Old School Mondays:: Big Daddy Kane (Prince of Darkness Edition)

A happy Monday to you friends. This is one of those Mondays that snuck up on me and found me without any good ideas for OSM, but never fear, I have a plan for such an occurrence. I go into my shit room, where I store my boxes of hip hop cassettes, stick my hand into one of the boxes and pull out a random tape. I know, the science is heavy. Sometimes I have to do this a couple times to get something I want to write about, but this time I hit the jackpot first try with Big Daddy Kane's Prince Of Darkness.

Anyone that knows Kane's canon is likely thinking, "Ahhhh, wha?", as Prince of Darkness was kind of universally panned upon it's release. But, I love this album, for many reasons, but mainly because it contains one song that helps simultaneously explain why Kane should get more consideration as one of the best MC's ever, and why he doesn't. As for why he should, well it's quite simple: he's an awesome MC. I mean there are plenty of other reasons (best fade in the biz, he rapped AND danced - I didn't see Tupac doing those at the same time, he had the flyest suits in the game), but it comes down to skills in the end, and Kane has them in abundance. He can vary his style and beat up a track either fast (Raw, Nuff Respect) or slow (Smooth Operator, Ain't No Half Steppin'), and he has more charisma than any 99% of any MC to ever do it. So what's the problem? Well as the title Prince of Darkness implies, it's the whole lover-man persona Kane was way into. If he played the gangster role, he likely would've been taken much more seriously, but because his desired claim to fame was to be so sexy it hurts, it hurt his rep.

That said, the song which I think illustrates all of this quite nicely is The Lover In You. I mean just take a listen, if anyone else were kicking lover-man raps over this Prince-jacked beat, I can't see anyway I'd still be loving it in '09. But it's Kane, and I do. I mean he says "make her feel like the most, forget about Goodfellas and go and see Ghost", and I am considering it right now (An 80's movie with a badly cgi-ed Ghost? Surely that's aged well). But that's the thing with Kane, people tend to not take him as serious because of his persona, but that's a mistake, he absolutely belongs up there with Rakim, KRS, and whoever the kids and bloggers want to include on that list (Little Wayne? Oh yes, of course, he surely has the flow to stack up with Rakim or Kane, I see what the hype is all about. Ooops, bitter old guy rant over).

So, we've got something for the lover in you(as an aside, if anyone has the Mr. Cee Remix of that jam, send it our way please!), but what else from Prince Of Darkness? Naturally I'm a documented fan of Brother Brother, but I've posted that before, so we'll give something else some shine. Everyone loves a posse cut, and there's a solid one on this album, which features Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes in their prime, so we've gotta hear that. We'll finish up or BDK hat-trick with one of my favorite underrated Kane songs, Get Down, not sure if anyone else likes this song, but I think it's awesome. Atomic Dog drums and a crazy horn loop, with Kane just cutting loose? I mean this is a jam pretty much non one would call a Kane classic, and it's littered with notable quotables - you cannot deny the skills. So put on some Kane and call yourself Parker, cause you can't lose.

Labels: Music