Recently, using the simplicity of Audacity, I took the first side of DJ Quik's Way 2 Fonky album, with the help of any 12-inch single from that album side I could find, and did a wonked out "remix" that basically pitch shifted the fuck out of it, threw in instrumental parts, looped it to hell, fuzzed out some vocals with double tracking, just simple nonsense. The end result was pretty goddamned awesome. It gave me the idea to maybe roll through more album sides like this, and it's hard to think of a good music to slow, because slowing it changes the sound so weirdly. But I pretty much knew the logical next project would have to be the first side (aka the Drunk Side) of King Tee's Tha Triflin' Album.
This is an album that, had the second side been half as good as the first, would probably be considered a G-Funk era classic of hip hop. King Tee has always been that west coast old school heavyweight from way back (I mean WAY back) who was knocking on the door of making an absolute classic, but never quite did. And this album is that old school heavyweight, obviously infused by the freshness of his DJ's crew (that being E-Swift, who was his DJ, but also a member of Tha Alkaholiks, who had not yet been "discovered" so to speak, but became part of King Tee's crew on this album, and launched their own record industry career) knocking it as close to out the park as he probably ever did.
King Tee really played up the drunk schtick on this one, perhaps just vibing with his new crew's style, or maybe siphoning off them to the point of biting, or who knows, maybe he was just setting the world up for that alcoholic flow. I don't know. I judge not, because this is good stuff. Especially this opening cut. Back before people stopped making actual full-length albums and just did spotty mixtapes to build momentum for Itunes and ringtone-ready single launches, rap got real skit-heavy, so that a good 5 to 15 minutes of your average hip hop release was like a shitty In Living Color sketch. So for this album to just come out the gate with a deep and dirty thumping drumbeat, and King Tee just getting simple and direct with the lyrics, it got you geeked right from the start. Right from the fucking start. It's probably that adrenalinized initial momentum that makes me think so highly of Tha Triflin' Album to this day. Because not until the last posse song on that first side, with Nefertiti and Mad Kap, that it starts to drag. And then by the time you're halfway through the second side, you're like, "Damn, I'm just gonna go back to the beginning again." I actually had this in them olden days of dual cassette tape decks, so I dubbed the first side onto another tape, and then through tape over the second side of the original and taped the Drunk Side onto the other side too. Sound quality was a little shittier, but who cared? Back then we rocked tweeter kicks on fuzzed out speakers with pride, smoking weed that was affordable and not named after fruit products, and drinking big giant bottles of fortified alcohol that made your brain feel like it got dropkicked from the inside by Koko B. Ware. But that's how the world was, and it felt good, and made sense, because we still had pay phones and Ms. Pac Man machines at the coin laundry and there were mostly just dudes and chicks and dudes that dressed like chicks, not transgenders or furries or stuff like that.
I am not really trying to say yet again that the internet age has ruined everything, because it hasn't, and that would be stupid and curmudgeonly of me. But let's say in this new age, when you are an Odd Future or a Lil B, and you release a new mixtape or project or whatever you have it every other two weeks, you're just recording pretty much anything and everything you do, and slapping it in different orders that make relative sense, and I'm not sure with that "tekneek" you could ever come out the gates swinging like this. Ever. I guess it's like if you're having sex with a chick twice a day for years on end, you never really get hyped up enough to have that hardcore performance, even when everything is clicking just right, window open, spring breeze blowing on your naked asses. But if you only get one shot a week, and then you have like a three week period where nothing happens because of this or that, and you have that first time back, you come out hitting hard, complete A-game, life or death drumbeat rhythm behind you. In fact, there's not many better examples I could give you right now in this moment than this "Drunk Tekneek" song to show that less is more. More or less.
STEAL "Drunk Tekneek"
NEXT: getting AM radio sappy up in this piece!
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