Part 3. Let’s dive right in.

Mama’s Gun – Erykah Badu. I love this album. Let’s get that out the way first. I love it, love it, love it. It’s easily my favorite of all her albums. Eeeeeasily. I try not to assume that the artist’s persona is necessarily that of the “I” in the songs, but suffice it to say that I would have wifed the character portrayed on this album with the quickness. Especially on the stretch from Didn’t Cha Know to …man, the whole rest of the album. Mama’s Gun is, I think, just about as close to a perfect album as I know. It’s not uncommon for me to say that I can listen to an album straight through, but with Mama’s Gun, I usually do. Having said that, I think its importance comes from the discovery of the last song during a time when I was going through it. Green Eyes is a disturbingly good song, meaning that I really can’t listen to it without being taken back to that time.

Stakes Is High – De La Soul – This is another case in which their most important album is not necessarily my favorite. Don’t get me wrong: I think Stakes Is High is a fantastic album, but I like Buhloone Mindstate and De La Soul Is Dead more. Stakes’ importance comes from the fact that it’s the album that really made me a De La fan. Prior to Stakes, I was cool with De La, but I had never really liked their lead singles enough to buy the album. I know, I know. I was sleep for 8 years. When the single, Stakes Is High, came out, I watched the video every time it came on television, and I went to the record store and bought the 12-inch. For those who know, the first 12-inch didn’t come with the remix featuring Mos Def and Truth Enola. After Stakes, and that same year, I think I saw them in concert, I went and copped their whole discography, just about, and they moved up toward the top of my list of favorite hip-hop groups.

Skin Tight – Ohio Players – Historically, it’s their first album on Mercury Records. The title song was one of their bigger hits. Heaven Must Be Like This is a quintessential funk ballad. And you know good and well none of that has anything to do why this album is on my list. That, lovely, lovely, chocolate brown lady on the amberish-yellow background helped to change the game — or at least define the game for me. Not saying I wouldn’t have been straight had I not run into Skin Tight, but when I saw that album cover, I knew what the deal was. Now understand: as far as Ohio Players album covers go, Honey was the apex. But Skin Tight is the first one I actually remember. But I knew to check for Ohio Players albums after that.

Live From Another Level – Israel & New Breed – I was looking to up my gospel game a little bit when a friend recommended this. I was quite glad she did. My purchase of the album kinda dovetailed with the fact that we sing a lot of this group’s songs at the church I’d started going to. What made this album different was that it was the first of the not-necessarily Black gospel albums that I bought. That is, it’s not quite a linear descendant of gospel as the twin sister of the blues. This album was much more culturally amorphous. A very good album, but much different from the foot-stompin, hand-clappin, B3′d out music I usually bought.

The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress – Flip Wilson Between 7th and 8th grade, I raided my the record player console in my grandmother’s living room. That’s when I rediscovered a lot of albums (the Skin Tight album cover became a poster) and discovered a lot more. TDMMBTD was a discovery. In the mid-80’s, I didn’t really know who Flip Wilson was. I knew he had that sitcom that basically looked like a knock-off Cosby Show, but that was about it. I didn’t know a thing about his stand-up routine. Now, when I was in 6th grade, I had pretty much subsumed Bill Cosby’s speech patterns from Himself. I remember my homeroom teacher had to tell me to cut it out. Flip was different. I was going to enter the speech contest in 8th grade until they told me I couldn’t do The Great Motor Bike and Tennis Shoe Race.

I was listening to a CD of my favorite albums and No One Can Do It Better by the D.O.C. came on. Sometimes I forget how complete an album that was. Being that most of my hip-hop sensibilities are shaped by the fact that I came of age on the East Coast, that Compton-by-way-of-Dallas classic isn’t always the first album in my mind when I think classic hip-hop, but whenever I hear it, I always wonder why it doesn’t get more credit.

It’s Funky Enough – The opening track was the first single. Right from the get-go, I had one of my themes for 9th/10th grade. “I am not illiterate/no not even a little bit/ nothing like an idiot/ get it?”

Mind Blowin’ – Again, DOC opens the track by speaking. “This is serious bidness.” In a lotta ways, this song kinda typifies the album in that it’s not one that I would go out of my way to listen to, but when I do sit down and listen to it, I’m always thinkin, this joint is cold. Let alone the fact that it’s structured on that Synthetic Substitution sample.

Lend Me An Ear – Fast tracks weren’t really my forte, but DOC had the skill to make em work.

Comm. Blues – I don’t know how I forgot this joint on my all-time favorite skits. Ice Cube as Granddaddy Caddy on this joint is outta control.

Let The Bass Go – This joint was just flat-out tremendous. The Isaac Hayes sample, the pace, and most of all, the 808 drops. I used to try to kill stereos with the bass at the end of the first verse.

