The Wildstyle Story #16- Song Breakdown: You Want A Style Like This (Come Get It…)
In 1989, if you were a Hip Hop listener or creator then Hip House was somewhat inescapable, especially if you were in or near Chicago. I’ve always been attentive to a wide range of genres, and if there is a whole genre I don’t like (and I’m sure there is), I don’t even know what it is. However, I’m not usually a fan of trends, particularly if they seem like their being forced by some corporate interest, and that’s how I viewed Hip House. I admit that might not be completely true. The Chicago artists who started and popularized Hip House may have been following their hearts and ears, but by the time it spread to the East Coast, it was becoming something else. Regardless, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Chicago Hip House artists like Fast Eddie, White Knight, Kool Rock Steady (R.I.P), etc…, but I did like some of it. And, there is a solid documentary about the history of Hip House that taps into its origins, including a debate on whether it started in Chicago, that was done during its height of popularity, which I’ve also seen recently on Youtube. However, in terms of my feelings about Hip House in general, my biggest draw to Hip Hop, and music in general for the most part, has always been the lyrics, and Chicago Hip House largely wasn’t fulfilling my thirst for lyrics. At least some of the East Coast Hip House was more progressive lyrically, such as songs by King Sun, Too Poetic, Mantronix (courtesy of Bryce Luv), Chill Rob G and Craig G. But, in terms of Chicago, Hip House is what brought some notable record labels to the city. For one example, Jive Records set up an office in town for a while, signing Chicago-based White Boy Mike and DJ Boy to a single deal, releasing one of the best Hip House records, “Something To Dance To”. So, to be clear, it wasn’t that I was opposed to Hip House in general. I was turned off by it becoming trendy, and most importantly, I wanted the artists doing it to put more thought into the lyrics. That last point leads directly to something that I speak on something more in-depth in another episode of the #WildstyleStyleStory series, but MCing is arguably the only thing I’ve ever been really competitive about, and it was that side of me that made me often view many artists as being on the opposing side of what I was doing, rather than fellow artists. In hindsight, I wish I was able, and others were able, to find a more healthy mindset to be be competitive, while also remaining non-judgmental. Specifically, I remember one of the artists I was producing and doing some management stuff for, needing to go to Fast Eddie’s studio for some reason or another. I’m pretty sure it was S.P.O (pre-Rubberoom), and it was also with Troy Guy a.k.a T-Fly, who S.P.O did some work with also. I don’t remember the details, including who was there, as all I can remember is being there and Fast Eddie being very cordial and welcoming, and all I can think about was, “I wanna battle him!” In sounds so ridiculous right now, and it should have sounded ridiculous then also, but it didn’t, because while I acknowledge that some competitive spirit can be great and even beneficial in several ways, it can also often be a toxin, or at the very least, a concoction for clouding one’s thoughts.
This is also a great place to note that a lot of the non-Chicago Hip House, wasn’t really fully Hip House. It was simply up-tempo club, and many would still use the Hip House terminology to describe it, and sometimes those records used one of the key components of the Hip House sound, the Roland TR-909. It seems evident that by late ’88 and early ’89, record labels were pushing to sign artists who did Hip House or Club Rap, or they wanted their signed artists to make some songs in that vein.
As for the aforementioned Craig G, I was a fan of his since I heard “Shout Rap” in 1985 from a radio tape someone gave me from Philly. He continued to impress me as he grew with excellent guest verses (EX: “Juice Crew All Stars” and “The Symphony”) and his solo tracks on the Marley Marl “In Control Volume 1” album. So, I was excited he was signed to Atlantic Records and a debut album was on the way. I purchased the first single, and then album when it came out, and it’s not an album without its faults, but it has some shining moments; “Slammin’”, “Shootin’ The Gift”, “Smooth”, and “Dopest Duo”. Those songs were enough proof of skill for me to be talking about this album to anyone that would listen back then. It was one of those moments where I was disappointed in Rap fans. On several occasions I asked people what they thought about the album, or some way the album would come up, and most people had never heard it. And, some people said they avoided it because of the Hip House single, “Turn This House To A Home”. Of course, my immediate reply would be, “BUT, ‘Dopest Duo’ is on the flipside!!!” However, this was the age of the music video. B-Side songs weren’t always heard or even sought out by the average fan, as they depended on the video and/or radio shows to inform their purchases for the most part, as well as magazines such as The Source. This was frustrating for me. I felt as fans we had an obligation to go out and directly support artists as much as we can by buying the singles/albums, going to the shows, or if you couldn’t afford that, then find someone who had the album, listen, and if you dig it, let people know. Anyway, I spent some talking to people about this Craig G album and telling them they should peep it and I also often remarked on his great use of multi-syllable rhymes and rhyme patterns.
