by Stop Mike Lupica on January 9 at 10:36AM
Following yesterday's little blurb on the two Italian guys who did that "Fire Isiah" rap song, I'm now going to do another post on Italians rapping. Back to back posts on Italian rappers... I'm clearly asking what little audience I have to desert me.
Anyway, here is the group that those two guys remind me of, if you read my comments - The Lordz of Brooklyn:
And one more shot of a pool game, on the littlest pool table ever:
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Anyway, here is the group that those two guys remind me of, if you read my comments - The Lordz of Brooklyn:
Since I have nothing else to do, let's break it down, cool? I apologize for the weird coloring on the screen stills... something went wrong during the transfer from Word (print screen) to converting it to a jpeg. Beats me what happened (it looks great in Word)... hope it doesn't ruin it for ya too much:
The video starts off with a Scorcese cliche. My hopes run high, as we might be looking at a fourth-rate Quentin Tarantino in the making here.
Some old Irish dude named "Scotty Edge" sets it off on the mike. I love how he quickly relies on the "Run-DMC acting tough, cross arm motion I've seen in all the rap videos that I've watched. Both of them." We are breaking new ground here... the second oldest rapper in hip hop (Baba Oje still edges him by a bit), the first fu-manchu in hip hop history, and, if he ever did a joint with Everlast, the first father-son combo in hip hop history (Master P-Lil Romeo came later). Speaking of the House of Pain...
Much like the Wu-Tang Clan, the House of Pain had many alias, too. Here is Danny Boy, a.k.a. Mr Kaves, a.k.a. Big Paddy Kane, a.k.a. The Green Dirty Bastard, a.k.a. Larry Byrd. And keep an eye out for Dino, who is rocking the ill black suit with black shirt and white tie combo. He's really adding some class to the little affair here.
Yo, I got two broads to agree to be in the video! Ah, sh*t. I've got to look like the pimp I am, so I'm gonna rock the piano shirt. And yo, they're both taller than me, too!
This picture came out the worst of the lot, but it's the old rap video cliche... "let's beat down the camera!". Whirlwind kicks and punches from all angles.
In fact, it's taken less than one minute of video time to cross off most of your Brooklyn Italian cliches off the list:
My favorite line from the LOB's website biography:
“We were the first kids in our neighborhood to start breakdancing,” Kaves remembers.
This, of course, was in 1992. That might sound like something to be proud of, but... it's like me showing off because I was the first cat in the projects to cop a Pearl Jam album. In 1999.
This reminds me of one of my favorite drunk Marathon Man stories. We were out drinking.. .two black guys (including one Brooklyn born and raised cat), my Alphabet City ass, and The Marathon Man. He was hanging in there, dropping his knowledge of hip-hop and stuff (no joking, I respect his knowledge of hip hop... he knows his sh*t), but feeling perhaps a bit left out of the conversation in other ways, he unleashed this rant:
"Yo, man! Do you know how hard it is growing up in the middle of nowhere (way upstate NY) white suburbs? Do you know what it's like being the only white guy listening to rap music, when everyone else was listening to Nirvana and sh*t? There were no radio station I could listen to, either. And I had to go to Canada to buy rap CDs, okay?"
MM sure is entertaining when he's drunk.
A. The story the Greek Prof told me (later verified by a cop buddy of the Indian Playa) that he saw one day in a downtown Brooklyn subway stop (back when Downtown BK was real, and thugged out). Some kid was about to hop the turnstile, but had a moment of pause when he saw what looked like an undercover cop chilling on the bench, close to the turnstiles, "reading a newspaper" (wink wink). Not falling for the obvious rouse, he decided against jumping the turnstile. While he was hesitating, a young thugged out Latino teenager came by, quickly jumped over the turnstile, and entered the station without so much as a glance from the suspected undercover cop.
Thinking that he might have misread the situation before, the kid now no longer worried about hopping the turnstile. As soon as he did, the undercover cop and the Latino "teenager" arrested him. Guillani Era tactics were mad messed up.
