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P Diddy impersonates Pharaohe Monch, James Brown · by Sach O
An underground icon?
P Diddy – The Future (Written by Pharaohe Monch, Produced by Havoc)
P Diddy – Get Off (filesharing link)
If your first rap purchase wasn’t a Young Jeezy CD, you probably remember the intense bitterness and hatred that backpackers had for any mainstream rappers back in the mid to late 90’s. Hell, even legends like Pete Rock caught bad ones from angry suburbanites for being on that radio shit and not delivering…well whatever Wu-Tang was doing at the time. Unable to even fake the funk, a lot of culturally confused kids decided the only way to reconcile their love of rap with their alt-rock origins was to reject anything soulful at all costs and wave the flag for noisy, supposedly more authentic Hiphop. And Public Enemy #1 (ahem) was one Sean “Puffy” Combs.
Now the hatred against Combs in the late 90’s wasn’t entirely unwarranted but the man wasn’t the plague on music that some made him out to be either. He was an excellent promoter and his work with Craig Mack, Mary J Blige, Jodeci, Faith Evans and of course, The Notorious B.I.G was an excellent blend of pop-appeal and street smarts. While New York was in the midst of an all-city grimier-than-thou competition to out angst the next man, Puff was just bringing it back to the dance floor that cats like EPMD once dominated with their own familiar samples and jiggy beats. Had he not been so successful at what he did (in large part due to the Clear Channeling of the Airwaves) few people would have even bothered to complain since at least he was an alternative to Death Row which had already gone stale. Unfortunately, he was that successful and his Hiphop takeover and overbearing ego-driven persona ensured a swift backlash. Oh, and his Sauce Money penned tribute to Biggie was a never-forgive-action. Since then, Combs changed his name a dozen times, had a media trial, released 2 terrible follow up albums, claimed he invented the remix, launched a successful clothing line and continually pimped out Biggie’s catalogue. While the public eventually stopped hating him in favor of latter day impresarios like Irv Gotti, he could never quite shake off the image that he was rap’s original huckster, the guy with zero artistic cred who was solely in it for the money. Basically you can trace the roots of a lot of today’s terrible pop music back to Puffy so he’s been quite the convenient scapegoat.
Well get your parkas out and raise the thermostat because hell hath frozen over.
Rumors that the jansport set’s perennial favorite Pharaohe Monch was working with Combs have been floating around the internet for a while now, but no one expected this. The very idea that Puffy would jack Monch’s flow wholesale over what sounds like a Wu-Tang intro is enough to make your head explode in 2006, much less 10 years ago. Sounding closer to Dr Octagon than No Way Out, Puff’s slightly off beat Pharaohe appropriation is fascinating and even entertaining though its still hard to ignore the fact that fuckin Puff Daddy is flowing like Pharaohe fuckin Monch. Havoc’s dark bassline and looped crowd noise only reinforces the attempt to bring the griminess back to Hiphop further confusing those among us who remember the days when you could clearly seperate that real hiphop from that fake rap shit (sarcasm intended). To confuse Dilated Peoples fans even further, Diddy continues his relentless swagger jacking with a hilarious James Brown attempt over what occasionally sounds like an MF Doom loop. While sadly, there’s no fast rapping involved, at least it’s a better attempt to bring New York attitude back to the forefront than Chicken Noodle Soup. At this point I’m seriously worried that some backpacking alien from outer-space has bodysnatched Puffy, forcing him to put this stuff out because…well damn this is the guy who made it so that Hav and Pharaohe couldn’t put out a viable record in the first place! You’d think he’d loop his James a little cleaner.
For now, I’ll file this as truly bizarre, but Bad Boy has had one hell of a year commercially (Young Joc, Cassie, Danity Kane) so this just might sell. Kind of ironic that the man who cleaned New York up could make a comeback by appropriating rawness, but who can make sense of anything in today’s brave new world?
Comments for "P Diddy impersonates Pharaohe Monch, James Brown"
i remember when the boot camp click made that video making fun of b.i.g for the whole player image thing, but damn diddy went and bought himself a book bag
— Ramon Sep 4, 02:38 PM
Are you sure this is really written by Pharaohe? I heard this piece of bizarreness last night and figured it was just a blatant flow jacking.
Hearing that in conjunction with the James Brown jacking is so surreal.
— David Sep 4, 02:42 PM
Good to see Monche is getting a cheque.
As far as Puff’s legacy, it was all the copycats that tried to follow his lead that really sold-out rap. He was just doing his thing.
— Robbie Sep 4, 08:42 PM
“Chicken Noodle Soup” >>>> “Gett Off”
— noz Sep 4, 10:03 PM
I lived through the Puffication of hip hop and for Oh Word to be an apologist for him is a joke. He was a pariah on music. He made straight up beatjackin, wack rhymes, bubble gum soft rap music acceptable. He is Hammer who had a credible front i.e Biggie.
To say EPMD had “jiggy beats” is bullshit.
— GO14 Sep 4, 10:25 PM
8 year olds don’t normally check this site so it’s safe to say that we all lived through the “Puffication of hip hop”...and was it really that bad? he jacked beats, that’s been the social mixtape norm since before he went live. let’s collectively stop demonizing him for that shit, especially since he dropped Biggie records and we didn’t. neither did half the current rap landscape we’re blaming for the downfall of hip hop.
and yeah EPMD made club shit sans flashy suits. big deal.
— agent b Sep 4, 11:58 PM
“To say EPMD had “jiggy beats” is bullshit”
True. The only “smoothed-out” beat they ever did was “Crossover”, and even that wasn’t exactly “jiggy”.
— Robbie Sep 5, 12:00 AM
I find it funny that EPMD are being defended as “not smoothed out” (as if that were an offense in itself) yet whenever anyone from Jay-Z to Nas use a classic EPMD sample/beat, those singles are written off as dancy concessions to the club or radio.
EPMD was the essence of smooth for their first 2 releases despite adapting very well to the early 90’s roughneck climate.
— Sach Sep 5, 02:05 AM
Perhaps “smooth” was the wrong word to use, but when “Unfinished Business” dropped it was a one of the rawest, most harcore albums of the time (with the obvious exceptions of “It’s Time To Party” and the unlistenable “Too Much To Drink”). There’s nothing jiggy about songs like “Total Kaos”, “The Big Payback” etc.
— Robbie Sep 5, 02:13 AM
it really is Monch writing for Diddy… he said he was doing it in an interview for MTV Mixtape Monday … READ HERE ... scroll down to the bottom, you will see Monch’s pic.
I think they linked when Diddy was helping Marc Ecko compile that “Getting Up” OST… Diddy hand picked the exclusives on there, and Monch’s “Book of Judges” (hot track BTW) was selected. Shit, I’d write for Diddy too if I was getting that CAKE!
— khal Sep 5, 08:25 AM
Was it the rhyme biters or the rhyme writers that shitted on hip-hop? I’m not really feeling Diddy using the flow but I’m sure that the music video will be hell’a spectacular.
Curtis Jackson needs to take note that Diddy survived a battle with Death Row by sacrificing B.I.G. He will easily let Ma$e get gunned down in Harlem and do a tribute (penned by Percee P?!?)
Curtis doesn’t really have any talent to spare, I suppose Young Buck could be killed off, but it might be poetic if Tony Yayo were stabbed up.
Yaaaaaaay for rap wars!
— Billy Sunday Sep 5, 08:51 AM
That song was terrible. I don’t think it would have been any better if Monch was rapping either. Jeez.
— Nikhil P. Yerawadekar Sep 8, 08:18 PM