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PINK CHARDONNAY

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Tag Archives: nostalgia

Down by the River

10 Sunday Dec 2017

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Baton Rouge, Lil Boosie, Louisiana, nostalgia, Webbie

Lil Boosie – Webbie I Remember

9 times out of 10 when you see someone standing at the banks of the the river with a pensive look on their face, throwing twigs into the water or skipping stones, you know that something deep and introspective is about to happen (especially with those piano keys setting in as the beat) and Boosie delivers on that here in ‘Webbie I Remember’.

Boosie has been through a lot of ups and downs in his 34 years on this Earth and here he reflects on his relationship with Webbie and life in general. I love the black and white photos and video clips periodically interspersed throughout the video giving you a look back at long-buried memories of a simpler time. You really get a window into all sides of the coin of Boosie’s life; rocking out shows and cutting up with friends, to kids, to falling out with longtime friends, to cancer, to walking in and out of court and his prison stint.

Great wardrobe selection by Boosie for all 3 combinations in this video, whether it’s the Seahawks stuff, the all-white Nike combo (although I’ve voiced my qualms about these all-white get ups in outdoor music videos before) or even his own Jewel House gear which I’m usually not a huge proponent of but actually isn’t looking bad at all here.

“Went to war had a lot of niggas running. Behind bars, like a boss how I’m coming.”

“We was young and fucked up in the head. Drag you from the river if you fucking with my bread. Had a little money but we living in the red, we ain’t got it like we said.”

“Walking through the mall with a strap, 13 chains on I ain’t going for the jack.”

“When was kids we just wanted our turn, in the hospital me and you don’t learn, steady asking God give us one more turn.”

I can’t wait for BooPac to come out next week (Dec. 15th). Whether you love every song or not, I think everyone can agree that Boosie is undeniably one of the realest artists alive; very few other artists could touch on such a wide range of emotions (like pain, love, regret, nostalgia) in a short video like this and make you feel what they’re saying so much.

Image result for lil boosie webbie

DJ Screw – Scandalous

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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90s, DJ Screw, E-40, Houston, nostalgia, Roger Troutman, Scandalous, Screwed Up Click, Texas, The Click, Zapp

There’s something about this DJ Screw remix that just reminds me of spring and simpler times, so I wanted to post this today. Something about this gem just makes me think of spring time, March Madness NBA playoffs, Easter, Shamrock Shakes from McDonald’s and riding around town in an old school in the nice weather. I have the vaguest memories of linking this up with one of those tape adapters that allowed you to play your Ipod in old cars and bumping this on a nice March or April day in my first car, a baby blue 1987 Cadillac Deville. Does life get any better than that?

In essence, the song is a remake of a remake, since its Screw working his magic and putting his own touch on ‘Scandalous’ a 1995 song by The Click, a group most prominently featuring E-40. Scandalous itself borrowed the beat and hook from Zapp’s ‘Computer Love’. Somehow, slowed down and ‘chopped and screwed’ by ‘The Originator’ himself, the remake takes on a totally different vibe and a life of its own. With all due respect to The Click Screw’s version outgrew the original and became a classic. There’s something about the way he slows down the way Roger Troutman sings ‘Scandalous’ in the chorus and accentuates the ‘electronic’ or ‘robotic’ quality of it that just makes it so memorable and emphatic that it has always stayed in my mind 10 years later long after the first time I heard it.

I also love the ‘I keep a chopper ’cause I’m tryna get paid, gotta shake these city slickers out of my way’ line. Whoever made the collage for this song on Youtube did a great job of making a touching tribute to Screw. Gotta love the White Sox jersey he’s wearing in it and the Chicago Bulls windbreaker; so 90s!

Screw was a genius in the truest sense of the word, and the fact that this loose track he threw together so many years ago has stayed in my mind so many years after I initially heard it speaks volumes about his impact and how far ahead of his time he was. It also shows how wide-reaching and expansive his expertise was – in the early/mid 90s you didn’t have the luxury of just jumping on the internet and having any music you wanted instantly accessible to you, which makes Screw’s selections of this (and other) songs to remix even more impressive and shows how remarkably resourceful he was. He was remixing everything from his own Screwed Up Click artists to E-40 and Tupac to Michael Jackson and Phil Collins long before the days of Pandora and Spotify.

While this burgeoning musical genius was taken away long before his time, he was so productive and dynamic of an artist that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of songs-worth of material that he lives on through and that fans can go through before they’ve heard everything in his expansive catalog.  RIP Screw!

Image result for dj screw bulls

 

Up in Harlem!

16 Sunday Apr 2017

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Big L, Funk Flex, Harlem, Hot 97, Jim Jones, Max B, Ms. Hustle, Neek Bucks, nostalgia, NYC, Vado

Driving back across the I95 towards the GW Bridge after a short trip to Philly last night and getting eager to get home, I switched from my own playlist over to Funk Flex’s radio show on Hot 97 just to hear Flex going absolutely bezerk (in typical Funkmaster Flex fashion) over this new cut ‘Up in Harlem’ by Miss Hustle featuring Vado and Neek Bucks. “This what my city sound like!” “This what Harlem sound like!” screamed Flex over and over again. I started getting equally hyped and driving faster, becuase playing Flex at max volume after you’ve been driving for a few hours, as he starts going wild, tends to do that to you. At first I thought he was just playing the ‘Up in Harlem’ sound bite from XYZ or I was hoping Jim Jones’ and Max B’s ‘Up in Harlem’ from Jim Jones’ ‘American Gangster’ mixtape from about 10 years ago but I thought this would be unlikely just given how old and obscure the track was. Awesome, but unlikely. To my pleasant surprise, it was a brand new song using the same sample, by a female artist I had never heard before called Ms. Hustle, featuring Vado and Neek Bucks, and they actually killed it.

