…Wait, lemme stop dancing first. Just give me a minute…
… … … … …
I could have put this song up for my international post or for hype song of the week, it’s just that good and I would describe it as hype music..but all roads lead back NYC. I have to give shoutouts to Buraka Som Sistema and Le Poisson Rouge for exposing me to this talent, my neighbor from uptown, @MALUCAMALA. I first heard her at a show at LPR, she opened for BSS and she was hot. A good live act.
182nd and Audubon, huh, sounds more like 177th and Amsterdam, Highbridge Park in the Summer. Cookouts turn into dance parties, abuelo with the piragua cart and the coquito at the bottom. (That’s grandpa, snowcones and frozen coconut and rum drinks for all my unilingual readers out there.)
I can play this track over and over, it just resonates in my head and I just let it keep running. Then twenty minutes later I realize I’m playing a playlist with only one song in it. After one more listen, then I stop.
Just hearing this song makes me want to watch Krush Groove and start break-dancing.
Boy oh boy was fashion crazy in the 80s, they look like a cross between a Psychedelic Village People and the 80s Hood Clingons from a galaxy far far away. I think my mother was in this concert.
How fitting is this, Jay-Z’s 40th birthday is on my NYC song day. Hmmm, does Jay have any New York videos out right now? Ummm, yeah he does, i should know, I directed it. I kid, the is a Hype Williams joint and I love it. I can name about 97% of shots in this video. [RealTalk] I wonder if he’ll spend his 40 at 40/40. *Other Jay Posts*
I might be mixing up my music themes a bit, this is definitely a NYC song, but it’s a hardcore THROWBACK. This vid has 90s written all over it: the Cross Colors and South Pole gear; Mary was still wearing hear “coke shades,” Meth just got his eye fixed, but still rocking nappy corn rows… This takes me back to bus passes, music on The Box, and New York Undercover with their music guest at the end of every show. This kind of look like a New York Undercover cut-away.
Yeah fine, M.I.A.’s Asian from England and Afrikan Boy’s from…well, you can guess that one. None of that matters, because that’s what it means to be a New Yorker, a Brooklynite- it’s a worldwide affair. Besides, the opening scene is of this video is the Brooklyn Bridge, you can’t get more New York than that.
I learned from my international homie, Fari B, that a “plane,” in India/ Central Asia, is a person that smokes a lot of weed all day (they call them “chimneys” in St. Kitts, right Jo.) They call’em Redman in Brick City.
That made the line click even more in my head, “I fly like paper, get high like planes/ If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name.” That’s “Jigga Lyricism” right there. All Roads Lead To Bk.
I can name like 7 reasons why I love this song (+video) right now:
The cash register sound reminds me of Pink Floyd’s “Money“
The Cool Kids really do walk down the streets like that.
Afrikan Boy, at the grill, is hilarious (listen to the remix with him and 50 Cent.)
I didn’t need Pineapple Express or Wayne’s swagga to put me on to this one.
Gun Shots in the chorus: So M.I.A.
I can totally picture M.I.A. running up on someone, pistol-whipping them and stealing their rope chain.
Now, I’m not from Queens, but this song takes me right back to the mid/late 90s Queensbridge or Ravenswood or something. This is one of those ghetto love stories. I remember watching this video on the The Box, channel 25 in Manhattan at midnight (they played all the uncensored videos). This is back when beepers ruled the world, bamboo earrings were fading away and bubble jackets just got there foot-hold in the hood.
This song, this video is So NYC it’s not even funny. We’re the birthplace of rap/hip hop and this is what it looked like back then. Gritty, ain’t it? It’s real life, it’s my hood, it’s history, it’s rap before rap was rap and I love it. I can count on my hands the number rap songs that dealt with such deep social issues after 1990 in the way that this one does.
And you gotta love the attire, (leather hats better not come back in style) they looked like the Uptown Village People, but that was just the times back then.
I really don’t think you can get any more NYC than this song, the first line is, “Yo, is New York in the house.” Even thought the video was filmed a couple miles outside the city at Rye Playland, this song is our’s. Mariah made Rye Playland look way more fun than it really is, its like Six Flags-lite. She’s all smiling on the kiddy coaster like something’s really happening- gotta love it. This is Mariah and ODB before they both went “a little too far” in their personal lives. This right here is classic ODB, we’re still using the line, “go back like babies and pacifiers”. And his hook is hilarious, “whatcha gonna do when you get outta jail…I’m gon’ do my remix…”
There’s nothing more New York than Miss A.Keys, Mos Def and Pan Pan Restaurant on 135th Street and Lenox Ave (MalcolmX Blvd) in Harlem. Those familiar with the neighborhood know that Pan Pan, the restaurant in the video, used to be on the SW corner of the street across from Harlem Hospital (where I was born), but it burned down in November ’04-right around the time IHOP opened up a block away…just saying, but let’s not talk about that. By the time this video came out, the restaurant was already gutted, that makes it a little more bittersweet. Pan Pan was an institution in Harlem for decades and no IHOP or McDonald’s is gonna cut it.
Before we had Shakira on the track, we had Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz with “Deja Va” repping it for the BX and the rest of the NYC. That was the Summer song of ’98, you could always tell where someone was from when this song came-it’s the only part they shout out. I remember driving to DC and this song was playing on Baltimore station. They tried to remix the song with their own neighborhoods, it was an utter failure. I wondered if they did that in every city… It’s New York City, accept no imitations.
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