yo2MTVRapstalgia

August 19, 2013 5:57 PM

GangStarr - Manifest
Heavy D. & The Boyz - We Got Our Own Thang
Queen Latifah - Dance for Me
Kid 'N Play - 2 Hype
Slick Rick - Hey Young World
Salt-N-Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex
De La Soul - Me, Myself And I
Kwamé - The Man We All Know And Love
Pete Rock & C. L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You
posted by y2karl (41 comments total)

Excuse me where is the Ed Lover Dance.
posted by elizardbits at 6:03 PM on August 19, 2013 [7 favorites]

Most of these are available on mobile. Does someone else have links?

Ed Lover Dance (does work on mobile)
posted by fiercekitten at 6:14 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

My brother took me to my first concert when I was a kid. It was Public Enemy and Beastie Boys. Public Enemy, as was their want was the angry hardcore of the era. Beastie Boys were the arty kids.

But.

3 Feet High and Rising. Oh good Christ did I wear out that tape. Several times over.
posted by mediocre at 6:16 PM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

Just realized the embedded player will let me watch the rest of the videos. Carry on.
posted by fiercekitten at 6:19 PM on August 19, 2013

I think my favorite Heavy D moment is when he was on A Different World.

We didn't have cable. Boo.
posted by elmer benson at 6:22 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Went to my community weblog, they was watchin Yo! MTV Raps
What's the haps on the craps
posted by porn in the woods at 6:25 PM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

For some reason my last post didn't post correctly.

My brother took me to my first concert when I was a kid. It was Public Enemy and Beastie Boys. Public Enemy as was their want were angry and loud and aggressive, and Beastie Boys were transitioning out of their early phase but still put on a lot of the same bigdumbloudparty shows of the License To Ill era. My brother was always trying to push particularly angry music on me, but I wasn't yet an angry young man. I liked all the gangsta rap and similarly aggressive hip hop he would listen to, but didn't really internalize and identify with it in the way that you do when you are young and feeling new ways about stuff.

It took De La Soul and 3 Feet High And Rising to do that. Oh good christ did I wear out that tape. Several times over.
posted by mediocre at 6:28 PM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

another gem from the era: Big Daddy Kane - Smooth Operator
posted by porn in the woods at 6:28 PM on August 19, 2013

Sometimes I think I imagined Kwame. Was there ever really a successful rapper who dressed in purple polka-dotted zoot suits? How is that even remotely possible, and how can a concept so awesome fail to exist today? Man, Biggie did Kwame wrong by single-handedly shutting down his career. Party rap was fun.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:39 PM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

I feel kind of like a dolt for either not noticing it years ago, or just not having watched the video in more then 20 years forgotten all about it. But the video for "Me Myself and I" was kind of an awesome attack against the sort of tough guy B-Boy posturing of the era and by association the even tougher posturing of the gangsta scene.
posted by mediocre at 6:44 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

There are a few songs just as good as T.R.O.Y., sure, a couple that are better, but damn if that doesn't become my favorite song again every time it comes on.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:58 PM on August 19, 2013 [6 favorites]

No Children's Story?
maybe I don't get it.
posted by Max Power at 7:02 PM on August 19, 2013

I've really been into this Chiil Rob G song lately. I don't understand why this era of hip hop isn't played more on radio stations all over the place all the time. Most of it is so much more enjoyable than much of the music of that period. And I wasn't even listening to it then.
posted by PHINC at 7:27 PM on August 19, 2013

To the east my brotha to the east.....
posted by Ululator at 8:06 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm spunky, I like my oatmeal lumpy
Dammit! I miss Kenny K
posted by HappyHippo at 8:15 PM on August 19, 2013

Supersonic!
posted by SisterHavana at 8:23 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

“The Importance of Yo! MTV Raps”
posted by LeLiLo at 8:47 PM on August 19, 2013

Das Efx- They Want EFX
Fu-Schnickens - True Fuschnick
Black Moon - Who Got The Props
Lords Of The Underground - Funky Child
ONYX - Throw Ya Gunz
Craig Mack - Flava In Ya Ear
Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Part II
Gang Starr - Check The Technique
Prodigy- keep it thoro
Nice & Smooth - Hip Hop Junkies
Black Sheep - The Choice Is Yours
Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says
Cypress Hill - Insane In The Membrane
Leaders Of The New School - Case Of The P.T.A.
A Tribe Called Quest - I Left My Wallet In El Segundo
posted by Ad hominem at 9:27 PM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

