Attention all G Rap stans – straight from Marley Marl‘s master reels – and via DWG‘s incredible Juice Crew EP – I present to you a never-before heard slice of KGR brilliance from the Road To Riches sessions. In case you needed a reminder of who the GOAT of rap is….
Kool G Rap & DJ Polo - ‘I Declare War’
The vinyl’s already sold out, but you can still catch the Lungbutters CD, mixed by DJ Format, from DWG for £12 GBP (OR £17 GBP with the Main Source 7″) by emailing here.
A couple of KGR burners to finish off the week, as Freddie Foxxx‘s vaulted LP from ’93 finally gets a release courtesy of Fat Beats. Not only does this include the version largely produced by S.I.D., but a bonus CD of the original demo versions produced by the D.I.T.C. crew as well! Included on this disc is a lost track with G Rap entitled ‘Cook A Niggaz Ass’. G ended-up using this verse on his 4,5,6 album since this got shelved, but shit’s crazy regardless. On the current side of things, the Kool Genius also gets busy with Sha Lumi for ‘NY Freestyle’.
Freddie Foxxx feat. Kool G Rap - ‘Cook A Niggaz Ass’
For the final part of our interview, Dr. Butcher offers a behind-the-scenes look in the creation of the first Main Source album and Large Pro’s The LP. Now based in Texas, Butcher just released new music with an artist called Understanding on the vocals, and is working on an album of instrumentals for the Vintage Vaults series for Domination Recordings. He also works with Rob Swift on jingles, TV commercials and video games such as NFL Street.
Robbie: So you just did a new 12 inch?
Dr. Butcher: They just did a digital release while I’m putting together my instrumental album. I don’t want to do just a straight-forward, ‘One beat, two beat, three beats’ – just instrumentals, and I think every producer does that and that’s boring. I’mma try to do something a little different and piece it all together. It’s vintage old tracks, and I want to find a way to introduce that to the world where it’s not sounding like I’m some 90′s producer living off the nineties sound. I’mma mix it in with 2008 Dr. Butcher, kinda like telling a story using old tracks and stuff. It should be interesting.
Is that you rapping at the end of [G Rap's] ‘Jive Talk’?
[bursts out laughing] Yep. That was us clowning around in the studio one day. We were sitting in the vocal room – Large had just put the beat down, G started rhyming and Large was sitting on a chair with a pair of drumsticks, and then he started tapping the drumsticks and we were just acting stupid, acting like old school rappers, making all these grunts in the background. We were just joking around and I was like, ‘Alright, let me just say some old rhymes and stuff’ and then I just started rhyming. And they kept it on the song! I rhymed a lot longer, but they kept the first maybe eight bars or something and faded the song out. It was the funniest thing ‘cos Stretch Armstrong would hold these contests, ‘Can anyone guess who that is? The ghost rapper at the end of the G Rap song?’ G told me that one day Biz Mark said, ‘Who’s that dude on the end of the song? I wanna sign that guy!’ Everybody was asking G who I was…even Eric B! But at the time I was more into the deejaying and then the producing, so it never went anywhere. (more…)
Continuing my talk with Dr. Butcher, we discuss Rakim, LL Cool J and the legendary Silver Fox.
Robbie: Have you got any DAT’s of G Rap, Ak or Grimm songs that were never heard?
Dr. Butcher: I think Grimm has released a lot of the material on his indy label. G Rap, a lot of the things he would do he would release. We did the song for the AIDS compilation that I think was bootlegged, with Grimm, G, Ak – there was a bunch of dudes. We were kinda annoyed because ewe went in and did the song for free as a benefit and then they turned the song down. Somehow it got leaked to the public and everybody was goin’ crazy over the song. Most of the things I have copies of was a lot of Akinyele’s material, but even that stuff, a lot of it he’s since released.
What can you tell me about Queens?
KRS-One used to say a lotta slick little wording in his songs about Queens and G Rap would always approach him about it and say stuff right back at him, but for some reason KRS would never answer G Rap. He always avoided him. Even in ‘My Philosophy’ he said something about, ‘The DJ behind me’ or something, and G Rap thought he was talking about him and Polo. So he went and approached him and he denied it. KRS was like, ‘No, no, I wasn’t talking about you’. G Rap wanted to battle him so bad. He just wanted to go at KRS-One so bad but KRS wouldn’t bite! He wouldn’t touch him, because he knew that G was the new young dude that was not to be touched. He had that fire, and a lotta people avoided him for a long time, they just wouldn’t touch him.
