Okay well I got myself into this so let me just lie down on this bed I made. It’s very uncomfortable, but then I expected it to be. First one to try to take me down - ten killed in the rush, as we say here - is the man who believes his garden is rocking to the sound, and so he gets first crack with this, um, beauty.
It’s a good choice, and I use the word advisedly: everyone knows that I’m no fan of hip-hop, and the few examples I have heard, while I’ve enjoyed some, haven’t really done anything to make me change that opinion much. To me - and of course I may be totally wrong here - the genre seems to be driven primarily on ego: I’m the best, I have the biggest, um, gun, I bed the most ladies and so on, which to me, as an outsider looking timidly in, makes it seem like possibly the only music genre where there are constant battles going on, where everything is a competition and everyone around the artist is seen as a potential rival. Sure, this happens in metal too, but to a lesser and much less serious degree. As I say, I know ****-all about hip-hop really, and I could be totally off here, but this is how it presents itself to me.
My first port of call is, as always, Wikipedia, in order to do some research and see who we’re talking about here, also to see if there’s any humour or comic elements I can use in my review. Sadly, not too much is revealed. The guy - whose real name is (deep breath) Vyshonn King Miller - is said to be an actor as well as a musician, and seems to be highly regarded in his field, this album in fact going platinum, if you can believe it. And why would you not? What do I know about hippety to the hop? In fact, to be completely fair to the guy, it wasn’t a slow trickle-down of album sales that got him there: this was released in February, and less than a month later had already sold the magical million units that gained it its platinum status. Given that that was, at the time of writing, nearly twenty-five years ago, you have to wonder how many it’s sold by now?
Anyway, the only funny things I can dig up are that his cousin is called Mo. B. Dick and he has a brother called C-Murder and a sister called Cymphonique. Oh, these rappers, huh? Got to admit, that’s a nice name for a girl though, very classy.
Right then: to tie in with the title of the album and put me in the zone (yeah right) da rules of da game are dis, yo? Sorry, sorry. I’m required to listen to the whole album all the way through. I can bail, but if I do I lose, and you may say what guarantee do we have that you won’t just say you listened when you in fact shut it off after the first track? My answer is twofold: first, anyone who knows me knows that, whatever else I am (and I am many things, not all of them good) I am honest, to a fault. If I say I’ll do something I will, and if for some reason I can’t or don’t, I will tell you. Second, and perhaps more importantly, I am also required to review the album track by track, so if this is your album you’ll know if I’m faking it. But take my word for it: if I can’t hack it I will tell you and concede defeat.
In order to win I have to, as I say above, listen to the album all the way through, but also find three positive things - which I'm going to call "nuggets" for handiness' sake - I can say about it. These can’t be made up, as you, as the challenger, need to be able to shrug and say yeah he’s right there, and they also have to pertain to the music, whether that’s in lyrics, the music itself, the production or the players, or whatever. So things like praising the cover or the usage of a clever title do not cut it. I’m not making it easy for myself here of course, but that’s the whole point. Also, even if I do find three nuggets in the course of, say, listening to the first two tracks, I don’t win unless I finish the album. So in other words, if I find three nuggets, three things I like or can praise about it, I can’t just shut it off after three or four tracks. I need to do both: find three nuggets AND finish the album. Fail to do BOTH and I lose.
In order to keep myself entertained and sane during what I expect to be a pretty tough listen, I will write as light-hearted and satirical a review as I can. Remember, I’m expected/supposed to hate this album, so don’t get in a funk if I do. You’re not recommending this album, you’re challenging me with it, and so don’t expect that I’m going to love it. Hey, I suppose it could happen but it’s about as likely as me running for the office of the President of the United States.
In the end, and most importantly, remember: this really isn’t a serious thread. It’s made for fun, to give everyone a laugh and allow them to savour my discomfort. Yes, I do want to challenge myself, to see if I can truly always find the good among the bad, as it were, but really it’s just a chance for you guys to **** me over with a smile.
One more time: as someone has in their sig, or had once, if anything offends you here it was probably a joke. Just about everything here which could be taken as racist, sexist or anything-else-ist, is not meant in earnest and should be taken as nothing more than satire and a weak attempt at comic humour. That said, nobody should expect that I will actively try to like this album, or any of these albums, ignoring its (probably many) bad points. Oh no. I will be carving this up, if I hate it, and I probably will. It might in fact be very hard to find anything good to say about it, or other albums, and such good points might take me by surprise, but I will be looking for them. Mostly though, rest assured I’ll be doing my best to trash these albums.