You're just teasing us with Playback FM in anticipation of GTA V.
posted by sourwookie at 9:38 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Man, wouldn't Hip-Hop Classics be an awesome radio format? Is that a format anywhere?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:55 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I know SiriusXM has Backspin but I never heard it.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:00 PM on August 19, 2013

Remember this one? 2Pac - I Get Around
posted by Ad hominem at 10:22 PM on August 19, 2013

Backspin is pretty good. (And Ed Lover has a show on it!) It gets a little repetitive, like most of the SiriusXM stations, but it's good for getting your old-skool fix.
posted by asterix at 10:34 PM on August 19, 2013

Nice and Smooth - Sometimes I Rhyme Slow
posted by Rangeboy at 10:48 PM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Chubb Rock - Treat 'Em Right
posted by Ad hominem at 11:04 PM on August 19, 2013

Pharcyde- Runnin' Away A few years newer than most on here but still scratches that itch. Also, big love to T.R.O.Y, that song just stops me in my damn tracks every time I hear it.
posted by erskelyne at 11:35 PM on August 19, 2013

Awesome, I listened to Step into the Arena (late 90s rather than when it was released) so much I wore out the CD.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:28 AM on August 20, 2013

And if you want to do the Ed Lover Dance for six minutes, here's the beat: 45 King - The 900 Number
posted by Spatch at 5:09 AM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Sometimes I rhyme slow" gets me teary more than any power ballad
posted by angrycat at 5:11 AM on August 20, 2013

Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance
Tone Loc - Wild Thing
Ice-T - New Jack Hustler
P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day
Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks on Me
MC Lyte - Ruff Neck
De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"
Digable Planets - Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)
Scarface - I Seen a Man Die
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Thuggish Ruggish Bone
Large Professor - Ijuswannachill
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 5:19 AM on August 20, 2013 [3 favorites]

How could I forget:

Monie Love - Monie in the Middle
Brand Nubian - Slow Down
Souls of Mischief - '93 'til Infinity

I have a feeling about this thread, it could go on and on and on...
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 5:40 AM on August 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

MC Breed - Ain't No Future In Yo Frontin
Ed OG and Da Bulldogs - I Got To Have It
Brand Nubian - Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down
The Afros - Feel It
Special Ed - I'm the Magnificent
D-Nice - Call Me D-Nice
KRS-One - Love's Gonna Getcha
3rd Bass - The Gas Face
KMD - Peachfuzz (featuring a teenage MF Doom)

and of course

Self Destruction
posted by Ham Snadwich at 5:59 AM on August 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

I graduated high school in 1992 and I approve of this post.
posted by desjardins at 7:54 AM on August 20, 2013

Also, big love to T.R.O.Y, that song just stops me in my damn tracks every time I hear it.

It was and is the heart of the why of this post. It and Manifest. Both blew me away when I first saw them -- They Reminisce Over You most of all. That video is going to be cited by the Smithsonian as an essential work of American art some day soon.
posted by y2karl at 11:20 AM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nice and Smooth - Sometimes I Rhyme Slow

Can't forget Funky For You, which has some of the most ridiculous rhymes ever. And not ridiculous as in skilled, ridiculous as in

"And as I grow older, lyrics get hyper
Cause I'm a dominant black pied piper"
posted by Ham Snadwich at 11:28 AM on August 20, 2013

Pete Rock feat. Method Man - Half Man Half Amazin'
posted by Ad hominem at 3:06 PM on August 20, 2013

No Eric B and Rakim? I am offended good sir.

For shame, for shame.

Loving all the BDP though.
posted by Sphinx at 5:49 PM on August 20, 2013

And if you want to do the Ed Lover Dance for six minutes, here's the beat: 45 King - The 900 Number

Or you could go another way: DJ Kool - Let Me Clear My Throat
posted by asterix at 6:56 PM on August 20, 2013

Kool G. Rap & DJ Polo - Ill Street Blues
Poor Righteous Teachers - Rock Dis Funky Joint
Conscious Daughters - Something to Ride To (Fonky Expedition)
Warren G & Nate Dogg - Regulate
Organized Konfusion - Stress
Del the Funkee Homosapien - Mistadobalina
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime
Yo-Yo - You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo
MC Hammer - Turn this Mutha Out
Main Source - Fakin' the Funk
LL Cool J - Jingling Baby
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:48 PM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Man, Ed Lover used to come into the bank I worked at. One of the tellers would always mock him mercilessly for riding up on his little white Vespa with his white helmet (think Spaceballs). He gave back, but he was hopelessly outclassed. XD
posted by Eideteker at 10:08 AM on August 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

i'm only just getting to this now... but hell yes.

thank you, y2karl!
posted by jammy at 3:00 PM on August 31, 2013