It’s a shame that there are so many amazing 90’s rap songs that are not available on the DSP’s aka Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Fortunately, most notable albums for prominent artists are widely available where you listen to music. But these there are these loosies that might have lived on a compilation, or maybe a soundtrack, or a b-side to a single… But all of these have something in common… They were official tracks at one time for projects that were pressed and distributed… But why are these tracks not getting claimed now? Why isn’t the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony track, “Everyday Thang” available for me to stream on Spotify?
“Everyday Thang” is easily one of Bone’s best songs. It was a standout on The Show soundtrack back in ‘95 but unfortunately a whole generation of kids don’t know about this track nowadays… And Bone Thugs are one of those groups who stay relevant through the years. You’re telling me Bizzy Bone, Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Wish Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone aren’t fighting to get this track up online? They know how fire it is right? Righhhhhhhhhhhhht???? Here’s the thing… That track was put out in 1995 by Def Jam on The Show soundtrack which was presented by Russell Simmons.
The Show was something you’d see in the record stores are maybe you’d catch a commercial on BET Rap City… Possibly you might spend your afternoons in Tower Records reading every rap and hip hop magazine on the shelves. Wherever you were, there’s one thing for sure…. You knew how many crazy rappers were on that compilation. And the mix of artists from up and down both coasts was wild. South Central Cartel and Biggie on the same project? Ummmm….. WHAT??? Method Man and Bone on the same project? The Show compilation was basically a mixtape of all of the dope artists that Russell Simmons was into. You guys have watched The Show right????????????
This was something called a documentary. You might laugh reading that but when I was 15 in 1995, do you think I knew what the word documentary meant? You think Blockbuster Video had a section called Documentaries? You think we had WiFi back then? You think we had the internet in ‘95? Nooooo… YouTube? Fam… NOTHING… To find out when things were going down in the rap game back in the 90’s, you had to hustle. You couldn’t miss out on your hometown rapper from San Diego on a major platform. Yup….. Jayo Felony was on The Show… a rapper from my city was on a huge platform… you knew he was going to snap… 619 in this bitch…
Rap music to me was like the coolest thing in life. A good song or album could carry me through anything. When you come across a rose growing through the concrete floor you had to admire its beauty. That is exactly what 2Pac’s “My Block” was… Although they labeled him as 2 PAC because quite honestly, people never knew how to spell his name correctly. Here’s 2Pac aka Tupac Shakur with “My Block” right here on Mid90s radio.
In 1995, how did one acquire The Show so that they could listen to it? Well… A brand new CD was typically $15.99 or $17.99 at full retail… On sale, you could maybe grab it at #11.99 - $13.99. And if you were big enough to get your CD on the limited shelves at Circuit City? Wow… Price came wayyyyyy down so I could get CD’s for $11.99 which was full retail for them. Circuit City could buy in CRAZY volume from labels and distributors and offer the best pricing ever to their customers. Because shit… if they could pull you in with cheap compact discs, then I bet you’ll walk in further and buy some other way more expensive electronics. But I don’t think I ever actually walked into a Circuit City… All I needed was right there in the front of those CD racks. Circuit City allowed me to stretch my dollar just like Costco does today with those hot dogs. I bought The Show soundtrack compilation at Circuit City in Clairemont aka San Diego, CA. I tried to work there but they would never accept my application. It’s all good though, thanks for letting me buy this CD for $5 cheaper than The Wherehouse a stones throw away.
“How High” might have been the coolest song I had ever heard…. I had never even smoked weed back in ‘95 but that song was just dope. It spoke to me like nothing else could back in the Mid90s. At school I carried a smile on my face but in my mind, it was hip hop in the head at all times. Redman and Method Man from Wu Tang Clan on the same track??? That was crazy… and that beat? Erick Sermon right? That is a forever banger out the east coast… but come back over to the west real quick… we got you on some summer waves where you rap and kick back with a hyna on a sunday afternoon with your crew… “Summertime in the LBC” with the Dove Shack…. Whoa… Best song ever type shit…
And then Russ doubles down and goes with another slow track out of the west coast? Yup… Domino??? Yup…. The west coast had that rap and r&b fusion strong with these groups. And even some gangster rappers knew that if they could dip into this range on a track, they could expand their fanbase in major waves… As long as you got selected for that push… Russell Simmons needed Domino on his Def Jam project.
Russ liked the west coast sound heavy… but get him back on the east coast with Mary J. Blige and you have an absolute smash with “Everyday It Rains”… The Show soundtrack broke barriers when it came to the question, what is a hip hop album? He asked the question, why do these wonderful artists have to be regionalized? Why can’t the west coast f*ck with the east coast on wax? Russ did everything he could to shine light on artists that might have never ever gotten a push like this from somebody else.
Even A Tribe Called Quest was on this joint? Yup… But fam…. all of these other rappers they had listed on the tracklisting and on the promo materials were on the project. But many were just used for intermissions in what might have been one of the best marketing moves in hip hop history. I actually wasn’t mad at hearing the rappers live at a concert or just getting interviewed and offering education for a youngster like me all the way out in San Diego. But one question… IS PHILLY IN THIS MOTHAFUCKA?