The sample is from a 1977 hit called ‘Native New Yorker’ by the soul/disco/dance band Oddyssey. Jim Jones and Max B first used it for their own ‘Up in Harlem’ about ten years ago on a track that is one of my favorite Jim Jones songs of all time (if not THE favorite) and may get its own post in the next couple of days, with shimmering production and a great verse by Max B (obviously before their falling out).

But the three artists on this track definitely make it their own and make it a memorable and welcome addition to the Harlem iconography in its own right. Vado pays homage to Harlem and NYC legends like Big L, McGruff, Ma$e and of course Killa Cam in his verse and I love his line ‘Ski rack on the Range, the inside champagne”, and raps the chorus “Where A and Rich got rich at, blocks and strip packs to get crack, grams sold we did that, parades we went strapped… the known mecca forever proud, where you won’t see Kevin Liles but Kevin Chiles, where you was blessed to meet Big L, party with Hud 6, Von Zip”. The ‘parades we went strapped’ line goes perfectly with the sample for the chorus and perfectly captures the rags to riches, 90s-nostalgic uptown vibe of the song. The chorus is rich with references and tributes, to deceased Harlem rappers Big L and Huddy 6 who tragically died before their time, to larger than life neighborhood legend Eric Von Zip, and implying that you’re more likely to see former drug lord Kevin Chiles around than record executive Kevin Liles.

Ms. Hustle keeps it real with a gritty and hard-nosed verse that also captures the vibe of the neighborhood rapping ‘Right up the block from the A Train, outside the Chinese store, go f*ck with Mai Ling, we sell that China White I call it Beijing,’ and ‘Can’t forget the homies up in Polo… all my niggas real they still say ‘no homo’, we shop uptown and get garments from Soho’.

Neek Bucks comes out swinging for his verse rapping ‘All these diamonds can’t see the time tick, laces off the Louie’s ’cause Harlem niggas don’t tie sh*t, ‘jects baby I was born broke Ima die rich, Cuban off of the Coogi I feel like Biggie in nine six.’ Later in the verse, I can’t quite tell what he’s rhyming it with but I also like when he says ‘Get a deal, bail out all my niggas when the advance comes, every time they said I was broke I put a band up, I’m just trying to make a million off a Samsung’.

Image result for NEEK BUCKS

All in all, this collaboration was a great way to bring new life to a classic beat/sample, pay homage to a ton of colorful and larger than life figures in Harlem and NYC history, and showcased the skills of three newer artists from the area. It was a really fun song that gets you hyped up feel good to be in NYC, especially with Funk Flex playing the best parts over and over again and yelling about them in typical Flex fashion, and I hope that it stays in the rotation on New York radio like it deserves to!

In the Belly of the Beast there’s Shiest the Barbarian!

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by pinkchardonnay in Dipset, Uncategorized

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Dipset, Harlem, Jim Jones, nostalgia, NYC, Purple City, Purple City Byrd Gang, Shiest Bubz, Un Kasa

I don’t think there was a song that was more summer in uptown NYC Bronx/Harlem in the mid-to late 2000s  than Purple City Byrd Gang, whether it was blasting from car speakers or being one of the main elements that started a fist fight at a house party I remember. The song is unmistakable from the moment the ominous and captivating beat hits in the beginning. Sheist Bubz’s opening verse is  absolutely savage and an all-time classic that perfectly capture of the gritty uptown imagery and swagger of the time; every line from it is a hard hitter from him saying to go ahead and let the fiends into the traphouse, to being a 10th grader going from varsity letterman to getting involved in interstate trafficking  and hopping on a bus to Maryland (presumably either Peter Pan or Grehyound). “Nah I ain’t worrying, send shots and they scurrying, transactions we hurried them, bastards we buried ’em, in the belly of the beast there’s Sheist the Barbarian,” he triumphantly declares at the end. Perhaps the only thing that can overshadow the sheer brutality and bravado of his verse is the 3XL purple Dickies work shirt that he’s sporting with purple Dickies workpants and a purple Yankees hat.

I wasn’t expecting to have two Jim-Jones related posts two days in a row here, but when I woke up this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see Purple City Byrd Gang was seemingly out of nowhere getting some buzz on Twitter from a variety of sources after a tweet from Andrew Barber of Fake Shore Drive, one of my all-time favorite blogs that has introduced me to a lot of music from Chicago I would have otherwise slept on, who boldly and correctly declared, ‘Purple City Byrd Gang video better than Thriller.’

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Jim Jones – More than Just a Hustla

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by pinkchardonnay in Dipset, Uncategorized

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bodega, Dipset, golden era, Harlem, Jim Jones, Mama's Fried, Max B, nostalgia, NYC, Sen City

 

 

This little minute and thirty second overlooked masterpiece that Jim Jones threw together is from after Dipset’s glory years were in the rear-view mirror and from about 7 years ago but it’s such a fun, real, captivating 1:30 song that I wanted to pay some quick homage to it this morning. For some reason sunbconsciously this song always reminds me of spring time and with the snow finally melting in NYC this weekend and me breaking out my Jordan slides for the first time in quite a while, it felt like the perfect time to take it out for a spin, and it still holds up really well 7 years later.

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Fiends Got Me Blade Dancing Eating 60 dollar salads!

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