You might know the name but there’s a lot more to Dr. Butcher‘s story than I ever imagined when I first tracked him down for a talk. This first part focuses on his production and DJ work with Kool G Rap, Akinyele, MF Grimm and more.
Robbie: What was the difference between what you and DJ Polo did with G Rap?
Dr. Butcher: Polo was a few years older than me – probably a significant amount. When I was growing-up he was the neighborhood DJ – the known guy. He was never known as no superior DJ or anything like that, he was just a very ‘popular’ guy. When Marley Marl came about, he had approached me, telling me that he had a situation for a record deal. I mentioned G Rap to him – he was looking for a rapper – and at the same time Eric B. mentioned G Rap to him, so they got together and did ‘It’s A Demo’. There was another guy that G Rap wanted to be ‘Dr. Butcher’, but the guy had some issues and had to leave town or do something. Then he found out I could DJ so I just took the position. It was more of a studio thing. G would go record I would pretty much in go in and really do the scratches. Polo really wasn’t someone who was getting that technical with scratches and stuff, and that’s the kind that G wanted at the time. I would do a few shows, Polo would go on the road with him more-so. We would just put together show tapes where I would do scratching on the tapes, and they just kinda go out on the road with DAT tapes or things like that and just pretty much pretend to DJ. Just have things organized, he wasn’t wasn’t doing too many live scratches or anything.
He’d actually play a DAT of your scratching? [laughing]
Yeah, a lotta times. At the shows, if they had a portable DAT player they would go off the DAT player. He would do a little scratching over the top of stuff that I would do, but that was pretty much it. He wasn’t anyone who…he never pretended to be. On the Road To Riches album, I think Marley did most of the scratching on that album, then the second album I came in and did all the scratching ever since. I mean he’s not like somebody who walked around pretending to be this great DJ. It was more-so he had the connection and he hooked G Rap up with Marley and brought him to Cold Chillin’, and that’s how that whole situation went down. (more…)
While I put the finishing touches to the Dr. Butcher interview, here’s some classic G Rap footage from The Meaning of Dope (thanks to Dallas for the tip). Is that a Dapper Dan 8-Ball jacket?
Another snippet from the Dr. Butcher sessions, detailing what could be argued is the greatest “unofficial” rap song ever recorded.
Robbie: It seems like even G Rap and Kane had a friendly rivalry.
Dr. Butcher: Absolutely! I’m sure you’ve heard the version of ‘Raw’ with G Rap and Kane freestylin’ on it. The story behind that record is – G Rap, right after he did the record he came and got me and said ‘Yo Drew, listen to the this’. What it was is that Kane had a girl in the studio, and G was like ‘Yo, I think Kane was tryin’ to impress the girl. He was workin’ on ‘Raw’ and G was just hangin’ out in the studio, and he was like ‘Yo, you wanna do something real quick?’ and G was like ‘Sure’. I think Kane had just wrote his verse, so he had a fresh, hot little verse that he wanted to spit – I think to impress the girl that was in the studio – so he did his verse, and he didn’t know that G had this monsterous verse sittin’ there waitin’ for him! [laughs] So he finished his verse, then G walked in the booth and did his verse and Kane just sat there like…he just couldn’t believe what G had just did. I know Marley was happy, ‘cos right after it hit the radio waves! [laughs] He wants the new hotness! It was funny, G was just like ‘Yo, I just had to show him. He thought he was gonna catch me off guard, but I was ready for him. I had a crazy, crazy verse in the stash.’ Like you said, it was a friendly rivalry. Kane’s a really, really good dude. They always got along. G never had a bad word to say about Kane. It’s no different than Jay-Z‘s and Biggie Smalls‘ rivalry. People think them two dudes was just the best of friends, but traveling with Jay I’ve heard many conversations of like when they were doing the ‘Brooklyn’ song, how they was like ‘Yo Jay, you better tear Biggie up!’ It was a serious rivalry! It wasn’t all about ‘Yo, that’s me dude’ – them dudes were goin’ at each other! But it was in a friendly way. God rest Biggie and all, but when he was gone, Jay just went and took that spot. They was waitin’ for the spot.
