Monday, March 14, 2016

MoNDaY CiNeMa: "PRiSoN SoNG"...

Alright, since I`m starting to feel a little better today I figured that I would try & post up a lil` something for y`all. I`ve been pretty sick with the Flu or some ish since Wednesday, had a fever, body aches, pounding all-day long lasting headaches, the always enjoyable runny nose (that`s sarcasm if ya didn`t catch it), annoyingly vicious coughing (still got that though). Needless to say I wouldn`t wish this ish on anyone, not even my enemies so I hope that you all are in good health. Anyways, I wanted to try something a lil` different by posting up a movie. I have always wanted to share movies on this blog, but since it`s so much more time consuming I just kind of skipped it altogether. Never had or have the time to spend the hours that it would take to upload the flicks, then also having to worry about the possibility of them getting taken down after spending all that time uploading them. So then it came to me since most folks prefer to stream ish anyway why not just use movies that I can find on good ol` YouTube? Sure it may be a lil` lazy on my part, but hey you guys can still view some movies & if you prefer to DL them well there`s a whole lot of easy ways to use browser add-ons to download straight from YouTube. So it`s a win-win situation for us all.....LoL, I save some time & y`all are still entertained...


I was thinkin` of calling these series of posts "MoNDaY CiNeMa", ya I know it`s kind of generic & corny but hey that`s all I can come up with a the moment. If you have a better suggestion feel free to leave it in a comment on this post. BiG uP RapWiseTV/RapWise.com for uploading the flick to YouTube, much appreciated! Seriously, I first found this movie back in 2002 at the local video store (yes folks at one point in time you could actually go to a retail store to rent movies) & it was on VHS not DVD. Oh yeah, let me share the title of it with you so you guys know what I`m talking about....LoL, it`s called "Prison Song"





Anyway, I seen that Q-Tip, Mary J. Blige & Fat Joe were in the movie so being the BiG Hip Hop head that I was/still am I decided to rent it. Didn`t matter that I had never even heard of the movie, didn`t know of it until I picked it up off the video store`s shelf that day. More importantly though, it didn`t even matter that I had no clue on what it was about. Ya see back in the day I just rented any & every "hood" movie that I came across, especially if it had some rappers in it.....LoL, this means unfortunately that I have wasted more than a few hours of my Life watching some wack/weak movies, but still I give `em all a chance with an open mind. After all you never know what diamond in the rough you might find.....Ha~Hah, corny but true! So back to the movie, I rented it & ended up hooking up my 2 VCRs (yeah I was ballin`....LoL) together so I could make a copy for myself. It`s kind of funny because I still have that dubbed copy at my parents` crib somewhere in the basement in a box. Too bad I don`t have a VCR any more.....LoL, I DL`d this joint from YouTube anyway so I`m good...




As for "Prison Song" it`s a decent movie that was released in 2001, directed by Darnell Martin who also wrote the movie alongside Q-Tip. A few of the cast members that y`all heads may be familiar with are; Q-Tip, Mary J. Blige (her acting debut), Fat Joe, Snow (you know "Informer"), Noreaga & 'Bobbito' Garcia a.k.a. DJ Cucumberslice (Stretch & Bobbito Show). With that said, let me just give you a little heads up that this movie is somewhat of a musical. Yes there`s some singing or rappin` done as the characters` dialogue at times, but it`s not a full-on musical like it was originally intended to be. So it`s not all show-tunesy....LoL, I found that the singing or rappin` transitions were done more naturally. Obviously not every time, but for the most part it was still pretty easy to get into the movie`s emotionally driven story. I`m not a fan of musicals at all, but I still found it to be interesting enough to watch. Q-Tip does a solid job taking the viewers on an emotional roller coaster ride, you can`t help but feel sorry for Elijah (his character`s name). The movie`s story line is one of actions & consequences, so check it out...















N`JoY...

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

UnReLeaSeD EaZy-E SoNGs...





What`s happenin` y`all? Hope 2016 has been treating you well so far! I`ve been pretty busy so unfortunately I haven`t really been able to spend any time on the blog for a few months, this explains the hiatus. Anyway I`m hoping to be able to get back to posting up somethings to share with y`all. This post`s gon` be somewhat of a quick one just so I can get back into the swing of things. Since I just watched that N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton movie a few weeks ago I`ve been on a N.W.A./Eazy-E/Ruthless Records kick, listening to whatever was affiliated with the whole Ruthless Records camp. There`s just a whole lot of good music that I hadn`t really given a solid listen to, so I wanted to take a lil` trip back to that era. I was also searching for any possible unreleased or demo songs that may have made their way to the `net. Unfortunately I didn`t really find much, but I did find a few joints that I hadn`t heard before while searchin` good ol` Youtube...


