Separated at Birth? Lil Wayne and Shenehneh from Martin
You know, these days you can’t swing a bottle of Hennessy without hitting a Lil Wayne verse. Homeboy’s got his little turtle head up in errrrythang: from Robin Thicke collabs to Q-Tip joints, Weezy’s crazy croak is in the air! For real, he’s like a photobomb, but for rap music.
But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of scene stealing. Back in the day, the Martin show had a character named Sheneneh Jenkins who had jack game proper.
How can these two possibly be related? I’m glad you asked. Let’s analyze:
Weezy
Sheneneh
Hometown
New Orleans
Detroit
Hair
Dreads
Braids
Drink
Sizzurp
Malt liquor, 40 oz
Disposition
About to pass out
Angry Black Woman
Love Life
Inexplicably keeps getting women to bear his children
Inexplicably had dates with Chris Rock and Kid of Kid ‘N’ Play
Looks Like
A turtle with dreads
Mr. Ed with braids
Work Ethic
If you have a track, Weezy got a verse.
Has a job as a weave technician, but never seems to leave the apartment hallway
Best Known For
Raps about aliens
Snaps about yo momma
Level of Self Delusion
“I am a martian.”
“I’m a lady, and you don’t disrespect no lady!”
Quote
“Talk to me like you talking to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.”
“I like to stay cute in the face, and thin in the waist.”
But on the real, Weezy shows up and gets himself into some nice music. A few samples:
Robin Thicke Feat. Lil Wayne All Night Long The Evolution Of, 2007
Today is Big Pun’s birthday! One of the south bronx’s finest, Christopher Rios (1971 – 2000) would have been 38. But instead, he’s up in heaven with Biggie dressed in only the finest giant sweaters and leather jackets.
In his honor, please enjoy Pun’s contribution to asses jiggling on the dance floor.
Not even tryna front, this girl loves her some Mint Condition. Along with Troop and the Force MD’s, these giant sweatered brothers kept my love life going in the early ’90s. And forreal, this Breakin’ My Heart joint had me wishing I had brown eyes, not this captivating green. Damn.
And now Amerie dragged it straight out of the tape deck and remade it. Not sure how I feel about it. You know, since I’m not the one singing it in the mirror with a hairbrush. But I guess I could look at it as a gift to the kids.
Last night Rafi Kam from Oh Word sent out a tweet challenging fallen off bloggers to competitively blog more in the month of November. Now, you all know I’m firmly in the category of Fallen Off, so I guess I’ll give it a try.
In the month of November I’ll be trying to post at least once a day. The only requirement is that a post must be four sentences or more.
Why am I doing this? I’m not sure. Maybe It’ll make somebody happy. Here we go!
Hey morebounce readers – I’ve come to the kind of inevitable conclusion that I really need to put this blog on ice for a while. I really do wish I could post every day, or even every week, but the realization has finally come over me that I just don’t have that kind of free time any more.
And you know what? I have a feeling that this individual, non-commercial blogging thing just might be seeing its sunset of life. Seems like a lot of us are updating less and less, and moving over to easier and quicker time-wasters like Facebook and Twitter. A lot of the old hip hop fan blogs like The Rap Up and The Smoking Section have been snapped up by commercial media conglomerates, and the most creative, funny ass blogs have changed hands too many times (hi, A Hot Mess!) or stopped updating very often (lookin at you, Oh Word). Hell, even supernerdRobert Scoble hasn’t updated in a few weeks.
And I can’t criticize any of them – every blog i mentioned here or in my blogroll has or had really clever, informative and quality writing. It just so happens that it’s really hard to keep that going indefinitely, especially for people like me that aren’t writers by trade and tend to overthink everything.
So for now, this blog is on hiatus. But that doesn’t mean I’m going away! For one thing, I’m still running the Roller Boogie Audio Successoryâ„¢ of the Day program. I don’t plan on stopping that until I’m sick of roller boogie, and we all know the thought of that is absurd. The morebounce-oz.com site will remain, but just I won’t be posting any more.
You can also find me in other places on the internets:
Hit me up on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter
Listen to my blips on Blip.fm
And if you’re in the MKE, come see me DJ every once in a while – I usually send out notices on Twitter or Facebook.
So – bye, morebounce fam! It’s been hellafied fun. And as a parting gift, I give you:
Rhymefest feat. Talib Kweli Never Can Say Goodbye Man In The Mirror, 2008
It’s not really goodbye, right?
Last week, I asked all my Roller Boogie Audio Successoryâ„¢ of the Day subscribers to take a survey and let me know how the service was working for them.
And the public has spoken. Here’s what you had to say about your RBASD service:
“It is a daily joy… I am a shiny disco ball and a pair of blue spandex tights away from being a 12-year old roller disco queen again.”
and
“They’re of a surprisingly good audio quality, bravo! And we love you, too.”
