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Words by Jesse Serwer, Photo by N. Corren Conway
Coming into December’s Okayplayer Holiday Jam, we had quite the task before us. Last year we brought out Shaggy and Patra, among others, for an all-star session with The Roots that turned out to be the hip-hop legends’ first-ever dancehall jam. How could we possibly outdo that?
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Words by Jesse Serwer—
Chip Fu, hip-hop heads over 30 may recall, was the featured MC in Fu-Schnickens, the Brooklyn trio known for lighthearted rap tunes like “La Schmoove” (with A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife) and “What’s Up Doc,” the MC debut of one Shaquille O’ Neal.
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Words by Jesse Serwer—
Ghetto Muzik was a video show that aired in New York City in the mid ’90s. Along with Ralph McDaniels’ Video Music Box, it had the distinction of being one of the first and only US video programs to regularly feature dancehall music. Somebody recently added an entire episode’s worth of footage from it, and ‘God bless ‘em. This particular episode features WBLS Reggae House Party host and current Sirius XM radio personality/program director Pat McKay (with help from Bobby Konders and Tim Westwood) filling in for regular host Marcia Davis, and the playlist is just sick: Red Fox’s “Born Again Black Man,” Louie Rankin and Black Uhuru’s “One Love,” “Just Because I Am Poor” by HR of the Bad Brains, “Wild Wild Life” by Wailing Souls, George Clinton’s cameo-heavy “Paint the White House Black.” What?
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Words by Jesse Serwer
If you know your Jazz from your Rhime, you’re probably aware of Phife Dawg’s Caribbean roots. Sometimes thought to to be Jamaican due to his love for reggae and patois inflections, A Tribe Called Quest’s Five Foot Assassin is actually 100-percent Trinidadian. Lesser known is that Q-Tip, too, is of Caribbean heritage: his late father was from Montserrat. Catching the new Tribe documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life last week we were reminded of just how much patois, dancehall lyrics and general yard-isms the Quest MCs spiced their rhymes with. Michael Rapaport’s movie doesn’t delve into this aspect of Tribe’s background but it did have us pulling our Midnight Marauders, The Low End Theory and even The Love Movement LPs out of the crates, and even catching some references we’d never noticed before. Here’s a look at the 10 most yardwise (and Trini-wise) tunes in the Tribe catalog.
