Monday, September 24, 2012

buc buc buc - T-Bone - Lyrical Assassin

Man, fall is a busy time of year.  Which means you'll have to wait a bit on that second installment of the Christian Hardcore magnum opus I'm working on, and also for some of these other characters to squeeze out some time for some posts, but in the meantime, I've got a little treat for you. 

It turns out that a good friend of mine loves this blog, despite being, as near as I can tell, neither Christian, nor a connoisseur of 1990s Christian alternative music.  I think for her it is more anthropological.  This same friend and I were arguing the other day (right after she gave me shit about the lack of regular posts) about which of us had the deeper knowledge of 1990s hip-hop, each demurring to the other's expertise. 

And so, Peterson, this one's for you.  I maintain that I still have giant holes in my knowledge of 90s hip-hop, but I do know about T-Bone, and even saw him once.  I think you were at Cypress Hill that night.

Discussion Questions:

1) How about that crew?!  I'm guessing they're from Victory Outreach or some other such place, looking all thugged out and talking about shooting demons.

2) JR2, there's some bright orange pants in the breakin' scenes - didn't you used to own those same ones?

3) The word biggity has fallen out of use.  Please discuss, using at least one example from the song.

4) JCTV.  


2 comments:

  1. "I got more flavors than biggity Baskin Robbins; they got thirty-one but I got two-hundred-and-thirty-two..."

    I honestly believe there's nothing more to say about T-Bone's use of "biggity" here; it's completely perfect.

    I would like to discuss the lyric-accentuating, full-body-range arm-flailing, though. Is it me, or is that just not happening as much anymore? I'll take a good set of "demons-I-mutilate-'cause-it's-them-that-I-detest" punches and body-blocks ahead of the dougie any day.

    Awesome post, DL - I still think you know way more about 90s hip-hop. Keep them coming. (I accentuated that last sentence with some arm-flailing of my own.)

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  2. I listened to the first album quite a bit and also have a "cassingle" that came out later. Until recently when I cleaned out my entertainment center cabinet I also had a VHS of the above video, which included an interview w/ Christian NBA star AC Green. T-Bone definitely had some skills, but he got too stuck in that Cypress Hill rut. And by the 2nd album all he did was talk about the myriad of ways he would kill demons, which got boring. I guess he's still around, and I think he won an award for a song which is just him dropping all these names of CCM artists. Tried listening to it, but I couldn't make it through. Also, since he came out in the '90s when gangsta rap was all the rage, he had to include a most likely exaggerated testimony of being in a gang as a kid. I can't help but wonder what some of these guys could have done with their talents if they didn't spend so much time chasing after fads...

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