Michel'le "Nicety"

Album: Michel'le (Ruthless/ Atlantic; 1989)
Songwriters: Dr. Dre and Michel'le
R&B Peak Position: #5

"Some people think I'm nice/ Some people think I'm nasty/ But if you really wanna know, just ask meeeeee/...And I'll say I'm 'nicety'..."

While Mary J Blige deserves her "Queen of Hip Hop-Soul" moniker, it's often forgotten that she wasn't the first street-edged soul diva to seamlessly mesh the worlds of rap and R&B. That honors falls on Michel'le, an NWA-managed Los Angeleno remembered mostly for having that kooky, high-pitched speaking voice and rich and sultry singing voice.

Michel'le scored her first radio hit as the featured vocalist on the 1988 slow jam, "Turn Off The Lights" by World Class Wreckin' Cru (a group that featured Dr. Dre and DJ Yella). Soon after she signed as the first R&B act to Eazy E's Ruthless Records, making huge crossover waves with a Dre-produced, 1989 self-titled effort that became a instant New Jack favorite thanks to the funky, boyfriend-dismissing anthem, "No More Lies".

"Nicety" came forth as the second single, playing within the same JB-sampling, R&B/ hip hop/ dance appeal of it's predecessor, while continuing her stance against wack men constantly vying for her attention. Here, she slams those only trying to get in the drawls, halting them with a wagging finger and explaining that she's planning on keeping it tight "until the end of time" (Yeah, okay). For those who label her a tease (and wish that she would drop the unconvincing virgin act), she responds by awkwardly categorizing herself as a mixture between "nice" and "nasty", or "nicety" if you will.

Dre, like the rest of us, sees right through her, summing up her foolish branding as "an excuse to get in the boots...and remain innocent".

Despite the stupid title (and it was/ is really stupid), "Nicety" easily planted Michel'le back in the R&B singles Top 5, a feat she would repeat once again the following year with the album's third single, the classy heartache ballad "Something In My Heart".

Best Moment: The way the music suddenly gets all dramatic when the hook arrives.



DL: "Nicety" (YFH)

Mista "Blackberry Molasses"

Album: Mista (East West/ Elektra; 1996)
Songwriters: Marqueze Etheridge and Organized Noize
R&B Peak Position: #13

"Blackberry molasses/ One of the things that never change..."

In early '73, after years toiling as a session musician and getting-nowhere solo artist, Indiana-born singer/ songwriter/ keyboardist Timmy Thomas finally found breakthrough success, dethroning Stevie Wonder's fiery "Superstition" with an eerie slice of soul entitled "Why Can't We Live Together".

Sounding like a cheap demo that accidentally made it's way onto radio, "Together" was built on the most bare-bone of structures: a lone organ line, barely-audible bass creep and a drum machine loop set in bossa nova mode. The minimalist groove perfectly matched the sad tone of Thomas' off-the-cuff pleas for racial harmony and world peace. "Everybody wants to live together/ Why can't we be together?", he inquires to no one, yet everyone. Beneath his anguished cries lied an underlying sense of hopelessness, as if he was fully aware, even then, that his idealistic vision would never fully come to pass.



DL: "Why Can't We Live Together" (YFH)

Landing like nothing else on radio at the time, this oddly-formed/ naivete-fueled slow burner was definitely ahead of it's time. Yet, still to this day, amongst talk of great male R&B classics, "Why Can't We Live Together" rarely, if ever, gets it's just due (though that may be because most only remember it by Sade's extra-suave, but less intriguing, 1984 cover version). But it surely must have served as a major influence on Atlanta production unit Organized Noise, who dabbled in similar desolate soundscapes on Mista's mesmerizing 1996 single, "Blackberry Molasses".