But it’s not just that you enjoy the boogie bliss! No, no. Your daily dose of roller boogie is sending some of you straight to the top of your professions:
“It gets me through the day without weeping or punching someone. This is of tremendous help.”
and
“I had no idea how empty and meaningless my existence was until I discovered Roller Boogie Audio Successoryâ„¢ of the Day.”
and even:
“I think it may have cured my cold AND got me a new manager.”
and would you believe:
“thanks to the Roller Boogie Audio Successoryâ„¢ of the Day i am now the CEO of Asshat Inc.!”
Unfortunately, it seems a few of you may need to double up on your RBASDs:
“don’t understand the question. which career?”
And I’m afraid I’m not connecting with a few of you, but perhaps that’s because you have deeper subject matter expertise than I do:
“… I study business, so I try to listen to as much gangster rap as possible, in order to learn more about storing, distribution and all those things.”
So thanks RBASD followers! Making you successful has made me a better person. Also, based on your feedback, I’ll be sending out tracks using both Badongo and ZShare for a while.
And as a special treat, here is the very first RBASD I ever sent. Have a rollerriffic day!
David Naughton Makin’ It 12″, 1978
No more fakin’ it!
Hey all! It’s been a minute! Haven’t been up in >bounce for what seems like forever, but I haven’t forgotten about you.
I don’t know about you, but I thought 2008 was seriously wack. I didn’t DJ nearly enough, my day job was filled with layoffs and stress, and a certain milestone birthday crept up on me. So what to do in these uncertain times?
What every other reasonable person would do: bust out the old neuroses and develop new obsessions. So, besides putting everything in my life at right angles and checking the stove 25 times a day, I listened to music obsessively. Not all music (sorry, Juganot!), but just some soothing joints for my crazy head.
If you’ve been here in the last three months, you already know in October I developed the career-building Roller Boogie Audio Successory of the Day, to help me (and you) get through some hellafied meetings and other bullshit. It works sometimes, but even when it doesn’t – there’s still those funky drums. Can’t argue with that, right?
Also, I went a little crazy again for a certain Common track from 2000. “The Light” has possibly the sweetest rhyme ever in a hip hop song, placed over the impossibly sentimental production of the late J Dilla, and under the impeccable oversight of ?uestlove. And if you have a stress-addled or feeble mind like mine, it’s easy to think “Hey! I think Common probably wrote this for me, not Erykah Badu. Because I am secretly the most amazing woman ever, and he knows that.”
It helps. Hear for yourself:
Common The Light Like Water for Chocolate, 2000
The original album track. There was a remix to this for the Bamboozled soundtrack, but it wasn’t that great, so I’m not posting it here.
Common and Just Blaze The Light ‘08 (It’s Love) Feat. Bilal and Marsha Ambrosius Smirnoff Signature Mix Series, 2008
Common and Just Blaze put this together for the Smirnoff Signature Series, I guess to sell vodka. I’m not mad at it, though. It’s not a bad reinterpretation, especially when you listen to it with green apple Smirnoff and cranberry juice. Like Common does, apparently.
Common The Light ‘09 (Beatnick & K-Salaam Remix) Common – S.T.O.R.Y. (Stories Told Over Remixed Years), 2008
I believe this remix carried me through December. Beatnick and K-Salaam have removed much of the original production and replaced it with their lush instrumentation, acoustic guitars and even a little “Black Cow” on live bass (!?). The result is sublime. Oh and if you like looking at Common as much as I do, please peep the video.
Bobby Caldwell Open Your Eyes Cat In The Hat, 1982
“The Light” is based on this song; it’s every bit as lovely as Common’s original redux. But just so you know, that’s a dude singing, not one of the Weather Girls. Easy mistake.
Dwele Open Your Eyes Sketches Of A Man, 2008
“Open Your Eyes” is so pretty that Detroit neo-soulster Dwele had to remake it last year, making it modern for you youngstas. Very soothing.
Dear readers, Dr. Morebounce has questions for you:
- When you come in to work in the morning, do you dread getting your day started, even after coffee?
- Do you love the wind in in your hair and funky drums in your ears?
- When presented with a frustrating situation, do you wish you could strap on some skates and roll your troubles away?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you need this blog’s newest feature – the Roller Boogie Audio Successory of the Day.
When you sign up, you will receive a perfectly funky, glidealicious link to an mp3 in your mailbox every day. An mp3 that will make you say, “I can DO it,” “Got-DAMN, that’s fohnky!” and “Why don’t today’s songs have horns any more?” And before you know it, you won’t even care about your 1500 unread e-mails. Because you’ll feel like you’re at the hottest roller boogie party this side of Roll Bounce.