Beautiful But Deadly – It seems that the money-hungry woman has a place on most rap albums. No One Can Do It Better was no different in that respect. It wasn’t quite as disrespectful as some of the others, but I’m sure that I could’ve written a couple pages about it when I was in that Women’s Studies class. Which is not to say that I couldn’t identify with it.

On the interlude between the two, DOC, kinda drunk, says he likes side two better. I agree.

D.O.C. and the Doctor – Come on, son. That Funkadelic sample alone would keep me hype about this song. But naw. DOC had to rhyme over it. Coming, as he did, in 89, when hip-hop writ large may have been at its lyrical apex, DOC didn’t stand out as much as he might have in other years. Or as much as he would have had it not been for the accident.

No One Can Do It Better – Interestingly, for an album that I absolutely love, the title track is one of my least-favorite records. It’s not a bad song, but given its peers, it’s definitely the low-water mark.

Whirlwind Pyramid – The way DOC flowed on the fast tracks, it makes me wonder what a collabo between and G-Rap would have been like.

Comm. 2 – Mostly forgettable except for the Sly Stone/ Mohawks mix.

Formula – Probably the second-best track on the whole album. That dude was cold. Only thing badder than the album version of this song is the radio remix with the vibes. Utterly absurd. That second verse? (First on the remix) Ridiculous.

Portrait of a Masterpiece – The DOC’s last flirtation with that high-speed rap. The interruption in the track always got on my nerves because there was so little rhyming left after he stopped. But I could understand why he lost his breath.

The Grand Finale – Absolutely right. The more I think about it, the more I think The Grand Finale was the West Coast equivalent of The Symphony. It’s just that good. Ice Cube’s verse on Grand Finale probably ranks among his best ever. He worked everything on that joint. And even though Ren gets all the attention for second-billing on this joint, DOC is actually challenging Cube for the best verse. Not to mention that the track is a reworking of Chocolate City. Not to mention Ren’s I make the punk motherfuckers buckle up for safety. That was so close to being my yearbook quote, I can’t even tell you.

All-around, this is just a great album. Song-for-song, it’s probably better than other albums that have more notoriety.

The other classic album that came out 15 winters (late falls) ago was the tremendous, tremendous Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest. Is it my favorite Tribe album? I don’t know. It’s either Midnight Marauders or The Low End Theory. They’re both supreme albums, but I think I lean towards Low End Theory because of Scenario. But it’s close. I may hafta run the wrestling meet.

Steve Biko (Stir It Up) Great leadoff song. For somebody who was unfamiliar with A Tribe Called Quest, this would be a good introduction. You get the braggadocio combined with the social concern.

Award Tour – Only thing I didn’t like about this song was that there wasn’t a more complete collaboration with De La Soul. In fact, the only Tribe-De La record I have is She-Fe-MCs, which I love, but there should’ve been more. Pos over this beat would’ve been murder.

8 Million Stories – Not bad. Phife didn’t kill this like he killed Butter. Butter was the song that made me really take Phife seriously. This was…if it wasn’t a slight regression, it didn’t advance the cause.

Sucka Nigga – A great exploration of one person’s ambivalencies about using the N- word.

Midnight – This is a near-perfect track. The production on this whole album is stellar, but Midnight is a standout among standouts. Only one song on here is better. Here, Q-Tip also does a great job of painting pictures with his words.

– Another solid record. Phife brings it here, challenging the Reverend Calvin Butts/ C. Delores Tucker crowd on recognizing the whole of hip-hop, not just the negative aspects. And as a bonus, there’s Shaheed on the turntables.

Electric Relaxation – It was Tribe. I was enjoyin every song on the album. Nothin was particularly killin me, but it was cool. It was bubblin along at a solid 4, maybe 4.5 outta 5. Songs were good, I was noddin my head, everything was cool. Then Electric Relaxation. Game. Over. If there’s a hip-hop record that reaches As-like levels of perfections, this has gotta be one of the contenders. In the same way that Scenario pretty much towers over everything else on The Low End Theory, Electric Relaxation owns Midnight Marauders. The Ronnie Foster sample is…the whole track…the interplay between the track and the lyrical content…this joint is about as close to perfect as you can get.

Clap Your Hands – In the same way that nobody on Kings of Comedy wanted to go on after Bernie Mack, I feel sorry for any song that would hafta come on after Electric Relaxation. Clap Your Hands ain’t a bad song by any stretch, but suffice it to say that it didn’t make me wanna not keep Electric Relaxation on replay.

Oh My God – Second under-utilized guest on the album. Tip and Phife represented, but Busta might’ve cranked this into the atmosphere.

Keep It Rollin’ – If Electric Relaxation wasn’t the song that it is, this would challenge as my favorite song on the album. The beat is top-notch, and again, the production just fits.

The Chase, pt. 2 – Great, thumpin jam.

Lyrics to Go – The “Inside My Love” sample here is awesome, especially the fact that they run Minnie Riperton’s high note as a single, continuous sound.

