Monday, September 28, 2009

Old School Mondays:: Swayze is Swayze Edition

Due to the busy-ness of the last couple weeks, this post is rather delayed, and I know that a few articles to this effect showed up after Patrick Swayze's death a couple weeks ago, but when I heard about it, I immiediatly thought of OSM. And clearly I'm not the only one, which is impressive, because you'd be hard pressed to find a dude that was less hip hop than Patrick Swayze, yet his name became a commonly used part of hip hop vernacular in the 90's. So, you know where this OSM is going by now, today we've got 5 songs that feature "Swayze".

If you're still reading this, then I likely don't need to tell you this, but the most common use of "Swayze" was as a shorthand way of saying "I'm Ghost", not because it rhymed with "crazy" as some British paper tried to claim. I'm not sure who used it first, but it was big in the EPMD camp, and when I think of the phrase, it's within the context of an EPMD song. So it only makes sense to that we lead off with a couple of EPMD songs, Boon Dox and It's Going Down - I think PMD uses Swayze in both songs, and if you're looking for a textbook usage, I'd look no further than EPMD.

But, the Swayze goodness doesn't end at EPMD -The Symphony Pt.2 features a brief Swayze usage from G. Rap, but this one is just mainly here because it's a fun listen. A rare E-Swift intro verse contains the Swayze ref on The Alkaholiks Can't Tell Me Shit, which is good, because I'll take any reason I can get to post songs from 21 & Over. Ever heard of this Method Man? I hear he's kind of popular. Well he also uses Swayze on his rather excellent Bring The Pain.

So, R.I.P. to Patrick Swayze, but go ahead and enjoy a rather unexpected part of his legacy with these songs.

MP3:: EPMD - Boon Dox

MP3:: EPMD - It's Going Down

MP3:: Marley Marl - The Symphony Pt.2 f. Master Ace, Craig G, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G. Rap, Little Daddy Shane

MP3:: The Alkaholiks - Can't Tell Me Shit

MP3:: Method Man - Bring The Pain