Like another one of Organized Noize's collaborations with songwriter Marqueze Etheridge, TLC's "Waterfalls", "Blackberry Molasses" brought some much-needed lyrical depth and rich, throwback-soul production into the mid-90's R&B scene. While it provided a more fleshed-out arrangement than Timmy Thomas' (throwing in electric guitar and a harder drum beat mid-way through), "Molasses" still emanated a striking starkness with the most prominent instruments being some moody keyboards and a spare percussive rhythm.

The song finds Mista (a vocal quartet featuring future solo R&B star Bobby Valentino) wrapping some strong teen harmonies around a thought-provoking premise targeting the dire scenario of inner-city life. "Woke up Sunday morning/ Got a little bad news today/ They say life ain't worth living/ And time is slowly ticking away," opens the first verse, it's defeatist perspective made even more poignant coming from the voice of a young male. While a sense of maturity can be mined from a teenager's casual acceptance that "the sun don't rain all the time/ There's gonna be some heartache and pain", the instantaneous realization that such a depressing mindstate could cloud the entire life of one who never escapes the hood, weighs the soul down in a heavy dose of utter sadness.

Peaking at #13, "Blackberry Molasses" drew much acclaim from critics and R&B purists. In the end, though, the song proved far more memorable than the group behind it. Soon after their eponymous debut flopped, Mista disbanded.

Best Moment: The powerful couplet: "Sometimes I'd rather give up instead/ Seems like I'm better off dead" (1:24)

Mista Blackberry Mollasses
Uploaded by Romarion11

DL: "Blackberry Molasses" (YFH)

Jay Z featuring Big Jaz and Amil "Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originators 99)"

Album: Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life (Roc A Fella/ Def Jam; 1998)
Songwriters: JT Burks, Shawn Carter and Tim Mosley
R&B Peak Position: #23

"Got condos with nothin' but condoms in it/ The same place where the rhymes is invented/ So all I do is, rap and sex/ Imagine how I stroke..."

Back in 1989, Jay Z made one of his first appearances alongside mentor The Jaz on a cut entitled "The Originators". Nursing the rapid-fire flow and "-iggity"-laced verses that Jaz was known for, baby Jay was notably impressive. Fast-forward a decade later and the rapper had emerged as one of the major figures in a post-2Pac/ Biggie rap landscape. In an homage to his wax beginnings, Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life found Jay hooking back up with Jaz for the blistering "Nigga What, Nigga Who", introducing his newly worldwide fanbase to a rhyming style only a fraction were probably aware he had ever mastered.

Awash in Timbaland's chilling, "scary movie"-meets-"Star Trek" orchestrations, the titillating track served as ample playground for Jay's sped-up delivery, parlaying slick gun talk and pimp braggadoccio betwixt typewriter-patterned drums and menacing keyboard chimes. From threatening to make Swiss cheese out of any opponent ("Motherfuckas wanna act loco/ Hit em with numerous shots of the 44") to smirking off the foolish monogamous wishes of the women he beds ("She's mad at me/ Cause Your Majesty/ Just happened to be a pimp/ What a tragedy"), Jay keeps his cool, not breaking one droplet of sweat as awe-inducing internal rhymes slide with effortless ease from his throat.

For all of Hova's efforts, though, the true star of this joint is Jaz-O and his head-spinning third verse. Too bad the relationship between the two J's soured soon after, with Jaz launching a bitter public tirade against the kid he had helped put on, leading to a slew of back-and-forth diss records between the two.

Best Moment: When Jay passes the mic over to an anxiously awaiting Jaz (2:18)

Jay-Z - Nigga What, Nigga Who
Uploaded by 2fresh

DL: "Nigga What, Nigga Who" (YFH)



DL: "The Originators" (YFH)

Snow "Informer"

Album: 12 Inches of Snow (East West; 1993)
Songwriters: Edmond Leary, Shawn Moltke and Darrin O'Brien
R&B Peak Position: #10

"A licky boom boom down..."

Even in retrospect it doesn't make much sense that a reggae rapper/ singer...from Canada...who's White, would take over the entire globe with a hit single barely anyone knew the words to; but that's just what Snow (born in Toronto as Darrin O'Brien; stage name an acronym for "Superb Notorious Outrageous Whiteboy") accomplished when he managed to top numerous charts with his still-beloved one hit, "Informer" in the first halve of 1993.

