Friday Flashback: Clever Jeff: Year of the Fly Emcee

It's 1994, and the tune I put in the mix was "Year of the Fly Emcee" by Oakland based rapper/producer Clever Jeff who caught the attention of Quincy Jones, then signed to his Qwest Records imprint. This is a non-album cut I got as a promo, which got a lot of love from me, as well as from the people who flooded the dancefloor when I put it on. It seems that I would be the only DJ who knew about this song locally, and although it didn't have commercial appeal, it eventually faded.

Around 2001, DJ Chicken George was in the mix at one of the local eateries. I saw him reach into his crate, take out this record, cues it, blends it, then suddenly I hear a familiar bassline that I hadn't heard in years, but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. At that time, I wasn't familiar because CG played the instrumental of the song, where I normally played the vocal version. I went to ask what played and he shows me the label. My mouth dropped. Seems like it was sweeter to hear him play the instrumental, than the vocal. And i've been a copy-cat since. LOL

Friday Flashback: En Vogue: Hold On

The year was 1990. While attending Club Palladium, which was one of Houston's best clubs ever, the late DJ Lonnie Mack [of Def IV] takes a quick pause to introduce a new track by a new all female singing group from Oakland, by mentioning what a huge tune it was going to be. He drops the needle at the very beginning and suddenly you hear the intro, an A Capella rendition of the Jackson 5's "Who's Loving You". When they reach the end of the first verse, holding the last word and harmonizing together, suddenly a big bass drop kicks off the beginning of one of the hardest R&B tracks of all time. The crowd lost their minds.

The name of the group was En Vogue, consisting of members Dawn Robinson, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, and Cindy Herron. "Hold On" was the first single released off their platinum selling debut studio album Born To Sing which was released in April 1990. By June it was certified at gold status by the RIAA. Topping charts in both the U.S. and U.K., Born To Sing earned the group the most awards won by any female group in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards, a total of seven, along with five Soul Train Awards, six American Music Awards, and seven Grammy nominations. "Hold On" sampled the songs "Synthetic Substitution" by Melvin Bliss and "The Payback" by James Brown.

K Dubb: Ultimate Life

Taking this time to salute and give continued respect to my big brother [no pun intended] Sir Keith Watson/K-Dubb, by wishing him a happy belated birthday and to feature one of his tracks. I must say this is one of the best producers in the city of Houston. K-Dubb has an extensive production catalog of R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, international music, and more, that goes on for hours. To give you a taste, here's one of my favorites titled "Ultimate Life". You can also catch K-Dubb co-hosting "The Groove" with Bobby Phats on Monday nights on KPFT 90.1 FM-Houston.

Insightful: Annoying Voices

True story...I'm sitting here in the coffee shop close to my house, grab a cup of Joe, and sit down to rummage the fields of Soundcloud. A group of people sit down at a table close by and there's one guy in the group who's pretty much bullying the conversation. At the same time, I come across "Annoying Voices" by Insightful, while he's continuously running off at the mouth. I don't think i've ever heard the word "shit" so much from one person in one sitting. Anywho...I put on the headphones to listen and crank up the volume to drown this guy out. Finally, I find this picture, enlarge it on my laptop, set my laptop down so the screen is facing them, then make a dash to the bathroom. While i'm walking back to my seat, I noticed they got up to leave. I take it he got the message [finally], since everyone else who kept giving the "will you shut the f**k up?!" deep sighs weren't enough.

All that aside, this song is complimentary. Leave a comment to say thanks while you ENJOY!

Friday Flashback: Oaktown's 357

Normally I post the Friday Flashback earlier, but this week we're going to help get you in a dancing mood before you hit the club scene by posting the moderate hit "Juicy Gotcha Crazy" from Oaktown's 357. The song did not chart on Billboard, but did get a good amount of airplay on urban radio.

R.I.P. Special One of The Conscious Daughters

CMG & Special One
I found out from one of my homies on the west coast that Special One, born Karryl Smith of The Conscious Daughters (TCD) has passed away. I met the both of them in the late 90's and had a real good time hanging out with them, because they were real cool. My condolences to the families and fans affected by her transition. She will be greatly missed.