Solidarity
written by K Billy
written by K Billy
New York has been missing that in it’s hip-hop for quite some time. It’s there in spurts now, nothing consistent. You get a few artists on the same track, yeah, but nothing like how it was back in the 90’s. In thinking about that, I was led to think about a track that, in many ways, symbolized the apex of New York hip-hop solidarity.
Right at the doorway of the new millennium, a mediocre movie called “The Corruptor” came out. But it wasn’t the movie that compelled me to write this. Rather it was the soundtrack, more specifically a track called “5 Boroughs. ” I remember this particular track because of the sheer number of artists featured on it. If I recall correctly (wikipedia helps a great deal here), you had KRS-One, Vigilante, Killah Priest, Redman, Cam’ Ron, Prodigy of Mob Deep, Keith Murray, Buck Shot of Black Moon, Run of Run-DMC and Bounty Killer. 9 emcees on one track back then was a bit of a big deal and it was not as prevalent as it seems to be now.
KRS provides a strong beginning to the track as he reps the Bronx in his verse in classic KRS form, bobbing and weaving through the beat:
“Much quicker than them lyrically trickin' ‘em/my Tribe be on a Quest like Tip and them/On every avenue puttin' the full clip in em/Splittin' and strippin' em down while spittin' a round…”
Sometimes, I forget how prolific a lyricist KRS-One really is. You hear his verse and the way he’s just throwing words out and stringing them together so easily and it’s easy to remember why BDP was one of the hottest to ever do it.
I love Keith Murray’s verse from this joint. The Long Island born rapper gives us a reminder of why he may be one of the most underrated rappers to ever spit.
“I'm dead serious/even though you see me smiling’/Rough enough to break New York from Long Island”
His Def Squad compatriot Redman gives an equally strong performance on this one and, truth be told, it’s probably one of the better verses he’s ever put together in my opinion (“My paragraph alone is worth five mics (uh-huh)/A twelve song LP, that's thirty-six mics (uh-huh)/And while you win Un [signed] Hype (uh-huh)/I spit on your mic/and tell you {fuck you} and that {bitch} on your bike.”) The highlights of this track are almost too much to mention, but the point is, to have so many NY emcees just spitting; nothing pretentious, nothing ridiculously heady, was such a dope feeling. It’s like they all just hit the studio and had the mean cipher going. I didn’t even mention Rev Run’s verse on this one. His flow is mean.
It’s not exactly rare that I get worked up for a song featuring many artists or even artists from NY, but this is one that I remember feeling extreme pride in. I bought the soundtrack just for it (it was supposed to be featured on KRS-One’s yet unreleased LP Maximum Strength) and while the album wasn’t exactly a great one, this one song actually made the $13.99 worth it for me.
“The five boroughs of death, we rep to death.” I love New York…
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