I`m not sure if any of y`all have heard these joints before, but seeing as how there`s not a whole lot of unreleased Eazy-E songs out there I figured it was worth mentioning anyway. The first joint is unfortunately just a short lil` snippet called "From Around The Way". Former member of N.W.A. Krazy Dee (you can read an nice lil` article about him here) shared it with the kats from the Murder Master Music Show. Sure wish he would`ve let us hear the entire song, but hey a snippet is better than nothing at all I guess even if it`s more of a tease than anything else. The song has somewhat of a Beastie Boys vibe to it, not amazingly DoPe but still interesting nonetheless...
 

 
 
 
Here`s a lil` portion of the interview that Krazy Dee did with the folks at Murder Master Music Show. (DL the whole interview here) He mentions the fact that he has about 10 or so unreleased/demo joints of N.W.A.`s, would sooooooo love to get my hands & ears on `em!!!
 
 
 
 
 
The second joint that I came across is actually somewhat of a surprise to me, mostly because it`s an R&B song that features Eazy-E. It`s said to be the only R&B track that Eazy has ever lent his vocals to. The song is a remix of "With Me" by the 1990`s R&B group AZ-1 (pronounced As One). The track was recorded around 1993, but was never officially released because of personnel changes that were happening at the record label that the group was signed to at the time. To make matters worse, not too long after the song was completed the 'only master of the song' had been stolen when someone had broke into one of the member`s cars. Fate proved to be on the song`s side however when in 2015 a digital copy of the "With Me [Rmx]" master recording was mistakenly discovered on an old DAT tape of AZ-1`s along with a few other lost songs. The song itself is decent & the story about it is pretty interesting as well. As for AZ-1 (you can read more about them here), since I`m sure most of y`all probably hadn`t heard of `em, consist of; producer/member Jeff Gill, rapper/singer Shawn Harris, the lead vocalist Martin Kember (who was also the lead singer of Color Me Badd) & rounding out the group was producer/ member Andre "L.A. Dre" Bolton. Some of y`all may recognize L.A. Dre`s name from his production work with D.O.C., N.W.A. & Michel`le. Eazy-E was introduced to AZ-1 by L.A. Dre & since they were homies E had no issues working on the remix with them. Anyway if you just want to hear E`s verse it starts around the 4:18 mark, it`s not bad but honestly it doesn`t quite fit with the rest of the song. But hey, at least he still remained Eazy-E on it...
 
 
 
 
 
The next joint that I found has been floating around on the `net for a few years now, but some of y`all may not have heard it. It`s a G.B.M. joint that features Eazy-E titled "Woodworks". G.B.M. a.k.a. Ganksta Bytch Mentality/Gangsta Bitch Mentality was another female Rap group that E was working with on Ruthless Records. The group consisted of Sylk a.k.a. Sylk-E Fyne, Diamond, T-Ski & Chan Loc. Unfortunately the sound quality on this song isn`t all that great & there seems to be some sort of skipping throughout the track as well, but aside from that though this joint`s probably my favorite of all the G.B.M. songs in this post. They definitely were comin` hard on this track & the beat backin` their lyrics is pretty solid...
 
 
 
 
 
"No More Tears" is another G.B.M. joint featuring Eazy-E. Again the sound quality`s not great & unfortunately RuthlessPropaganda.net felt the need to tag their site all thru this song. I get that y`all want to ensure folks know who leaked the track, but that`s a lil` overkill...my opinion of course. The song`s decent, G.B.M. flexes some G`ness as well. The beat may be familiar to some, I believe that Prince Paul used a similar sample for "What U Got?" off the "Prince Among Thieves" album (great concept album by the way!)...
 
 
 
 
 
The third & final G.B.M. joint that I found again features Eazy-E & is titled "House Party" I`ve also seen it titled as "Shoot `Em Up On A Sunday", either way it`s titled it`s the same song. This one seems to be more of like a demo or something, I say this because of the way that it ends mid verse when Chan Loc`s spittin`. That & it almost sounds like they`re all kickin` freestyle~like flows. This one`s not as good as the first two joints, but it`s not completely wack...
 
 
 
 
With all these G.B.M. joints out there it kind of makes me think that there`s possibly an unreleased G.B.M. album somewhere in the Ruthless vaults. It`s a DaMn shame that we will probably never get to hear it! Are there any other Eazy joints out there? I know DJ Yella claims that the only unreleased Eazy-E joint that he knows of is an Ice Cube DiSS that he`ll never release, but clearly there`s still a few tracks that have yet to receive an official release, hopefully someday we get to hear better sound quality versions of these & others. One can wish can`t he???
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Ruthless Radio Theme"...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
R.i.P. EaZy-E...