Big Daddy Kane & Kool G Rap - “Raw (original demo version)”
Last December I was lucky enough to speak to Dr. Butcher for a couple hours, and he blessed me with some amazing stories about everything from his work to Kool G Rap, Akinyele and MF Grimm, plus a whole lot of shit I didn’t even know he was involved in. I’m not quite ready to drop the whole session on you just this minute, but I couldn’t resist leaking this section where he shares his feelings about Run-DMC, which are not unlike some of the things I mentioned in this post.
Robbie: Being a Queens dude, did you see the backlash against Run-DMC?
Dr. Butcher: The funny thing – me coming from Queens – I was never a Run-DMC fan. I was probably the most anti Run-DMC fan anybody had known. I just did not like Run-DMC. Mainly, I think a lot of it had to do with that I was such a fan of Grandmaster Flash and the Fearless Four – Tito and DLB – those dudes were like my idols and stuff. Run-DMC kinda took a lot of their spotlight, and I think I took it personal. [laughs] It was a funny thing. They kinda crushed the careers of a lot of those old school dudes. I wasn’t really too crazy about Run’s lyrics or nothin’ like that – he just seemed too cocky to me – so I just never liked him. I just felt ‘Oh man, the Fearless Four should be where y’all guys are. Y’all suck!’ But LL was always a huge Run-DMC fan, because he was from the neighborhood – he could frequently see Run riding around. But I didn’t care. He actually wrote some songs for them that he didn’t get credit for. I’m not gonna say which ones they were, but if you listen to around the Raising Hell material you may be able to pick it out. If you go back and listen to LL’s songs I think you’ll be able to notice the similarities in the flows and the writing. But he was so excited to be around those guys and be with Def Jam and Russell Simmons and them, I think he was helping them write and stuff. (more…)
A couple of tracks from the new double album from J-Love and Meyhem. The line-up of guests is crazy – basically all of NY’s finest drop by to kick it on this shit. Look out for my interview with J in the next week or so. As a bonus, I’ve thrown in a Raekwon cut produced by Lil’ Fame from the final tape in the Street Savior series.
A few recent G Rap cuts, a couple of which are due to feature on the new album. Plus a nice feature with M.O.P and Mobb Deep from the old Frankie Cutlass LP and one of the better songs from the Click Of Respect project.
Flavor Unit fanatics – stay tuned for my interview with Ali Ba-Ski (aka Lord Alibaski) later this week. (more…)
It’s not all “classic rap” around the Unkut Dot Com offices. Between reviewing CD’s for magazines and getting sent free shit, I have to listen to pretty much everything that comes out, and it’s no picnic. let me tell you. I only really bothered putting Rugged Intellect‘s album on to hear the G Rap feature, but it turns out this Canadian actually has more than a nice guest list to offer.
Robbie: When I first saw the track listing to the album, I thought to myself “Either this guy’s forked-out a lotta cake to these dude’s to get ‘em on his album, or he’s actually dope enough for these dude’s to do tracks with.” I was glad that it was the latter.
Rugged Intellect: [laughs] Yeah, definitely man.
So how did you connect with all these legends?
When I was first putting together this album, I hooked-up with Domingo, who I’m sure you’re familiar with. After the situation with the label that I was signed with kinda disintegrated, me and Domingo hooked-up. He really believed in my talents and we came to a decision that we were gonna work on this album, and him being in the industry for so many years, he had a lotta relationships with a lotta of these artists. He facilitated some of these artists getting on the records, like Kool G Rap for example. That’s why he was co-Executive Producer of the album, coz he was instrumental in helping me do a lotta things.
Being from Montreal, how did you get your foot in the door in the US?
Even before I started rhyming, I told myself “If I was ever to rap, I would definitely want to make it in New York”, because if you can’t make it New York, then there’s no purpose in you even rhyming. That was always my focus. Even when I was over here and didn’t know anybody, that was always my motivation. So when that dude got at me with the deal up in California, that’s why I took it so quickly. I was like “Bam! This is my shot! I’mma take it. Boom!” Shit didn’t work out the way it was supposed to, but it definitely led to a lot of those opportunities, like working with Domingo and a lotta other people. (more…)