Supported by hip hop legend MC Shan, who rapped on and produced the track's sultry, horn-laced beat, Snow spends the initial verses telling a tale of being accused of stabbing someone based on the snitching of the mysterious title character. Led by his patois-heavy dialogue, we follow him along to the police station where "them whipped down me pants/ Looked up me bottom" and then spends his one phone call dialing up his precious girlfriend Tammy ("Me love her in me heart down to my belly").

Then, to respond to anyone that dare think he's a joke, he confusingly drops the storyline mid-song and spends the rest of the track frantically trying to prove his street credibility ("Pure Black people mon/ That's all me mon know"), recalling a poor childhood in the ghettos of Toronto where he wore raggedy shoes that his toes burst out of.

His words fell on deaf ears, though, since everyone basically took him as nothing more than a rap novelty, unable to get past the strange blending of race and music genre choice. The fact that no one understood what he was saying (the video thankfully added a rolling caption), but wholeheartedly embraced the song's laughably nonsensical hook, didn't help in his efforts to be taken seriously either.

Nevertheless, "Informer", released while Snow was in prison on assault charges (talk about art imitating life), emerged as one of the biggest records of the year, with the album it came from, 12 Inches of Snow scoring the Juno (the Canadian Grammy) for Best Reggae Recording. While his American success quickly waned, Snow continues to record to this day, releasing a slew of albums that have mustered up mainstream radio play in a handful of international outlets. Of course, none of them have produced anything close to the ubiquity of "Informer".

Best Moment: Jim Carrey summing up all the head-scratching that surrounded Snow in a memorable "In Living Color" spoof.

Snow - Informer
Uploaded by Hakunamatata67

DL: "Informer" (YFH)

Father MC "I'll Do 4 U"

Album: Father's Day (Uptown/ MCA; 1990)
Songwriters: Cheryl Lynn, Father MC, David Foster and David Paich
R&B Peak Position: #14

"And if I have to break out/ You don't deserve/ To live the good life/ And love the black hummingbird..."

With familiar disco samples, R&B hooks and New Jack beats, Harlem-born Father MC (like MC Hammer, Heavy D and Fresh Prince) embraced a radio-friendly brand of hip hop that helped further tie the ever-closing gap between rap and soul in the early '90's, while providing a launching pad for several of the decade's noteworthy urban acts. A glance at the credits of his 1990 debut Father's Day, and you'll recognize future stars like Puffy (in an executive producer role) as well as Dave Hollister and Jodeci. On it's biggest single, "I'll Do 4 U", another artist on the verge of superstar-dom would be introduced to the world.

Swiping what's basically the entire instrumental of Cheryl Lynn's Studio 54 classic "Got To Be Real" (a production technique that Puffy would become infamous for), "I'll Do 4 U" finds Father MC preaching about the endless happiness that can come with requited love. Like most loverman raps, the lyrics are a bit lame (MC plays into every woman's fantasy with simple-rhymed promises of back-rubs, bubble baths and "dinner and Cognac"), but with female-respecting tunes rarely found within the rap world at the time, "I'll Do 4 U"'s efforts were widely appreciated.

Besides, it wasn't really about the man's corny (albeit, admittedly slick), Valentine-laced raps as much as what was going on around it: a no-brainer beat sure to set off any house party and an infectious chorus that premiered his then-unknown Uptown labelmate, Mary J Blige, her soulful ad-libs holding so desperately to the idea of a mutual romance like it was this unattainable achievement. Little did we know that that unassuming hook was laying the blueprint for some of the most powerful R&B records of the next few years.

Best Moment: The now-shocking glimpse of a very plain-looking Blige, as background singer no less(!!), in the concert-themed video.

