Theme Week Part Three!!!

Back In The Days - Ahmad
Days Of Old - Paris
Going Way Back - Just Ice

Welcome back to The Funk, hope everybody had a pleasant weekend. Yeah so it's Monday, and if you have a job at an office (or anywhere for that matter) everybody hates Mondays. When I get Super Mark Duper (new slang alert!!) bored at work I like to reminisce to the events that have gotten me to this point in existence. You know, the little things.

For example, that time in Middle School when Corey Rodgers cold cocked our sub school principal and I got suspended for "being there"...well that was the beginning of the end for me. Shortly there after I'd be on a plane to Belarus to work in a cancer survivor center for kids and live as they lived. This was a gift from my pops to set me straight...and boy did it ever. But that's another story for another time.

The purpose of this little diatribe is to get to this week's theme, "Back In The Days". Keith Boogs aka TiVo suggested it to me a few weeks ago to do a theme week where The Funk focuses on the tracks that discuss/talk about/yearn for the golden days of music whether it be Hip Hop/Funk/Soul/whatever. So that's what we are going to present to the masses this week. Let's do it!

Back In The Days -

We'll start off with this one to ease the non-hip hoppas in the crowd, but I know that most of you know this song in one form or another. Ahmad thrust onto the Hip Hop scene in 1994 when he dropped this single off of his self titled album. I never really got into the album itself, save for "Touch The Ceiling" which we played at all the house parties back then. For the most part, the LP was filled with that west coast sound that was all over the place in 1994. You know, pre sampling laws, right after Dre's "The Chronic". Full 'O Funk.

Anyhow, this song pretty much is the standard for rap tunes that deal with the golden era. It's been played to death but I figured I'd post it anyhow. Kinda like you can't have a James Brown concert without playing "I Feel Good"...

Currently, you can catch Ahmad as the front man for 4th Ave. Jones. Check 'em out here.
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Days Of Old -

Paris is one of those cats that you either know or you don't. He dropped his first album, "The Devil Made Me Do It" in 1990 at the height of the pro-black movement. He was akin to Public Enemy in that he was fighting the powers that be but on his second LP, "Sleeping With The Enemy", he had that infamous track, "Bush Killa"(Partial .WAV File!) where he set up the assassination of GB1. It was very controversial for the day, hell it'd be controversial right now. On second thought, I'm sure some of you would be cool if it came out now. Here is a rundown of that LP.

But this track was one of the more mellow tracks off that 2nd LP. Strangely enough, the beat sounds exactly like Kurious' "I'm Kurious" but the subject matter is deeper. The main theme of "let's take it back cause it was much better then" that we are highlighting this week is pretty much the entire reason for doing this track. It's a good song. Heck, it's even got a video! BONUS POINTS!
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Going Way Back -

Just Ice was one of those dudes who lived his shit serious. There has been an argument between a few of the cats I know as to who was the first "gangsta" rapper, Just Ice or Kool G Rap. I'll leave it open for discussion but Ice sure was a hardcore individual. His album "Back To The Old School" was a pretty dope album in it's own right, but the single we've presented for you today was the gem as far as I'm concerned.

The song itself has that KRS/BDP/TR808 sound to it which was a different approach from the Mantronix produced first LP. KRS even makes an appearance or two throughout the track. Ice gets into what was going on in the early early days of Hip Hop, even going into detail about who was and who wasn't in the "scene" ( ...if I didn't say your name, then you was not there...), which I still think was a GZA/Genius move. Apparently there were a rack of posers/fakers when this came out and Just Ice had to put a stop to the lies...Sound Familiar???

So there we have it. Hopefully you'll check these gems out and your Monday will become less mundane that it was previously. No guarantees though. If it hasn't, please let us know and we'll do our best to rectify that...man, flashback to CustServ days in the Philippines. My Bust.

Side note: While stationed in the Philippines, Jeff, Larry, Winters, Gunther and Myself were collectively known around Manila as "The Fantastic Four feat. Gunther". We each had our own made up movies we were going to star in. Jeff's was "Baywatch Boy and The Attack Of The Boogie Oogie Board Crew", shit like that. We did this to pass the long nights and even longer days. Anyhow, we were going to get a poster made up of all of us as Anime cartoon figures by one of our co-workers at the time, Jose Santiago. Kid had crazy skills with the pen. Long story short, he faked the funk on us and we all made a pact that if we ever see his skinny Puerto Rican ass, it's grass. Just reminded me of that.

Side note 2: How many of yawl are anxious like me for Sin City to come out? Joint looks vicious!

Side note 3: At my beloved Florida State University, it's spring practice for the 2005 Football and over at my home away from The Funk, Warchant.com, they have some videos of the QBs and Recievers (the WRs look terrible until the last two, Kenny O'Neal #4 and Greg Carr #89)(Boogs- #10 is yo' boy, Lorne) during practice. Take a gander if you wish. Man, I can't wait for this season to start.

QBs
WRs

I'll get at yawl tomorrow,
Brother B.