B. One day I was put in charge of a group of ten foreign college students who were here for a semester. One of my former coworkers had a program in which they bring in 40 foreign kids studying at various colleges in the US into NYC for three days. On this particular day, she broke them down into four groups of about 10 kids each, and a volunteer would take a group to visit an organization in the city, and learn about what they do.
She was short a volunteer, so I was asked to help her out. She gave me the only group that wasn't going somewhere in Manhattan, but instead to Forest Hills, Queens. Because I was the "NYC expert", they figured put me in charge of getting them to this place and back. No sweat.
Armed with Metrocards for everyone, I got them all on the right train, and got them to the organization. They hung out, acted like college kids - the overachieves paid attention, the underachieves goofed off, the slutty Eastern European girls hit on me. Typical stuff.
When we got back to the Forest Hills stop, there wasn't a turnstile, but one of those blasted Iron Maiden devices. Long story short... one of the smart kids swiped his card, but turned the gate without being full in it, and lost his "chance" to pass through it. I told him to just double up with the next student. He did, and sure enough... cops came out the closet door, and busted both of them for "beating the fare".
Now, I don't like cops, particularly for this kind of reason. They were d*ckhead cops, screaming and intimidating these poor geeky kids that barely spoke the language. I stepped in to explain the situation, and after being told to "mind my f*cking business" several times, I finally made it clear that this was my business. And that these kids don't know what the heck ya'll are saying or talking about. Of course, even though I explained (and they knew) that the kids had all paid their fare, the cops still hit both with tickets, and threatened to arrest them for not having proper ID.
And I was never asked to help that program again.
I have other turnstile-hopping stories, but we'll save them for another post.
"Hey! In every rap video I've ever seen, they're alway shooting dice in the corner. We should do that, too."
No, seriously... craps? Who the hell plays craps on the street corner? "Yo, muthaf*cker, I bet $10 you Don't Come." Is there a little table that you keep on the side to tally the odds for each bet?
Cielo! Us urban folk... we're playing cee-lo in the streets. I'm talking three dice, trips. Got it?
Anyway, let's end this video with more scenes of whirlwind kicks and punches. And more pushing, shove, and chair-wielding.
Some old Irish dude named "Scotty Edge" sets it off on the mike. I love how he quickly relies on the "Run-DMC acting tough, cross arm motion I've seen in all the rap videos that I've watched. Both of them." We are breaking new ground here... the second oldest rapper in hip hop (Baba Oje still edges him by a bit), the first fu-manchu in hip hop history, and, if he ever did a joint with Everlast, the first father-son combo in hip hop history (Master P-Lil Romeo came later). Speaking of the House of Pain...Much like the Wu-Tang Clan, the House of Pain had many alias, too. Here is Danny Boy, a.k.a. Mr Kaves, a.k.a. Big Paddy Kane, a.k.a. The Green Dirty Bastard, a.k.a. Larry Byrd. And keep an eye out for Dino, who is rocking the ill black suit with black shirt and white tie combo. He's really adding some class to the little affair here.Yo, I got two broads to agree to be in the video! Ah, sh*t. I've got to look like the pimp I am, so I'm gonna rock the piano shirt. And yo, they're both taller than me, too!This picture came out the worst of the lot, but it's the old rap video cliche... "let's beat down the camera!". Whirlwind kicks and punches from all angles.In fact, it's taken less than one minute of video time to cross off most of your Brooklyn Italian cliches off the list:
Exaggerated hand gestures, shotouts to Bensonhurst, and now random beatdowns of cameras. Also crossed off: shots of you and your crew chilling in chairs in front of your house.
My favorite line from the LOB's website biography:
“We were the first kids in our neighborhood to start breakdancing,” Kaves remembers.
This, of course, was in 1992. That might sound like something to be proud of, but... it's like me showing off because I was the first cat in the projects to cop a Pearl Jam album. In 1999.
