, Divine Styler, Too Short...) on poor quality C 90 tapes bought from Monoprix. Back when I was in junior high a friend gave me a tape he had from his british pen pal becaus I probably was the only person he knew who liked hip hop then. It had Ice T's Rhyme Pays on one side, and a group called Face One on the other. I never heard of this group ever since, I wonder if that was just a demo or a local group from West Bubblefuck...

-Enough with your ranting about your own life, just post some music.

-OK, right. Our Most Requested Record was on the B side of Ice T's ode to modern-day slavemasters, Pimpin Ain't Easy. This song was inspired by the first all hip hop AM station, the now defunct KDAY (not defunct anymore since it's back for a couple of month now on 93.5 FM), broadcasting from Crenshaw Bld in Los Angeles. While kids in New York had to wait till saturday night to hear Mr Magic playing at 2:00 am on the radio, people in LA were blessed with a a radio station which would play nothing but rap !

Well, you can also consider that Ice T was in a long tradition of raps dedicated to radio, and say that it's just his own version of Rock Master Scott's Request Line, which itself is a rip off of The World Famous Supreme Team's D'Ya Like Scratching. Well if anything, Ice T's concept was jacked by Eazy E on Radio that came out a few month after. Hey Eazy : just don't bite it !

The picture on the cover is the work of one of my favourite photographer, Glen E. Friedman, who went on to shoot the pictures of most releases on Rhyme Syndicate Records.


Ice T : Our Most Requested Record (Sire, 1987)
Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three : Request Line (Reality, 1984)
The World Famous Supreme Team : D'Ya Like Scratching (Charisma, 1983)
Eazy E : Radio (Ruthless, 1988)


Je sens que beaucoup vont commencer à considerer B Side Wins Again comme un vulgaire audioblog obsédé par le rap new yorkais du milieu des années 90, il est grand temps de se diversifier un peu. Dans les années 80 je n'avais pas assez d'argent pour acheter des albums et des maxis, je copiais surtout des cassettes, et exceptionnelement des albums. J'avais plein de classiques californiens (Above The Law, Donald D, Divine Styler, Too Short...) sur des pauvres cassettes C 90 achetées au Monoprix du coin.

Quand j'étais au collège un mec de ma classe m'a refilé une cassette que lui avait laissé son correspondant anglais, je devais être la seule personne qu'il connaissait qui écoutait du rap. Sur une face il y avait Rhyme Pays d'Ice T, et sur l'autre un groupe appelé Face One. Je n'ai jamais entendu parler de ce groupe depuis, ça devait être la démo d'un petit groupe...

-C'est bon, raconte pas ta vie, balance juste des Mp3

-Ok, d'accord. Our Most Requested Record est la face B du maxi d'Ice T dédié aux esclavagistes modernes, Pimpin Ain't Easy. Ce morceau était inspiré par la toute première station au monde entièrement dédiée au hip hop, la défunte KDAY (qui a récemment ressucité), légendaire radio qui émettait depuis Crenshaw Boulevard à Los Angeles. Pendant que les new-yorkais qui voulaient avoir du rap à la radio devaient attendre le samedi soir pour entendre Mr Magic à 2h du matin, les gens de LA avaient la chance d'avoir une radio qui ne jouait que du rap !

Certes, on peut aussi penser que ce titre d'Ice T est dans la longue tradition de morceaux dediés à ce média formidable qu'est la radio, et considéré qu'il a simplement donné une suite au Request Line de Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three, qui lui même était une ressucé de D'Ya Like Scratching de The World Famous Supreme Team. Unbe chose est sur : Eazy E a pompé le "concept" d'Ice T avec Radio, qui est sorti quelques mois après. Hey Eazy : just don't bite it !

La pochette est l'oeuvre d'un de mes photographes préférés, Glen E. Friedman, qui par la suite a réalisé quasiment toutes les photos des disques de Rhyme Syndicate Records.