That said, I don’t know, or remember, if that’s why Madd Maxx sampled Yellow Magic Orchestra “Firecracker”, the same song sampled for “Turn That House To A Home” by Craig G, which people in my circle didn’t seem to like, though neither did Craig G himself as I’ve come to learn years later. But, I’m pretty sure Maxx produced it after the Craig G song was released and I had talked for months about that album. But, it’s also true that that Yellow Magic Orchestra song was already iconic at that point, particularly in Dance music circles, and Maxx was starting to spin more in those spaces, so he may have simply picked up on it from doing that.
As I mentioned in this “Beat This!” story, because virtually all the local shows that we had an opportunity to perform at were House shows, we made a couple songs to fit that vibe. But, none of those songs are technically Hip House. So, this track is the only real Hip House song we did, and that made sense for use to have one of these in our discography. I think the opening vocal sample, “We gonna do a song that you never heard before”, was alluding to the fact that we hadn’t done a Hip House song officially. We talked about submitting demos to labels and we had already had the conversation with Atlantic Records before recording this, so we knew labels were always looking for what was hot. So, we didn’t plan to shop this song to labels, but if we submitted a demo, and they asked if we had a Hip House song, we could hit them with this real quick.
Yet, that was an afterthought. When I first heard the beat, I had one thing in mind, I wanted to attempt to write the most lyrically impressive Hip House song to date. I’m happy with the writing on this. There’s some nice Wordplay and Punchlines. One of the lines I didn’t think people would catch is the opening of the 3rd verse, “Metaphors are a mind game and I’m winnin’/…the party I get hype when Maxx starts spinnin’”. Around this time, I was toying a lot with this run-on sentence metaphor style. So, the “winnin’” is serving dual purpose and is also to be read as “when in…”. So, there’s one usage saying, “Metaphors are a mind game and I’m winnin’” and also another purpose of saying “WHEN IN a party I get hype when Maxx starts spinnin’”. And, there are a few other hidden things in the song as well, which is why I say, “I write rhymes for the hardcore lyricists/The average person might not get into this/cause too complex and too hi-tech/Too many metaphors you can’t get”. For me, the most important thing about this song is if you remove the beat and I used these rhymes in a cipher, they would still be potent for the time, at least in my opinion. I also like my delivery on here, for the most part. I feel like it shows my progression after pushing myself to have better delivery after the situation with “The Exploits of the Lyrical Legend”, and me not making the cut for the song. However, perhaps what’s more notable here in terms of my delivery is that I’m injecting more personality into the flow. Admittedly, I don’t know if I fully achieved my goal of writing the most lyrical Hip House song of all-time, but I personally feel it should be in the discussion. Mind you, I’m aware that no one probably cares to have that discussion, and if they did, they likely never heard this song, so I’m not delusional…I’m just saying. I’m also saying the most likely winner should be between Too Poetic’s “Poetical Terror”, followed by Chill Rob G “Make It” or Mantronix “Do You Want More” (featuring Bryce Luv). In any event, I think the main other competitors for such a frivolous title would be;
Heavy D-We Got Our Own Thing” (if this counts a Hip House…)
Mantronix-Do You Want Some More” Remix
Craig G-Turn This House Into A Home
King Sun-On The Club Tip
White Boy Mike-Something To Dance TO
Queen Latifah-Come Into My House (last verse especially)