Ready to sign up? Use the form in the sidebar. And remember, I am lazy and uninformed, so I will never use your e-mail address for anything except to send you Audio Successories.
And just because I love you, here’s a successory to get you started.
Lord have mercy, it’s been a hell of a few weeks up in the Morebounce empire. If it wasn’t horrible tragedies, it was work drama, or the everyday fuckery we see around these parts. (Yes, you may use that word, please and thank you.)
Which is why it’s time for some of those joints that make you think you’re in some alternate universe where everyone is happy, lives on the beach and works at a record store.
Pleasure just might be the most perfect happy music. For all the funk in their collective trunk, they have an incredibly light and melodic sound. With the fat-assedness of Brick and light touch of L.T.D., they’re a funk crate-diggers’ naughty dream.
Coming out of Portland in the early ’70s, Pleasure put out at least seven solid albums (if you know of more, get thee to gmail and hit me up!) without ever really gaining any widespread recognition. Why? I dunno. I guess folks have no damn taste. But today, true heads know about Pleasure’s genius and dance floor magic. Flip one of these on and just try to keep that mean mug:
Pleasure Let’s Dance Accept No Substitutes, 1976
Damn, nobody is better at building anticipation than Pleasure, on the real. Sometimes, in the beginning of their songs, you think you can’t wait another bar for the stank to start. But they always pay off with some stank horns or nasty bassline. Also, I love a good wocka wocka.
Joyous Joyous, 1977
A friend introduced me to this when I was having a shitty-ass day. He sent it to me and simply wrote: “go to 1:05.” He was so right.
Glide Future Now, 1979
Straight ahead low-bottomed disco. Does what it says – try it on roller skates.
I’m sorry to break up the usual nonsense up in >bounce, but I need to be serious for a minute. Those of you with no tolerance for seriousness (I don’t blame you), please come again later in the week. [-gforce]
Last Friday, Milwaukee DJ Rock Dee passed away. Actually, saying “passed away” seems to minimize what was certainly a horrific episode; for some reason, Rock Dee committed suicide (according to this). He left behind a wife, a two year old daughter and I think at least one other child from a previous marriage.
I didn’t know Rock as well as others in the Milwaukee DJ community (that’s us in the photo above). He’d been to my house a few times, and he gave me my first DJ gig. He was a fixture in the local house scene, and everyone seemed to know him. He’d been DJing and producing since the ’80s, and had a few notable records on his resume, including one with Speech from Arrested Development. Heartbreakingly enough, he signed all of his emails with “No Stress – God Bless!”
But the reason I’m writing this post isn’t really to eulogize Rock Dee. I’ll leave that to his best friends, wife and family. It’s because I just feel like I need to speak up about suicide.
Six years ago, my father died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was horrible to grieve his death, and even worse to endure other people’s discomfort with the way he died. I lost friends, listened to moralizing condemnations and watched my family try to cover it up. It was the worst trauma I ever hope to endure. I know I’m stronger for it, but I would never wish it on anyone.
Folks, we need to start talking about this shit. Did you know that twice as many Americans die by suicide than get murdered? And about 90 percent of those that “complete” suicide suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder?
What does that mean? We all need to be less afraid of getting killed and more afraid of getting depressed. We need to recognize depression in ourselves, our friends and families, and treat it. We need to be able to talk about suicide and bring it out into the open if we want to make a difference. Of course, you can’t stop somebody if they’re determined to take their own life. But I have to think some lives could be saved if we weren’t so afraid of the subject.
Take care of yourselves and your loved ones. If you think somebody is going to kill themselves, have the courage to ask. Let them know you don’t want them to die, and call a suicide hotline (1-800-273-TALK) to ask what to do next.
Let’s not let Rock Dee’s death be marked with just another whisper-filled funeral. I have no idea what his circumstances were that made him make this decision, or even if anybody could have known. Rock Dee was a proud guy, and I suspect he was very secretive about all of this. But what I know is this: we need to start talking about this awfulness so that we might have fewer funerals.
Jimmy Spicer Money (Dollar Bill Y’all) 12″, 1983
The first record I played for my that first DJ job that Rock Dee set me up with, at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. I was terrible, fumbling and embarrassed. But Rock Dee was very kind and encouraged me to keep on, even giving a little speech afterward about how even a 30something mom-of-two can decide to be a DJ, if they love music enough.
Last week, I asked all my Roller Boogie Audio Successoryâ„¢ of the Day subscribers to take a survey and let me know how the service was working for them.
Dear readers, Dr. Morebounce has questions for you:
Lord have mercy, it’s been a hell of a few weeks up in the Morebounce empire. If it wasn’t 
I’m sorry to break up the usual nonsense up in >bounce, but I need to be serious for a minute. Those of you with no tolerance for seriousness (I don’t blame you), please come again later in the week. [-gforce]