365 Days of Song Recommendations: Dec 4

Strobelite Honey — Black Sheep

Listen here dear, step to the rear
Find yourself a seat, buy yourself a beer
Eat some pretzels, go play some videos
Thank you for your time honey, but hoe, I gotta go

When Black Sheep released A Wolf in a Sheep’s Clothing in 1991, we were all singing “The Choice is Yours” line for line. And then there was “For Doz That Slept,” which blew our fragile little thirteen-year-old minds with an entire song composed of harmonized Fuck you and Fuck it up. If I’m being honest it felt like the highest of all art forms.

Fun fact: Black Sheep was the first hip-hop act to appear on The Tonight Show after Jay Leno took over for Johnny Carson.

But down there in Track #5, fans found the greatest hook that Black Sheep ever laid down.

I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
Just don’t know “Why?” Hon, I just don’t know
I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go “Don’t go”
See something ain’t right “Why?” It’s the strobelite…

Simple. Concise. Repetitive. Damn catchy. Around which, Dres and Mista Lawnge crafted a retelling of one man’s attempt to escape the unwanted advances of a girl at a party. “Strobelite Honey” remains a damn smart hip-hop reinterpretation of put-down comedy set to a funky disco-lite beat and clever sampling of the organ from Young & Company’s “I Like What You’re Doing to Me” and the synthesizer from the S.O.S. Band’s “Take Your Time (Do It Right),” one of my favorite late-era disco tracks.

The following line and delivery haven’t left this one shady corner of my brain in 30 years. 30 fucking years I’ve been hearing this lyric in my head and I still haven’t tired of it. Dres desperately tries every excuse of which he can think to extricate himself from the encounter and somehow ends it all rhyming “where I be” with “viscosity.”

I think I lost my coat, and plus I’m double parked
I thought you was my girl, you see I can’t see in the dark
Anyway I’m out, out is where I be
I’ve got to step, With the viscosity

Though Black Sheep received plenty of radio-play for “The Choice is Yours” the rest of their catalog and the album itself have disappeared from the greater hip-hop conversation. In 1998, The Source chose “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” as one of their top 100 rap albums, but honestly that’s not much in the way of a lasting legacy. Few rap acts achieved anything as witty and imaginative as “A Wolf in a Sheep’s Clothing.” It’s both a straightforward piece of timeless hip-hop and an experimental catalog of beats and rhyme snippets — half-songs and dream logic. Even the throwaways boast a clever hook or idea that justifies their inclusion on the record.

Go back and listen to this record start to finish. “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” is a masterpiece. I knew this shit at 13 — and it still pisses me off that Mercury/Polygram abandoned them when they released their follow-up record Non-Fiction in 1994 and caused the duo to split. Dres popped up on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s White People in 2004 and released an online-only Black Sheep record in 2006 with Mista Lawnge appearing on only a handful of tracks.

Can’t swing tonight, so ahhhhhhh
Honey take a hike, go fly a kite
And I don’t mean to be impolite
But yo, I’m outta here aight?

“Strobelite Honey” is the 338th song on the #365Songs playlist!