This reminds me of one of my favorite drunk Marathon Man stories. We were out drinking.. .two black guys (including one Brooklyn born and raised cat), my Alphabet City ass, and The Marathon Man. He was hanging in there, dropping his knowledge of hip-hop and stuff (no joking, I respect his knowledge of hip hop... he knows his sh*t), but feeling perhaps a bit left out of the conversation in other ways, he unleashed this rant:
"Yo, man! Do you know how hard it is growing up in the middle of nowhere (way upstate NY) white suburbs? Do you know what it's like being the only white guy listening to rap music, when everyone else was listening to Nirvana and sh*t? There were no radio station I could listen to, either. And I had to go to Canada to buy rap CDs, okay?"
MM sure is entertaining when he's drunk.
This little sequence in the video was fun for me. I love how the guy is unable to get a shot off in the pool game because homeboy keeps rapping all over him. This is why rhyme battles are never done at a poolhall... too difficult to play when people are rapping all over your table.
I also like the scene that proceeded this, in which Kaves (I believe) bursts through the red curtains. A few moments later, you see that he's not on stage, but still in the same bar, and that what he burst through were not theater curtains, but shower curtains.
And since he shout it out... my favorite turnstile hopping stories of all time (feel free to chime in with your own):A. The story the Greek Prof told me (later verified by a cop buddy of the Indian Playa) that he saw one day in a downtown Brooklyn subway stop (back when Downtown BK was real, and thugged out). Some kid was about to hop the turnstile, but had a moment of pause when he saw what looked like an undercover cop chilling on the bench, close to the turnstiles, "reading a newspaper" (wink wink). Not falling for the obvious rouse, he decided against jumping the turnstile. While he was hesitating, a young thugged out Latino teenager came by, quickly jumped over the turnstile, and entered the station without so much as a glance from the suspected undercover cop.
Thinking that he might have misread the situation before, the kid now no longer worried about hopping the turnstile. As soon as he did, the undercover cop and the Latino "teenager" arrested him. Guillani Era tactics were mad messed up.
B. One day I was put in charge of a group of ten foreign college students who were here for a semester. One of my former coworkers had a program in which they bring in 40 foreign kids studying at various colleges in the US into NYC for three days. On this particular day, she broke them down into four groups of about 10 kids each, and a volunteer would take a group to visit an organization in the city, and learn about what they do.
She was short a volunteer, so I was asked to help her out. She gave me the only group that wasn't going somewhere in Manhattan, but instead to Forest Hills, Queens. Because I was the "NYC expert", they figured put me in charge of getting them to this place and back. No sweat.
Armed with Metrocards for everyone, I got them all on the right train, and got them to the organization. They hung out, acted like college kids - the overachieves paid attention, the underachieves goofed off, the slutty Eastern European girls hit on me. Typical stuff.
When we got back to the Forest Hills stop, there wasn't a turnstile, but one of those blasted Iron Maiden devices. Long story short... one of the smart kids swiped his card, but turned the gate without being full in it, and lost his "chance" to pass through it. I told him to just double up with the next student. He did, and sure enough... cops came out the closet door, and busted both of them for "beating the fare".
Now, I don't like cops, particularly for this kind of reason. They were d*ckhead cops, screaming and intimidating these poor geeky kids that barely spoke the language. I stepped in to explain the situation, and after being told to "mind my f*cking business" several times, I finally made it clear that this was my business. And that these kids don't know what the heck ya'll are saying or talking about. Of course, even though I explained (and they knew) that the kids had all paid their fare, the cops still hit both with tickets, and threatened to arrest them for not having proper ID.
And I was never asked to help that program again.
I have other turnstile-hopping stories, but we'll save them for another post.
"Hey! In every rap video I've ever seen, they're alway shooting dice in the corner. We should do that, too." No, seriously... craps? Who the hell plays craps on the street corner? "Yo, muthaf*cker, I bet $10 you Don't Come." Is there a little table that you keep on the side to tally the odds for each bet? Cielo! Us urban folk... we're playing cee-lo in the streets. I'm talking three dice, trips. Got it?
Anyway, let's end this video with more scenes of whirlwind kicks and punches. And more pushing, shove, and chair-wielding.
And one more shot of a pool game, on the littlest pool table ever:
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THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!!!