Getting back to Craig G, when I was writing this, since we used the same sample he did, I wanted to throw a subliminal shout out to him in the lyrics. It’s not something anyone probably would ever notice it, so it was really for my own satisfaction, or if he ever heard it, he might catch it. It’s when I say, “I hope so cause you’re walking on a rope so thin/it’s bound to break, why am I so dope, YO…”. On “Smooth” (from his “The Kingpin” album), which I think is a sleeper track, Craig G does this pattern I always loved, when he says, “You say you’re hanging from a string? Well, Imma light your rope/Recite the dope that turns your hype to hope”. Basically, I simply used two of the same words that he did, but came with a different creative pattern, while also making a similar point. That above quote in mind, I also like how I lead into that part, “Bust the dope mix, do the dope tricks/To add flavor…I drop lyrics/Come across hype, dope, or smooth like this/Or, come hard and just diss/or discipline, punks that claim they’re just listenin’/But, you bit, now you’re missing in/action, from a lyrical hijack/You slept, now you’re on a milk carton get that?” There are a few things I like about the way that whole part flows, but there is a hidden meaning in the last line, hence ending with “get that?”. I’m basically telling MCs they were sleeping on my skill level and thus, when facing me in a battle they come up missing, but the hidden part is that this was a time of calling some one “kid” as a figure of speech, and so one way kids sleep is that “kids nap”, which is a roundabout way to reference “kidnap”, hence them being on a milk carton. It was simply a complicated way to say something simple, that I’m guessing no one might have ever even noticed.
Even though I say Wildstyle in the song, it was made at the very tail end of Wildstyle recording as a three-man unit. Technically, by this point it was already over because the three of us never recorded together after this song was made, but it was done pretty close to us doing our last recordings, and I think I was still hanging on to the hope that we were going to reconnect and record together again. At the time, I was also making enough solo music with Maxx, and I had produced a few solo songs of my own, that I was planning on promoting an EP Demo of about ten songs. And, like I mentioned, I wasn’t going to include this one, unless a label asked for something like this, and then, BAM! Let’s sign them contracts…
This was done in late ’89 or very early ’90, if memory serves. It was produced by Madd Maxx using the Alesis HR-16 Drum Machine and the Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard. It was recorded in the Rage Cage Studios, at our Foxcrest Apartments location in Waukegan. Based on Maxx using the HR-16 for this song, as well as The Exploits of the Lyrical Legend”, and me using it for “Beat This!”, I would say the HR-16 has a great sound for making Hip House and Club Rap. Actually, I’m somewhat curious as to how many songs used this drum machine when it came out because it was a raved about drum machine for a hot second. I have heard that DJ Premier used it for some early Gang Starr stuff. I wish I still had mine.
Final thought: I kind of wish I would have performed this song. More to the point, I wish I would had done any solo performing between 1990–1992. I planned a couple shows, but they fell through, not on my end, but one event wound up being cancelled, and don’t remember what happened to the other(s), but I know there was one I planned for Puerto Rican Society also. That said, I’ve never performed solo in my life (and haven’t performed on stage since 1992). I’ve only performed with my two groups; 3D Crew and Wildstyle, and a few guest appearances and open mics in Chicago in the early 1990s. However, the EP I was working on post-Wildstyle is something that I was proud of, but I never recorded final versions of any of those songs, only rough drafts. I’m thinking about possibly also doing something to celebrate that unreleased EP next year, on the 30th Anniversary of it not being released.
“Vocal Violence” EP PLAYLIST* [All produced by me unless noted):
1)Wild Like an Animal
2)Coolin’ Like A Maniac
3)A Bit of Intellect
4)Here’s an Example
5)This Style Seems Wild
6)In Case of Emergency
7)Vocal Violence
8)Call an Ambulance
9)Check the Technique
10Here’s Another One For Ya [Produced By Madd Maxx]
11)Freestyle ’90 Outro {Produced by Madd Maxx]
*Techincally, Causin Chaos probably would have been on here too, rather than a Wildstyle album.
