On February 26th I listened to Cypress Hill Cypress Hill, Body Count Body Count, and The Geto Boys We Can’t Be Stopped. It was Gangsta Appreciation Day!
All three of these Gangsta Rap albums came out within a year of each other from July, 1991 to March, 1992. I couldn't have been further removed from L.A., being black, or being harassed by the Police, and yet I felt like these records spoke to me. Perhaps it had something to do with me being a 20-year-old puke with a lot of angst and a love of the F word. I actually still like the F word a lot.
These albums were/are surrounded in controversy, and rightly so, but I’m not going to get bogged down with the right and wrong. Let’s just take a look at the Entertainment value.
Cypress Hill is like a hardcore cartoon and the use of humor definitely took a little sting off the bite. Body Count tried really hard to make their take on killing cops very serious, but there was a level of dopey meatheadedness that dulled that edge. And I gotta plead ignorance on The Geto Boys, I liked the genre but I wasn't into every record that came down the pike.
Who wants a ham sandwich?
Cypress Hill sure doesn't like the pigs! Can you blame them? “Pigs,” the opening narrative from Cypress Hill’s self titled debut album sounds like the devil’s resume. Harassment, extortion, donut eating, drug dealing, nepotism, and involvement in the mafia are all common place for those crooked cops. Stupid jerks! What did the great Ice Cube call them? “A horse is a pig that don’t fly straight,” I believe is what Mr. Cube said. I believe the feel good moment of this album comes towards the end of “Pigs” when that horse gets locked up. This makes all the convicts in jail very happy and they form a big line in order to pork that Pig’s ass. There’s no mention of condoms, so we’ll all have to assume somebody got the HIV after this train left the station. If you’re into that kind of thing, it was probably a pretty hot scene. They actually turned that premise into one of the most successful Gay porn franchises of all time. Prison Train – Cop Edition #69 is shooting right now and should be out this summer.
The first four tracks of this album are just huge. “Pigs,” “How I Could Kill A Man,” “Hand On The Pump,” and “Hole In The Head” are a pretty good introduction. “Hello, we’re Cypress Hill and this is what we’re all about.”
I forgot all about the “Duke Of Earl” sample at the beginning of “Hand On The Pump” and how much I used to enjoy “Hole In The Head.”
“Psycobetabuckdown” was the lost classic here. “Psycho alpha disco beta!”
The skit that opens Body Count is so fucking hacky, I don’t know how this record was taken seriously by anybody. In the vignette “Smoked Pork,” Ice T basically talks to himself. He plays the cop killer and the donut eating cop too busy stuffing his crueler hole to help a little lost gangsta. After an awful exchange of dialogue, caps are popped and the album is on its way!
I think the appeal of this record was that it’s a real rock album. Ice T is rapping over a full band, playing some pretty heavy shit. Although everyone only remembers that this album’s main message was about killing cops, Ice T also went to great lengths to explain that black men love to fuck white women and white men should be annoyed by this. Classic T.
The first half of this album rocks along nicely until it poops out “The Winner Loses.” Ice T tried super hard to create a meaningful and powerful ballad about a “friend” who gets hooked on cocaine, but comes up a few eight balls short. Spoiler Alert! The guy dies and we all lose thanks to the chorus of “You wanna get high as the sky, you’re kissing your life goodbye, you think it’s a game.”
“There Goes The Neighborhood,” was and will always be what I wanna hear off of this album. It’s the best thing Ice T has ever recorded!
Fuck “Cop Killer.”
I was super rapped out by the time I got to The Geto Boys. I listened to “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” and I liked it. Then I was just about to pack it in for the day when I noticed the song “You Gotta Let Your Nuts Hang.” Fuckin’ A!
Oh, and look at that album cover! Homey got shot in the eye! Shit.
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