Father MC. I'll Do 4 U .1990
Uploaded by capitainfunkk

DL: "I'll Do 4 U" (YFH)

Jade "Don't Walk Away"

Album: Jade To The Max (Giant; 1992)
Songwriters: Vassal Benford, Ronald Spearman and Alton Stewart
R&B Peak Position: #2

"Don't walk away boy/ My love won't hurt you..."

Though the trio of Chicago's Joi Marshall and Tanya Kelly and Houston's Diana Reed had the kind of harmonies that made you believe they had been best friends for years, the group, known as Jade, were merely another label configured female act. Despite such prefabricated origins, the ladies were a major hit in the early-to-mid-'90's, joining En Vogue, SWV, Xscape and Brownstone as part of a hugely successful, New Jack-based girl group renaissance.

First finding stardom with the "I Wanna Sex You Up"-sound-a-like "I Wanna Love You" off the "Class Act" Soundtrack, Jade surpassed that Top 10 R&B hit with an even bigger smash with the release of their follow-up, "Don't Walk Away". Opening with a harmonized answering machine recording that rivaled the "Who's Lovin' You" portion of En Vogue's "Hold On" as one of the era's best intros, the song soon explodes into a pounding, R&B-hip hop groove: an earthquaking drum beat given some honey-soaked assistance via twinkly piano stabs.

As the track's street-edged urgency acts as a play off of their throbbing libido, the trio sugarcoat the ears with a request for patience from a potential future-husband. Deep down they know he's a kepper, but they need added assurance that the minute they open their heart, he won't turn out to be yet another in a long line of disappointments. "Baby, don't misunderstand/ I do want you for my man/ I just need a little time/ Before I invest my love," they explain, their voices married in an arresting united front. Just in case you mistake them for coochie-teasing prudes, they still give up the goods in the midst of all their contemplating, justifying the potency of their union with the salivating line "This is what is sounds like, when we make love" as the beat charges up in a melange of industrial clatter, sensual moans and chopped-up rap snippets.

Don't Walk Away
Uploaded by ice1906

DL: "Don't Walk Away" (YFH)

Timbaland & Magoo featuring Missy Elliott and Aaliyah "Up Jumps Da Boogie"

Album: Welcome To Our World (Blackground/ Interscope; 1997)
Songwriters: Melvin Barcliff, Missy Elliott, Tim Mosley and Rod Temperton
R&B Peak Position: #4

"Me my hot self/ My self be so hot/ Touch my hot spot/ I scream til I can't stop..."

Already garnering some serious industry attention due to his innovative production work for Aaliyah, Ginuwine and Missy Elliott, Timbaland decided he hadn't shook the market enough, and opted on releasing his own project, Welcome To Our World, which partnered him up with a mush-mouthed, Q-Tip soundalike named Magoo. While the duo didn't muster up any kudos in the lyricism department (their "rhymes" came across more like silly, off-the-cuff freestyles), the album was a must-have for beat fiends, filled to the brim with crazy club bangers powered by Tim's topsy-turvy, Y3K sonic work. It's crown jewel would be it's haunting lead single, the posse-cut offering "Up Jumps Da Boogie".

Built upon a spine-tingling recipe of wind sound effects, spooky Morse code keyboard notes, and type-writer drum patterns, "Up Jumps Da Boogie" took hip hop into one of those creepy dark alleys you didn't want to be caught alone in in the middle of the night. While the beat evoked some Halloween nightmare, the three emcees spitting on it felt like a crew of side-show freaks, each honing a unique rap style that only increased the track's otherworldly allure.