God Lives Through – Phife won. In the history of A Tribe Called Quest, this is the only song I ever heard where I thought had the better verse. But this one right here? Phife brought it exceptionally well and Tip didn’t. With the exception of Butter, this might be Phife’s all-time best verse. Seriously, to this day, I don’t even know if I can quote Q-Tip’s verse because I kept rewinding Phife. That’s never happened. Even onea my homeboys who can’t stand Phife had to give it up that Phife owns this song.

Hip-Hop’s grand summer was 20 years ago. The grand winter was 15 years ago. I briefly mentioned one of the albums a couple weeks ago, but I’m gonna go into a little more detail this time. Next rip, we’ll go into a little more detail on the other.

Bring da Ruckus – It’s not too often that a record snatches me up right from the fist listen of the first song. Bring Da Ruckus did just that. Being that I’m from the school of boom-bap, this was theeee track to grab my attention. Slow and serious. The track alone sounds like the entrance music for somebody who’s gonna come in and wreak havoc.

Shame On A Nigga – Most important thing about this track was the introduction to my favorite member of the Wu, Ol’ Dirty. Ol’ Dirty was that dude. I don’t know if it’s just me, but as soon as I heard dude’s name, he was my favorite. Then he started rhymin, and kickin the most off-the-wall stuff I YEVER heard. The dude said, dirty, i keep shit stains in my drawls so i can get fizzi-funky for you. Problem. And again, the track was fantastic.

Clan In Da Front – GZA being the genius he is, running the acrostic rhyme, using names of old school Black movies. A good track, but not necessarily one that I repeated, but it was a nice move-along from one major record to the next.

Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber – We’ll talk about the actual track on the 2nd go-around. The first version of the song is most memorable for the skit at the beginning. But what a great skit it is. Not the best one on the album, but definitely up there. One of my favorite lines from that time came from that skit. Niggas came over wit 40s and blunts, kid.. If you saw me in 94, it was almost guaranteed that you’d hear that line.

Can It Be All So Simple/ Intermission – Raekwon and Ghostface. The first hint at the greatness to come. The real gem here was hearing Method Man introduce the whole group.

Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ – The intro to what would be side 2, and one of my favorite songs on the whole album. Actually, even though the whole album is classic, side 2 KILLS side 1. U-God got his only good verse off on here. I don’t even know how many verses he got off on the rest of the album, but this one was worth a good couple points off the bench. As much as I appreciated Ol’ Dirty on side one, it was his verse on Chessboxin’ that cemented him as my favorite.

Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ With – He flipped the Underdog theme? Soon as I heard that, it was a wrap. They coulda had somebody readin the phone book for the rest of the album and I would’ve thought this was a classic.

C.R.E.A.M. – I got a confession to make. I didn’t like CREAM at first. The production on the whole rest of the album – with the exception of Can It Be All So Simple – was dirty boom-bap. CREAM came in all smooth and whatnot. I was not feelin it. At all. It actually took years before I started to like this song. But then, all of a sudden, something happened and that piano sample hypnotized me. It was the combination of the piano and Deck’s verse.

Method Man – Let’s talk about that torture skit. There was not much in the world foolin with that joint at the time. Until the Fugees came out with the Chinese Store skit, it was the hands-down greatest skit of all time.

And then there’s the song. The song was decent. Method Man was quite the character, but I didn’t see why he had a solo joint when nobody else did. Don’t get it twisted, I liked the song, but I wanted Ol’ Dirty to be gettin that shine.

Protect Ya Neck – This was the first Wu-Tang song I heard. I think I heard it in the late spring/early summer of 93. The only reason it stood out to me was that I’d read about it in The Source. But as soon as I heard it, I knew this was that joint they was talkin about. With the classic Wu lineup, Deck leading off and GZA closing it down.

Tearz – I might be one of the few people who really, really liked this song. This was one of those joints that consistently made it to the mix tapes I made at the time. This was the song with the obligatory safe sex message that every record back then seemed to hafta have. Thinkin about it has me geeked up enough to make a ring tone outta the instrumental.

Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber, pt 2 – A proper rhyme has a good dismount. That is, it should end with a good shut-down line that gives the listener a sense of completion. 7th Chamber Pt 2 is a dismount track with a dismount line. Exact same lyrics as the first one, but the track? Awww, man. That synth? The the cut-ins? The wuuu-uuu-uuu-uuuuu-U. Everything. This is how you end an album. Except for dude talking at the end. That kinda messes it up for me. But when I think of the song, I really don’t even think of that part.

36 Chambers is the template of what a raw – and I do mean raw album should sound like. Raw not only in terms of the beats and rhymes, but in terms of all the miscues. Method Man coming in off-cue on CREAM, jokers clearing their throats before their verses, starting the tapes late…everything. But it’s those errors that give the record part of it’s character. And on an album that has a lot of characters, it’s this song that displays it all. (Even better, the weakest link does not appear.)