Tracks of the Week: Two Late ‘80s Philly Beats That Still Bang
Jive Records. 1988. The album is Smoke Some Kill. The artist is Schoolly D. The track is “This is It (Ain’t Gonna Rain).”
The heavy drum machine and loose, funky soundscape are so pristine, Schoolly doesn’t even drop a single line until the 1:08 mark:
Schoolly D produced this track and he trusted his groove utterly. He let it breathe. No rush on that first verse. Good layering here anchored by that workmanlike drum, the accents wafting in like opium smoke. Why not show off the build?
More BGS listeners probably recognize him as the voice from the theme of Aqua Teen Hunger Force than a nasty Golden Era don. But from the ‘80s to Adult Swim to even now, he hasn’t tried to switch up his style one little bit. He knows who he is and what he’s here to do on the mic.
Fun fact: Schoolly is one of the godfathers of gangster rap. Ice T often cites Schoolly’s 1985 track, “P.S.K. What Does it Mean?” as Ice T’s inspiration for his foundational West Coast gangsta classic single, "6 'N The Morning.” (Say it with me: “Six in the mornin’, cops at my door/Fresh Adidas squeak across the bathroom floor”)
I’m not trying to be one of those weepy “hip hop hasn’t been shit since Tupac and Biggie” dudes on YouTube comment sections, but if there’s one way that Golden Era albums were distinctively superior, it was setting aside a whole track on an LP so a DJ could have a workout.
The man on the wheels of steel here is Tat Money, who DJed for Steady B. I love this microphase of the genre. The drum machine patterns are harder, smoother, and more organic, and the baseline for turntable skills is getting higher by the week. Tat Money is patient here. The mix and the drum machine are the key features, but his final display is still a ton of fun to hear.
I also love that last little squeaky scratch and the way all the cuts sit on top of that burly beat. This is the era — and the city — that birthed the Transformer scratch, an innovation from DJ Cash Money that spread like wildfire, tape to tape, hand to hand, show to show.
Other Philly stuff you should be checking out from this era is Rock the House, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s first LP. Jazzy commits the Transformer technique to a record on that one.
Also see: Where’s the Party At? by DJ Cash Money and Marvelous Marv. Cash goes on to win the DMC turntable championships in the UK not long after that.