You have Magoo, whose nimble flow is armed with un-PC one-liners ("Up in the cut like gay niggaz in butt/ I'm Black with Indian/ My race should be mutt"), random anti-Madonna disses ("She just a damn slut") and a slew of WTF metaphors ("I bump like acne; "I cum cause I'm a nut"; "I stink like Pop's feet") that keep your finger pressed on the rewind button; Timbaland, sounding like the Black cousin of Knight Rider's "KITT" (a notable influence on their later single, "Clock Strikes (Remix)"), oddly mixes politically conscious themes ("See a Black man dead from a White man's powder/ See a White man scared/ From a Black man's power") with warnings to his brother not to slam his precious car doors ("It cost too much money to get that shit fixed," he robotically explains); then there's Missy, fem-hop's resident tongue-twisting, nympho-"faux" gangsta, who threatens to slap testy hoes when she's not fondling herself or licking some dude named Scott's lollipop "in the Mariott".

As zany as it all sounded at the time (and it's still mind-flipping to this day), the freaky combination worked, instantly positioning them as one of hip hop's hottest, and most bankable (Welcome To Our World struck Platinum), cliques around.

Best Moment: Both of Missy's wacked-out verses.

Timbaland & Magoo - Up Jumps The Boog
Uploaded by Dante35

DL: "Up Jumps Da Boogie" (YFH)

Black Box "Everybody Everybody"

Album: Dreamland (RCA; 1990)
Songwriters: Daniele Davoli, Mirko Limoni and Valerio Simplici
R&B Peak Position: #2

"Sad and freeeeeeeeeee, sad and freeeeeeeeeeeee...."

An Italian house act that enjoyed major pop success in the States in the early '90's, Black Box (a team up of Italy's popular Groove Groove Melody production unit and a French model named Katrine) made it hard to be overweight at the time, filling up dancefloors everywhere with a string of energetic dance/ soul blasts. Already familiar amongst the club sect thanks to their classic (and controversial) Loleatta Holloway-sampler "Ride On Time", the group would explode with mainstream audiences once Top 40 radio took notice of the infectious "Everybody Everybody".

The more well-known version was the "Le Freak Mix", an exuberant modern-disco groove peppered with chopped-up vocal snippets ("Ow!!") and ecstatic horn charts. The lyrics, confusingly detailing a woman's distress following an ugly break-up, might not have made much sense, but the emotions behind it were too strong to ignore, usurping your insides with intense gospel-soaked wails that didn't really match up well to the bony beauty lip-syncing them in the videos and on-stage (we would later discover that it was an uncredited Martha Wash supplying the single's glass-shattering pipes).

The record's pinnacle moment was undoubtedly it's enormous hook, a ridiculously catchy repeating of the title that made you want to gleefully spin around in circles, arms open wide a la Julie Andrews during that memorable "The Sound of Music" segment (this action was most likely done while alone in the house, though).

Peaking at #2, "Everybody Everybody" became Black Box's biggest urban hit, helping the Dreamland album go Gold, and leading the way for another crossover appealing dance-based act, C+C Music Factory, who would blow up a few months later. After scoring a couple of more lesser smashes (including the Top 20-charting favorite "Strike It Up"), Black Box's brief tenure in the pop limelight came to a close, but "Everybody Everybody" would live on, earning featured appearances on multiple Jock Jam-like compilations throughout the rest of the decade.

Black box - everybody everybody
Uploaded by val6210

DL: "Everybody Everybody" (YFH)

Tony! Toni! Tone! featuring DJ Quik "Let's Get Down"

Album: House of Music (Mercury; 1996)
Songwriters: George Archie, David Blake and Raphael Saadiq
R&B Peak Position: #5

"I come stronger than the I-R-S/ Whenever you done got delinquent on your taxes..."

Launching Tony! Toni! Tone!'s fourth and final set, House of Music, as it's lead single, the DJ Quik-featuring-and-co-produced "Let's Get Down" proved that when it came to party-funk pleasers, no other '90's R&B act could touch them.

A modernized, Parliament-like jam that infused the Tony's organic soul instrumentation with a celebratory hip hop swagger, "Let's Get Down" nailed the classic house party aesthetic. "The function's on/ Around midnight," Saadiq croons, his tenor effortlessly ascending into falsetto in a vocal melody that unconsciously smells of "teen spirit". Skulking around the fiesta, a steady alcohol consumption planting nasty thoughts in his head, Saadiq searches for someone (or possibly two) to take back to his awaiting Black Chevrolet. Elsewhere on the scene, Quik is attempting some macking of his own, an upset stomach temporarily taking him out of the game. But with a swig of Pepto, he picks up where he left off, intent on unfastening some fine lady's bra before the night reaches a close.

