YouTube
The Rebel MC (Mike West) and Double Trouble (Leigh Guest and Michael Menson) successfully teamed up in the summer of '89 on 'Just Keep Rockin'... 'Street Tuff' is their second hit and had reached No. 3 by 22nd October 1989.Now, this is a bit more like it. Unfortunately the one thing they do have in common with Milli Vanilli is that one of them is no longer among us: Michael Menson was murdered in 1997. I felt like I had to mention that somewhere but best to get it out of the way first so we can cast our minds back and hear the song as we would have at the time.
For those who don't remember this one from the time, we're still in the early days of non-novelty British rap; so much so that at one point Rebel MC takes it as a sign of his rapping prowess that you'll "Feel the music, and you wonder, is he a Yankee? No, I'm a Londoner." As with Derek B a few albums ago, he evidently expected his audience to be thinking good rapping=American, although to be fair to them they wouldn't have heard P-Diddy yet. As with much hip-hop of this era, his lyrical agenda is largely limited to telling us how good he is at rapping, but to give the guy his due he's not bad at it.
It's possibly more interesting to consider the music, based on a sped-up version of the bassline from '54-46 That's My Number' by Toots and The Maytals, which in turn refers to 'What'd I Say'. As Desmond Carrington would say, the music goes around. Although some of the samples laid over it are rather of their time, it has an appealingly chunky quality to it now, at least for those of us who remember it from our younger days. A fun, if dated, dance record.
Also appearing on: Now 15, 17 [Rebel MC only]
Available on: Dave Pearce Best Of The Dance Years 1988-92
No comments:
Post a Comment