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Friday, April 06, 2007
LET IT ALL HANG OUT (Pete Rock Remix)
 Video
A.D.O.R.
Atlantic : 1992
FAKIN' JAX
Video
I.N.I.
Prod. by Pete Rock
Elektra : 1995
available on
Lost & Found: Hip Hop Underground Soul Classics
[Buy it]
SLOW DOWN (Pete Rock Newromix)
Brand Nubian
Elektra : 1991
available on
The Very Best Of Brand Nubian
[Buy it]
SEARCHING (Remix)
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
1995
available on
Rare Tracks, Remixes [IMPORT]
[Buy it]
I have had something of an obsession with the life and times of Patrick Swayze ever since I built a short story around the following, spectacular, true quote:
"I smile to one side. I got my father's smile. I've been workin' not to smile like that. I'm always exercising the other side of my face when I'm drivin' my car, so I don't get too lopsided. That's the only level of narcissism I allow myself."
-Patrick Swayze
You know who else is obsessed with Swayze? Rappers. His name has been popping up in Hip-Hop tunes for years. Don't get me wrong, Red Dawn is a powerful piece of work, and I can see its appeal if you are a young black inner-city revolutionary. But I've always assumed this Swayze phenomenon was just lazy lyricism: I mean you can only rhyme so many things with 'crazy' before PatSway's name gonna come up.
As it turns out, the tradition has its roots in rhyming slang of the cockney variety: "Swayze" in its Hip-Hop use, means to bail, to 'disappear' like a 'Ghost' and was popularized by EPMD in the early 90s:
But now I'm Swayze, ghost,
The rap host
Who rip shows,
From coast to coast
Get on down
It's going down
-EPMD: 'It's Going Down'
That's why I bust back, it don't phase me
When he drop, take his glock, and I'm Swayze
Celebrate my escape, sold the glock, bought some weight
Laid back, I got some money to make, motherfucker
-2Pac:'Runnin' (Dying To Live)'
This doesn't mean there haven't been many, many, not so clever examples of Patrick's full and proper name being deployed as a cheap rhyme:
Take a track from Jay-Z
And flip back like crazy
Claimin you God
But look more like Patrick Swayze
-L.G.: 'Wise Da Weight Is Over'
That's a diss, I'm strivin not Drivin, Miss Daisy
and Patrick Swayze don't amaze me or faze me
Me look up to these stupid clowns - you're crazy!
-Chubb Rock: 'Organizer'
Wrap it up in the club, ya I'm so crazy
These other rappers actors like Patrick Swayze
I try to tell them but these niggas aint hear me
Mossberg pump, i'm riding shotgun literally
-Young Jeezy: 'And Then What'
Me and Attitude creeped like snakes
Grabbed the tapes and the Louie and break
The whole swap meet went crazy
I'm sockin' more fools than Patrick Swayze
-Sir Mix-A-Lot: 'Swap Meet'
Rock act Train deserves some credit, at least, for moving the Swayze rap in a new, perhaps desperate, direction:
Like a Sunday afternoon
My dad used to tell me I was lazy
I got dance moves like Patrick Swayze
I'm the left over turkey for the world's mayonnaisey
-Train: 'All American Girl'
You would think that all the songs posted today would have Swayze references, but only one does. They are connected, however, in that they are all decent Hip-Hop tunes that employ the downbeat, jazzy remix skills of Pete Rock. The A.D.O.R. and I.N.I. tracks are both underground classics. Especially 'Fakin' Jax' which was part of I.N.I.'s 1995 Pete Rock-produced album that was pulled at the very last second by Elektra, and was finally released a few years ago as part of Lost & Found: Hip Hop Underground Soul ClassicsLabels: James, rap
posted by James
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