With it's loose buoyancy and West Coast rap leaning, "Let's Get Down" showed signs that one of the few commercially successful Black bands around would have no problem transitioning into the era of post-New Jack R&B. Or so we thought. Despite strong critical support heralding the solid House of Music, the album failed to match the multi-platinum sales of it's predecessor. Throw internal strife and increased focus on outside projects into the equation and within a year of Music's release, the party was indeed over, the Three T's had split apart.

Best Moment: "Who is your friend?/ She don't look nice/ But I bet she will/ Later on tonight" (1:52)

Tony Toni Tone - Let's Get Down
Uploaded by klmbaby

DL: "Let's Get Down" (YFH)

Yo-Yo featuring Ice Cube "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo"

Album: Make Way For The Motherlode (EastWest; 1991)
Songwriters: James Brown, O'Shea Jackson and Charles Sherell
R&B Peak Position: #11

"Check the booty/ Yo it's kinda soft and/ If you touch it, you're livin' in a coffin..."

Turning heads after introducing the "brand new intelligent Black lady" to an unapologetically sexist Ice Cube on the memorable Amerikkka's Most Wanted album cut, "It's A Man's World", Los Angeles-born rap-tress Yo-Yo's sharp lyrical skills and welcomed feminist slant helped achieve a tiny bit of balance amidst the boys-at-play scenario dominating the hip hop world. Scoring a deal soon after the record-stealing performance, Yo dropped her debut effort, Make Way For The Motherlode, in 1991. Featuring production from Cube, the album was instantly heralded as a female rap classic, spawning a smash hit with the "take no mess" anthem, "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo".

A mind-twirling combination of gangsta badass ("I pack a real small gat in my purse") and self-empowerment motivational speaker ("I think it's time what we defeat/ And stand on our own two feet"), Yo-Yo had plenty shook with this defiant banger, checking both the men and her fellow women while a multi-layered meshing of old-school samples anchored her gusto with a bombastic hip hop-soul thrust. With Cube's support on the hook, Yo alerts everyone of the arrival of a new era, where her gender will no longer be treated (or think of themselves) as an inferior entity. To anyone unwilling to accept this change...well: "it only takes one punch to drop ya".

Interestingly, while she preaches of a future of peace and harmony, she isn't completely practicing that ideal in her personal life, spending the entire second verse recalling the joys of being some dude's sidepiece while mocking the stuck-at-home lonesomeness of his pitiful main girl.

Muddied message aside, "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo" was too intense and catchy to easily dismiss, quickly placing Yo in the forefront of the '90's femcee movement. But her inability to successfully balance the positivity-spewing/ gun-toting duality of her persona on follow-up releases killed much of her momentum, leading to an anticlimactic finish (her 1998 fifth disc, Ebony, never reached stores) to a career that had started so promisingly.

Best Moment: "Don't try to play me out, don't try to play me out"

Yo-Yo & Ice Cube - You Can't Play With M
Uploaded by Dante35

DL: "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo" (YSI)

Sade "No Ordinary Love"

Album: Love Deluxe (Epic; 1992)
Songwriters: Sade Adu and Stuart Matthewman
R&B Peak Position: #9

"There's nothing like you and I baby..."

In a world where change is unavoidable (no matter how much we strive to fight against that fact), there's at least one thing we can expect to stay the same: Sade will always be...Sade. When the band returned with 2000's splendid Lovers Rock, it was like the eight year studio album hiatus that had preceded it had never happened. Hell, they still sounded as lullaby lush and coolly restrained as they had on their debut nearly twenty years before. And we couldn't complain; not when their misty-eyed midtempos and satiny ballads blanketed our souls with so much comfort.