Just visiting the neighbours beforehand to tell them if they hear this unfamiliar music coming out of my windows it’s something I’m doing for charity. Every crappy track listened to sends a headless child to Lourdes. All in a good cause. Okay that’s sorted. Back home now.
So I guess it’s time to cut the waffle and get on to, um, more waffle. But also listen to the album. Let me just sharpen my axe, hit PLAY and…
Title: Charge it to Da Game (Uh, what?)
Artist: Silkk the Shocker
Year: 1998
Genre: Southern hip-hop/Gangsta Rap (says Wiki)
Challenge set by: SGR
To make life marginally easier on me, I’m just going to copy out the track listing from Wiki as some of the track names are, as often happens in hip-hop, at least from the small amount I’ve sampled (sorry), quite long. And there are twenty (count ‘em: twenty!) of them. A small mercy for me is, again something seemingly endemic to hip-hop, most of the songs are quite short, and we have some of those endearing speaking parts without music, which I believe are known in the rap community as “skits”, possible short for Skittles, which I am possibly reliably informed are a favourite food of those gentlemen and ladies known colloquially as gangstas. Sadly, these people have had a poor upbringing and so simple words such as “the” and indeed “gangster” are beyond their ability to spell correctly. We should not mock them, merely pity them and rage at a society which allows such blatant illiteracy to go unchallenged and untackled. Shame.
Okay, for the crack, and to see if I’m right or not, I’m pulling A LYRIC SHEET YOU SICK BASTARDS! What is WRONG with you?? I’m going to note and count the amount of boasts or brags on this album. I predict it will run well into double digits, and I estimate something around thirty. Let’s see how we do. Oh god! Suddenly I don’t want to do this!
I know, I know! I asked for this. Man the **** up, yeah?
Okay, okay! Here I go!
I bet the first word is “Yo”.
I'm wrong.
1."I'm a Soldier (featuring Master P, C-Murder, Fiend, Mystikal, Mac, Big Ed, Mia X, Lil Gotti & Skull Duggery)"
Before I begin, let me just make a rookie comment, which has always bothered me about the little I know of hip-hop: why so many guests? With no less than NINE guest vocalists/rappers/whatever on this first track, how am I supposed to gauge the actual artist’s performance? Oh well, I guess I’m not, in this case: I’m here to tear him a new one. In a literary sense, of course.
Okay. After a very confused start which seemed to involve someone’s music box (!) this has begun to settle down a little. It’s still disconcerting to have a number (I guess ten?) people basically shout at you, but hey ho, that’s what you get when you mess with southern rap I guess. Looking down through the lyric sheet I initially thought this was a protest at the treatment of blacks in the army/war, but looking further through it I’m getting more the impression it’s a “gang war/turf war” sort of deal. I mean, when he says “Make the neighborhood block your battlefield” that’s kind of hard to see in any sort of ambiguous light, ya feel me? Sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking there.
Anyway, that seems to be it: a kind of statement of intent, or even intimidation. Not that I know, but aren’t gangsta rappers always fighting each other and calling each other out? Who laughed and fell off their chair at my naivete about this genre? I told you I know nothing about it. I’m just trippin’. No? Illin’? No? Well whatever the ****. I’m guessing, is what I’m saying. Anyway on we go and yeah there seems to be just a basic “get the **** out of our way n-word or we gonna kill ya” vibe to this. I’m going to take a wild stab (sorry, bad choice of word!) in the dark here and say there’s going to be no ballads or love songs on this album. Meh, call it a feeling.
Okay it wasn’t terrible, well it was but not unbearable, but I would have to admit there’s nothing good I can say at this point about it. In fact, ten - count ‘em! - verses of that is enough to do my head in. Let’s see what we have on the Boast Count shall we?
Well taking the chorus only once and being conservative I count 40. In one song. This could run into hundreds. Note: I’m only counting original boasts, as it were: if someone says the same thing twice, or makes the same boast as another, it doesn’t count. So for now we’re looking at
Boast Count: 40
Total Boast Count: 40
And on we go.
