Boss was on her way to underground gangster success until it came out that she wasn’t quite the G she purported to be on record.  It stopped her hot career in its tracks.  

This was a period in time when hiphop still demanded authenticity from its artists.  If you talked about it, you had to be about it.  Not the case today if Rick Ross’s career trajectory is any indicator.  
 
However,  this is particularly interesting since there were skits on the album that indicated as much.  Clearly no one put it into context until much later. Truly her background only became something to investigate because her album, Born Gangsta, was the number one female rap duo selling album of all time.  

At the time and even now I had some issues with her gansta persona.  Mostly because I’ve never been a supporter of gansta rap and the violence and negative imagery it highlights.  

But credit must be given where credit is due. This woman can spit like no other and she reps for the D, even if she is on some west coast gansta shit on the album and in these videos.  Though to hear her tell it (and others) she been on some gansta shit since day one.  
As part of my “Er’body Grown in Here, Right” feature let’s reminisce on one of the nicest chicks on the mic. Here’s Recipe of Hoe from the Born Gangsta’s album.  A very successful twist on the typical gansta/hoe cliche track.

This reoccurring feature is where I will  feature emcees of days gone by. Sometimes with an eye towards critical analysis and other times we just gon’ kick it.  In either case it’ll be interesting.

First up Neferititi, a video from her L.I.F.E. Living In Fear of Extension 1994 debut album. Here was a woman who could spit!  The production on this album leaned towards  the boom bap that I am so very fond of.  And she had social commentary for that ass. Her album is like a perfect little snapshot of the hiphop I was enamored with in the early 90’s.  

I should also confess that  I had several ensembles very close to what she has in this here video (Fisherman’s vest and doc martins baby. What cha’ know about that?!).   Though she was raised in Cali and part of the west coast scene when she was signed, she is a girl from the GO.  

The album received critical acclaim but financial was not to be. She had a couple of singles off the album and several videos in rotation.  I also remember she got a clause put into her record contract that they would pay for her college education… which I always thought was brilliant on her part.   Most artists are just left in debt to the record company.  Who knows perhaps one of  you may have  her as a Professor or Doctor right now.

This was my shit. I don’t think you heard me this was my shiiiiiiiiiiiit back in the day.  I was so distressed when I could no longer find her.  There were hopes of an all female rap tour featuring her, Queen, Yo-Yo among others. It never happened. Of course her presence was short lived as is all too common for women in hiphop. She appeared in and created a song for the movie Panther in 1995 and no one has seen her since.   

The commodification of culture in Japan is interesting. The Japanese  have a way of  examining western pop culture, specifically urban culture with a superficial fine tooth comb, creating subsets like Dubstep/Reggae enthusiasts and purveyors of Hiphop culture. They have a penchant for amplifying the “otherness” in the cultures they appropriate which is of course why they find it so attractive. All the way down to importing East Africans to act as salespeople in Hiphop themed apparel stores and processing their hair in order to have an afro.

Out of this comes, the Teriyaki Boyz.  I was familiar with their hit, Beef or Chicken from my Pandora Hiphop station.  Of course the only part I understand is the refrain, beef or chicken—but the production work is tight and the language does seem to ride the beat.  The dj of the group is Nigo, the founder of Bathing Ape. Which explains a whole lot.  Here is a video from 2008,  Zock On, with none other than Pharell and Busta Rhymes.

And peep the lyrics of Japanese Hiphop duo, King Giddra.  The subject matter harkens back to a time when political rap was in mainstream America.  Bullet of Truth with English subtitles.