The Battle for Rap Supremacy

This post is a little present for my dinner guests from last night.

Part of the evening’s festivities had my dinner guests chosing LP’s from a box of records I had culled from my collection as part of my ongoing vault salvage project. Save for the wonderful 1970 London Phase-4 doube-LP: Benny Goodman Today, there weren’t many gems to be had, but it seems that everyone went away with a couple of albums they were happy to have.

We never did get around to spinning those instrumental grooves by the Beastie Boys that I had promised, but we did get talking about The Beastie Boys and I was saddened to here about Adam Yauch’s cancer announcement.

That sad news bridged the conversation over to some talk about the history of hip-hop, and just as my guests were leaving, one of them found a copy of MC Shan’s debut: Down by Law, from 1986. My knowledge of hip-hop is practically zero, so my friend laid out some 411 on MC Shan and his “old school” hit, “The Bridge”.

According to wikipedia, “Down by Law” was released at the height of the Bridge Wars, a feud between artists from Queensbridge (such as MC Shan) and South Bronx (such as KRS-One), the album contains various dis tracks. The most prodigious of these disses are “Kill That Noise” and “The Bridge,” which was later re-created as “Da Bridge 2001″ by various Queensbridge artists. The album is produced by Marley Marl. It was the only Cold Chillin’/Warner Bros. album that was never initially released on CD by its distributor. The album was not released on the compact disc format until 1995, long after the 5-year distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records ended. By this time Cold Chillin’ became independent and distributed its material solely, mostly from its back catalog. This CD pressing would only be available for a limited time and went out of print for a few years. It was then re-released in 2001 as MC Shan: the Best of Cold Chillin’, which featured all the tracks from Down by Law with a few additional non-album tracks. This version is now out of print as well. In 2007, it was re-released again by its new owner, Traffic Entertainment Group, in expanded form as a double-disc set with bonus tracks. In 1998, it was listed in The Source’s 100 Best Rap Albums.

You can definitely hear the beginnings of what was to come in hip-hop in tracks like “The Bridge”, but Shan’s breakthrough – in my un-learned opinion – came in his 1988 follow-up album, “Born to Be Wild”. Shan’s vocal delivery on “I Pioneered This” set the style that launched hip-hop into the mainstream in the 1990s. While used sparingly, DJ Marley Marl’s turntable and production trickery were years ahead of the Dust Brothers and the Beastie’s gem, “Paul’s Boutique.”

The Battle for Rap Supremecy:

1. The Bridge – MC Shan
2. Kill That Noise – MC Shan
3. Down by Law – MC Shan
4. I Pioneered This – MC Shan
5. Juice Crew Law – MC Shan
6. Project Ho – MC Shan
7. South Bronx – KRS-One
8. Bridge Is Over – KRS-One
9. Criminal Minded – KRS-One
10. Poetry – KRS-One
11. P Is Free [Remix] – KRS-One

MC Shan (and DJ Marley Marl) – Down by Law [1986]:

1. Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing!
2. Project Ho
3. The Bridge
4. Kill That Noise
5. Down by Law
6. Left Me Lonely
7. Another One to Get Jealous Of
8. MC Space
9. Living in the World of Hip Hop