Back in 1992, as the jazzy, adult-soul they favored was losing it's urban airplay stranglehold to the younger, hipper R&B confections making the rounds, Sade bust through all the cantankerous street noise with seemingly little effort. "No Ordinary Love", the first single from their fourth album, Love Deluxe, enraptured the masses with a sleepy, erotic pulse that felt like it had originated from the late-night seduction of soft-core cable porn.

Never shaken from her uniform iciness, goddess frontwoman Sade Adu's faithfully ethereal vocal casts her in the defeated guise of a woman ready to give up on life if she can't be in the arms of her precious love. Sounding like she's just taken a whole bottle of pills and is slowly fading into the after-life, Adu painfully re-lives the union's breakdown ("I gave you all that I have inside/ And you took my love, you took my love"). Disappearing further and further into the arrangement's drowsy, electric guitar-spiked haze, she spends her final moments drenched in a depressive state of self-pity. "Keep crying for you, keep trying for you," she repeatedly mutters into the fadeout, the gloominess of it all leaving you feeling just as sullen and hopeless as the downtrodden spirit that initiated her decision to exit this Earth for good.

It's use as a theme of sorts to the much-ballyhooed 1993 sex drama "Indecent Proposal" assisted in making "No Ordinary Love" Sade's biggest hit in years. The song would go on to win the group their first, and only, performance Grammy in the Best R&B Performance By A Duo or Group category.

Best Moment: The beautifully directed music video featuring Sade as a mermaid.

Sade - No Ordinary Love
Uploaded by hushhush112

DL: "No Ordinary Love" (YFH)

Westside Connection "Bow Down"

Album: Bow Down (Priority; 1996)
R&B Peak Position: #19

"Westside Connect gang, Connect gang/ Bing bing bang..."

Released a month after the death of Tupac Shakur and during a time when everyone seemed to agree that the media-hyped bi-coastal rap beef had truly gone too far, Bow Down, the debut set from West Coast hip hop supergroup Westside Connection (a team-up of Ice Cube, WC and Mack 10) might not have come about at the best of times. Still, the project signaled one of the last major releases of the West's early '90's domination, bundling fiery anti-NYC rants and infectious Cali pride within solid gangsta rap orchestrations.

Exploding on the scene in the Fall of '96, "Bow Down", the album's ginormous-feeling lead single, re-acquainted listeners with the joys of G-funk handing out a stern warning to outsiders to arrive on their turf brandishing respect...or else. A steely attack of boom bap drums and eerie synth lines, the track oozes intimidation, the West-repping triumvirate of emcees evoking fear with their toughened rhymes and hard-hitting deliveries.

"Before any of you Guppies get heart/ Nigga rewind my part/ Fool," goes Cube, who opens the track like a recently unleashed beast ready to devour any threats in his path. His groupmates extend upon the track's menacing theme, with Mack 10 scripting up a modern-day Wild Wild West showdown ("Now who's dissin' the mad ass Inglewood," he asks) and WC threatening to decapitate whoever dares diss him on record. The mood isn't particularly happy-go-lucky, but with good reason. Despite the huge success of the legendary Death Row empire and other Cali-based acts, critical props for them remained minimized and the Connect Gang were tired of the lack of respect.

Whether they got the kudos they yearned for or not, it didn't matter; "Bow Down" and it's Stylistics-revamping follow-up single "Gangstas Make The World Go Round" swiftly captured the rap world's attention, helping the album sell nearly two million copies. Seven years later, the Westside Connection reunited for a second album, Terrorist Threats, quickly proving that the West still had some bite left as it's Nate Dogg-assisted smash "Gangsta Nation" snatched up strong nationwide support.

Best Moment: "Fo the cheese/ We went them keys/ Everybody freeze/ On the floor, butt naked please" (0:40)

Westside Connection - Bow Down
Uploaded by Doc-rim

DL: "Bow Down" (YFH)