2."Give Me the World"
Here it seems our man Slikk is paying his respects to the Godfather (of Harlem?) and relating how he got to where he is now. It’s a much shorter track, with just himself on it other than the guy doing the voice of the Godfather. I am a little confused though. He said in the previous track “didn’t want to sell drugs so we start rappin’” or something (I’m not checking back, I mean who cares what the actual lyric is?) then here he says “drug dealin’ made me famous”. So which is it? Does he deal or not? Do I care or not? Answers on a bullet-riddled postcard.
It’s a slower song, and the rippling piano is really quite relaxing - hey! I got one! One nugget down, two to go. The beat is decent and to be honest I actually quite like this one; it’s more a song than a rap. Look I know they’re most likely sampling the piano, but it does make a nice change of pace after having been shouted at by - excuse the phrase but it seems to be allowed here - angry niggas for five minutes. No, this is really nice. To be fair, and not cheat, I’m going to readjust my nugget to just simply that I really like this track. Still one down, two to go. There’s one little boast, but hell, it’s a little one so we’re going to let that go.
Boast count: 0
Total Boast Count: 403."Throw Yo Hood Up (featuring Snoop Dogg)"
I’ve actually listened to a Snoop Dogg album (gasps!) and even liked it! (More gasps!) The harpsichord-like sample is so cool (is that “Flight of the Bumblebee?”) and I like the buzzy synth too. Hey! Another nugget! Two down, one to go. Can you believe it? Man the rapping is really fast here. Nothing like the previous track but it’s not awful. What’s decent about this is nobody is shouting at me; it’s more a kind of conversation between Slikk and Snoop. Kind of takes Beyonce’s idea of “All the single ladies” and turns it into “All my real gangstas”. Okay yeah, this was first, but you know what I mean. Certainly makes up for the lack of boasts in the last track!
Boast Count: 28
Total Boast Count: 684."Just Be Straight With Me (featuring Master P, Destiny's Child, Mo B. Dick & O'Dell)"
This appears to be a cover-ish of “Just be Good to Me” and as you can see above features Destiny’s Child. Yeah, it’s that old! When people would say “Beyonce who?” Yeah it’s its own song in fairness but the chorus is definitely that hit by the SOS Band from a few years before the release of this album. You know what? I could, in fairness, choose the fact that the sample is in the song as my third nugget, but hell, I’m not going to take the easy way out. I like it, yes, but I’m not going to count it. The bassline is so cool on this, but I don’t know if it’s part of that sample, so again let’s just file it under I like it but it’s not a nugget. Plenty of boasts in this one too.
Boast Count: 24
Total Boast Count: 925."If I Don't Gotta (featuring Fiend)"
Surprised at this one. It’s almost a lament that they fell into the life they did, how they see now that it’s wrong and shaking their heads at how those younger than themselves are doing things. There are boasts - not many in fairness - and it’s quite a reflective piece, lot of regret in it, slower than the others with a definite sense of melancholy about it, and a sort of mournful like maybe vibraphone or something like that.
Boast Count: 7
Total Boast Count: 996."Spotaggin (Skit)"
Yeah, nothing to say about twenty-three seconds of talk.
7."We Can Dance"
Given the aggressive style of the lyric (rap?) it’s a little odd that it’s quite a slow, lazy beat, but sure maybe it’s always like that, what do I know? I’m just relieved nobody is shouting at me since track one. Gunshots are funny, though I probably shouldn’t laugh: this guy lost his brother in a gang murder. Oh well, live by the Glock, I guess.
Boast count: 32
Total Boast Count: 1318."Mama Always Told Me (featuring Master P, C-Murder & 8Ball)"
Certainly don’t like the sort of groaning on this, it’s ****ing weird. Kind of a “feel sorry for me I don’t know any better” song, maybe, another of these “testify” ideas. The bassline is catchy.
Boast Count: 14
Total Boast Count: 1459."You Ain't Gotta Lie to Kick It (featuring Mia X & Big Ed)"
This is an odd little track. Seems our Slikk has a problem with people who boast (!) but are lying when they say they have this and that. He doesn’t like it when people pretend they have big houses, cars, women, and can’t prove anything. Okay.
Boast count: 3
Total Boast Count: 148
