Old School Mondays:: College Boyz, Jibri & Rough House Survivors

Like the tens of you that await our weekly shot of golden age goodness with bated breath, the Ack was disappointed I couldn't post an OSM last week due to an extended long weekend. So, despite the fact that he's away this week and likely won't get to check the jams for a while, I thought I'd post some songs froma few of the more infamous hip hop tapes he bought back in the day - a number of which he bought on family trips to Florida, which he's doing again this week, so it all ties up in a neat little package now doesn't it?

All right, this post is essentially a showcase for the College Boyz, who have been mentioned on the hill a number of times, mainly because they had a track featuring a dude rapping over a cell phone. The Ack has never forgiven the College Boyz for this gimmickery, but I have to say, considering what airtime must've cost in '91, making that cell phone rapping song would've cost as much as one of Jay-Z's sampled out jams. That's if it was a cell phone, if it was just a regular phone, well now that's just lame. Turns out the College Boyz actually have a bigger claim to fame than phone raps, as they were fronted by Romany Malco, who you might know from such films as The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Love Guru(!). Pretty impressive, so enjoy the singles from Ack's un-favorite album Radio Fusion Radio, Victim Of The Ghetto & Hollywood Paradox (I would've posted the phone song, but I'm not listening to this whole album to find it, seriously, it has 10 interludes).

I know basically nothing about Jibri Wise One, other than he was from Cinncinati, and the Ack scored a copy of his one and only self-titled release on a US excursion back in the day. Ole Jibri was pretty into the New Jack-ish beats, and as a result this album hasn't aged too well, but album opener The House The Dog Built is really quite funky, so we'll go with that.

I'm not actually sure if he got it in the US, but I'm pretty sure the Ack had a copy of Rough House Survivors excellent Straight From The Soul, which was just classic, golden age, NY hip-hop. They were on Relativity, a label which just makes me think of of old school goodness (like debut albums from Common and Fat Joe). I didn't have a copy of this back in the day, but I think I wanted it, so I'm happy to hear it again. And now you can hear Check Da Back Pack and Pete Rock's lovely remix for Rough House.