The Tortoise General: Bloods

--Official Stats--
Song Title: "Bangin On Wax - Duet: Bloods & Crips"
Album: "Banging On Wax"
Artist: Bloods and Crips
Release Date: March 9, 1993

Oh boy. When I was a young youth and frequented record stores looking for the greatest in hip hop I would ALWAYS come across albums by the Bloods & Crips and I never, ever listened to one. In fact, one of my friends had an album of theirs and force-lended it to me and I still never listened to it. That's how I roll. Why, you ask? This shit was just too gimmicky. In 1993 my patience for "commercial" rap was already wearing thin, even though I really only had access to commercial stuff. This Bloods & Crips nonsense was just stupid to me, like a WWE routine. As a kid I thought that if these guys were real gang members (which they were) then they wouldn't tolerate sharing space together on "wax". Shit, if a crip had to cross out the letter "b" in their tags, then they certainly wouldn't be (literally) handshaking on the back of some album cover.

I love the warning to bootleggers: "Bootleg this at your own risk!"

Understand, at that time we didn't have the internet or blogs or apps or chat rooms or cellphones, so I got my hip hop news from the Source, BET, college radio, and from friends, and I never heard about this shit from any of those sources. It was just a weird album that looked dumb. So, twenty years later I look back at this album with the power of the internet and see that it was an initiative by older gang heads to help bring peace to gang infested neighborhoods. Yep, they wanted to confine the "bangin'" to "wax", which is just stupid. In hindsight, doesn't it seem counterproductive to encourage peace by recording these guys threatening each other and then trying to sell it to the entire country? I don't know. But, I do know that some of the kids in my neighborhood learned thier gang signs from this cover. So good job there, older gang heads. Now believe it or not, gang life is foreign to me, and so is this idea of exploiting gang rivalry for denero, dig? Ok, so why am I reviewing this song? Well, not too long ago I tried to figure out what 1990's rapper Domino was up to (it turned out that he is still bangin' on wax), and I discovered that this song is where he made his debut. So I decided to give it a listen...

Bloods feat. Crips Bangin' on Wax

HOLD EVERYTHING: THAT SONG SUUUCCCCKKKKSSSSS. Wow. I mean, that's terrible (hand clap). If I were in a gang (and I'm not due to my frailty) and I were on this track I would do a drive by shooting on whoever made this possible (for the record, I wouldn't ever do a drive by shooting, which is why I could never be in a gang). What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, the song Bangin' on Wax, the TITLE TRACK of the album, the first song on the album, and just an all around awful song. In fact let's take another look at the full title: Bangin' on Wax - Duet: Bloods & Crips. The word "duet" really doesn't belong. Oh, and in case you missed it the beat is terrible and it also screams 1992! It reminds me of Coolio's Fantastic Voyage which came out like a year later and sounded much better (and way less 'gangy' and stupidly 'violent').

Geez, this article is weird to write. So who are the rappers on here anyway? Let's just do the highlights.

1. Domino - A CRIP, of course, sounding a little like the Domino we know ~~and love~~, and also sounding a lot crappy. He was going by the alias 'Genuine Draft' which is weird, but normal in gangs, I guess? These streets are full of aliases. He says 'slobs' a lot because it was important to him to say that about his rivals, and in the end he just delivered a silly verse. Domino, how did you build a short career off of this?

2. Lil' Stretch - BLOOD. "'ll be rollin' on these Crab ni--as everynight / Crip, Crip, Crip, buck buck, time to go off". Got that?

3. AWOL - CRIP "If I'm not killin' a snoop, then I'm runnin' from the police" It's one or the other with AWOL, a tough life no doubt.

4. Red Rag - BLOOD. That's a straightforward name! He really should have made friends with the next guy rapping. They have so much in common.

5. Blue Rag - CRIP. "Put the barrel of my Gauge in a Slobs mouth, one shot / Blowin' them brains out and watch a shatter and splatter on the concrete"

6. Lil Stretch (again) - BLOOD. "Rollin' with the street gang knockin' out Crabs / Cause it's an everyday muthafuckin' thang". Who doesn't think something like that every morning when they wake up?

7. Sin Loc - CRIP. "Quick to put one in your forehead, Shootin' every muthafucka that I catch wearing red". What about purple? That has red in it? Does that just get a flesh wound? Actually that's a mix of red and blue! UH OH. Do not notify any of these guys about the existance of the color purple.

8. RedrumM 781 - BLOOD. "fools are goin' down to a red hell" <-- That's a terrible place for Crips to go. They HATE RED!!!!!

FUCK!

It's all very violent and there's lots of profanity and slobs and snoops and crabs and whatever. But the worst thing is that the song is unbearable. It's honestly a back and forth between gang members where each guy just says he kills the other guy. That's it, there's nothing more. This is the life we live, this is it. Oh, and it is funny that they call each other crabs and slobs. Those are such soft insults. Like calling someone a turkey or a bum. Now I don't have anything wrong with those names. I'm way on the outside and I don't understand so I really shouldn't talk about it. So, in the end, I wish all the gang members the best in life and I wish they would all mellow out and stop doing jack moves or whatever and somehow get fat stacks legit.

Score: 0/10