94. Chubb Rock - Treat 'Em Right (Select. 1990. From the EP Treat 'Em Right)
(Note: The song more famously appeared on the 1991 LP "The One")
Mike Dikk: I really wish I could remember how my initial infatuation with this song came about, but I can’t remember that far back. I think it’s because of that part where he says “Rob Swinger got no dinkie hot dog” or whatever it is. Or it could have been the continuous “Go! Go! Go! Go’s!” because I was a big sucker for shit like that back in the days. You can’t deny that fucking chorus either.
I think a lot of people sleep on Chubb Rock because this was his only real hit, and he dabbled in that short lived House Rap trend, but this whole record was good. Or at least I remember it to be good, but I was probably in 7th grade the last time I heard it, and I wore House shirts in 7th grade, so I could be wrong.
I still hear this song every once in a while with no real explanation. It’s never like “HERE’S A CLASSIC OLD SCHOOL JOINT FROM THE LEGENDARY CHUBB ROCK!!”. They just play it in between “Chain Hang Low” and “Hustlin” and act like that’s not a weird thing to do. It’s pretty cool because most old songs the radio bothers to play, they act like its some big fucking chore to play a song that’s more than a year old. It makes me think that some radio DJ’s aren’t complete tools, or that Chubb Rock signed a deal with the devil to have "Treat 'Em Right" played at least 20 times a year on popular Hip Hop Radio until the day he dies.
Speaking of the devil, I was real pumped (what was the early 90’s slang equivalent for "pumped"? Was it "geeked" or something?) for his follow up record, but it sucked a dick. There were a lot of religious overtones going on, and then a lot of hippie bullshit that didn’t sit well with me. I was 14 and ready to move onto, THROW YA GUNZ IN THE AIR AND BUCK BUCK LIKE YA DON’T CARE so I didn’t need to be hearing about God and racial unity. I needed 14 more "Treat ‘Em Rights" and instead I got a shit sandwich in a flimsy cardboard cassette case. They couldn’t even spring for the plastic shell on that one.
Raven Mack: The fat black dude semi-sex symbol genre... something that hip hop has fully embraced that a lot of whiter musics seems to be afraid of doing. I mean, what the fuck, Biggie was rapping about getting tons of ass (meaning a lot of normal-sized portions of ass adding up to a ton, not like six women as big and ugly as he was), and we all saw that one interview clip I guess in the "Mo' Money" video where he looked like a cross-eyed beached whale gasping for air while fireflies followed his dark ass around in the daytime. If a dude like him could get ass, then Chubb Rock - a perfectly fine looking hefty gentleman - should have no problem himself.
I think more positive rap should take note of a song like this, because Chubb is not being all "I'm megascientifical with cunninglinguisticals getting metaphysical about how shit's reflicted yall" and calling all sorts of attention to how positive and intelligent he's being, with metaphorical neon arrows pointing to his brain the whole time. Chubb just lays the shit out smooth and fluent, representing the positive party people vibe, and it makes his hopeful message that we all can hang out and dance and not shoot each other much easier to swallow. Whatever happened to the party people? They were good, fun-loving people, just looking to have a good time, maybe knock some boots, if someone gets pregnant, get a job and shit and just try to keep being party people but a little more responsible. When did rap just want to be about shooting and pimping and shit? It's silly, because party people seems the way to go if we ever wanna get towards a utopian society - people just spinning "The Funky Drummer" and wearing bright clothes and girls with big dookie earrings and that hairstyle that looks like the top of a ice cream cone, but usually dyed blonde.
Should also mention, them old school hyper-hip-pop beats are kinda hard to ignore, that whole new jack era. "GO! GO! GO! GO!" They should just pump in music like that all the time at shitty jobs so we'd all stop being such lazy bitches about having to do any sort of work whatsoever. See, if we lived in a more fucked-up country, dudes like Chubb Rock and Heavy D and dudes like that could just make propaganda music to keep our production levels up, and we'd get smoothly sold on how great the way we were wasting our lives was in the grander sense of things. Instead, all we get is crappy beatmakers making specialized ringtones, which in turn has caused actual beats on the radio to sound like someone's annoying-ass cellphone ringing in the DMV lobby.
(EDIT: The link is fixed. you can now download the song. Sorry about that.)
Download: Chubb Rock - Treat 'Em Right
Despite the fact that Youtube has every single rap video ever recorded, it doesn't have "Treat 'Em Right" for some reason. It was a pretty popular video back in the day, so maybe someone wanted all copies destroyed or something. Well, instead you get some bloke from london doing it kareoke style. In the meantime, SOMEONE UPLOAD THE TREAT EM RIGHT VIDEO TO YOUTUBE.
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