SMOOTH CHICKEN

I've recently discovered what the possible 'best song of 2007' was. I'll put it up soon enough, until then here's a video of one of my favorite songs by Ultramagnetic MCs.

The most bloggish post yet [Ultramagnetic MC's]

Jose Canseco doing a Charlie Hough impression. This got him laid up in the hospital, for real

I feel sort of bad that I posted about Kool Keith's proclivity for referencing baseball players without delivering the goods. Hey! Student readers deserve better! Anyway, here are two more tracks off of The Four Horsemen, Ultramagnetic MC's 1993 album. More on that in a moment.

Ultramagnetic MC's - Two Brothers With Checks (San Francisco, Harvey) [The Four Horsemen LP, 1993]

Ultramagnetic MC's - Saga of Dandy, the Devil & Day [The Four Horsemen LP, 1993]

So here are the baseball players that Kool Keith mentions in "Two Brothers With Checks (San Francisco, Harvey)":

• Thurman Munson
  
• Bucky Dent
  
• Sparky Lyle
  
• Joe Morgan
  
• Ray Fosse
  
• Charlie Hough
  

Pretty old school. Ray Fosse is now a TV commentator for the A's, I wonder if he knows his name got dropped on a classic rap album. Even Ced Gee gets into the act here, blurting out "Montreal Expos!" He couldn't have picked a better team, as far as I'm concerned.

Galarraga was my favorite player, but only while on the Expos

Now it's time to pick a long-standing bone about Ultramagnetic MC's. I've posted tracks off of The Four Horsemen, which hasn't received anywhere near the (retroactive) acclaim of their first album Critical Beatdown. I need to quote this piece of inane "criticism" posted to pitchfork when that album got re-released:

But despite Keith's reputation, Ced Gee is the source of the album's most insane, digitalk-quantum gibberish, spouting lines such as, '[Ced's only notable line on the album].' Ced's rhymes are so 'approximate,' in fact, that they should be studied in seminars alongside general relativity.

Yeah... but no. What kind of nonsense is this, claiming that Ced is better than Kool Keith? Enough bitterness though. Enjoy these tracks, especially "Saga of Devil, the Dandy & Day," which is probably the best rap song about baseball of all time.

Walt Weiss yall

Dissertation-ready rap [Kool Keith]

Kool Keith as Black Elvis

In high school we had an assignment to analyze a song from pop culture using the literary terms such as irony, synecdoche and so on. I've often thought it would be possible to break down Kool Keith's rhymes in a similar way, except using an even more high-falutin, academic vocabulary: "well, you see, what Keith is actually looking for in 'Mommy' is to reconstruct his fragmented postmodern identity." Yeah right!! Those thoughts, if you have them, are for thinking not saying. Although it might be possible to write a coherent essay on why Kool Keith is the Andre Breton of rap, that would be the most laughable endeavor imaginable, both from the perspective of the music and academic worlds.

Kool Keith is generally thought of as an insane person, but his talent is undeniable. He's lasted so long by adopting a lot of different styles over the years. He has no respect for so-called hard rappers: "You're basically a hamster. You might as well get a Habitrail, spin on your wheel." (For full effect, it helps to read this in his voice) I like his material from the early 90's the best, partially because that's when he was dropping the most number of references to somewhat obscure baseball players like Dave Winfield, Ray Fosse and Charlie Hough. When can I hear my Walt Weiss rap?

Kool Keith - Mommy [The Cenobites LP w/ Godfather Don, 1993]

Ultramagnetic MC's - Checkin My Style [The Four Horsemen LP, 1993]