808 State, 90 takes on LL Cool J’s Walking With a Panther
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at #49 808 State, 90 vs. #80 LL Cool J, Walking With a Panther
A bazillion years ago, I was watching an interview (probably on Yo!~ MTYV Raps) with LL Cool J, where he made an off-hand comment about driving a Honda Civic. Yes, really. The gist was that sucka MCs were wasting money on things like gold chains while he was playing the long game. It was a weirdly sensible flex—especially for a guy that had been dropping rhymes like “I’m so bad, I can suck my own d*ck.”
For someone so pragmatic on the street, he was prodigious in the studio; one of the knocks against the record is that it’s long, at 18 tracks and with a run time of 76 minutes, there’s a lot of space to fill. Luckily, our man has some big rhymes and big beats to fill in the blanks.
But it wasn’t just the usual fare. There was plenty of stuff like the aforementioned “Clap Your Hands,” but also what at the time was a clean break from the norm. As Exhibit A for the people, I’d present the Rick Rubin-produced “Going Back to Cali.” LL’s flow is smooth, almost conversational- instead of announcing to us all how bad he is, he’s telling a story on top of a jazz beat. As if that wasn’t wild enough, the whole thing ends with a sax solo. We’re beyond the looking glass here, people.
“I’m That Type of Guy” also has an unorthodox flow and, of course, talks about stealing girls like it’s an Olympic sport. It’s an interesting side trip and a solid track overall. Still, the best part is the outro, which, as I type this, sounds like more of an indictment than it really is.
“Jingling Baby” is another favorite, and is ostensibly about…earrings. Sure. At any rate, it’s a banger. And I was a little surprised that I still knew a good chunk of the lyrics. Funny how those are in my mind’s Keep pile, and not things like where I left my glasses.
(sigh)
A year later, LL would kick the door back down and dare us to call it a comeback. After all, he’d been here for years. And just a year earlier, he’d dropped Walking With a Panther, still one of his best, and one that sounds great, even in a Honda Civic.
One of the paradoxes of electronic music is that you sometimes remember the nights you heard it more than the tracks themselves. And I suppose that’s partly the point- EDM (or house, or techno, or…) has always been more about immersion than anything else. How do you know a song is good? When you can still feel the beat three days later at work. In the pre-Shazam era, many of these tracks were lost to time and a fuzzy memory. Sure, sometimes you could ask the DJ, but not always, and if you didn’t want to stop dancing? Well, that was the price you paid.
But sometimes-sometimes- something was so good you had to get off the ride and find out what was playing. That’s how I found 808 State.
Last year, the band’s 1993 record Gorgeous made my Top 100 records of all time. I described it as:
…the perfect pairing to taking NyQuil. That’s a little unfair—when it came out, it was the perfect pairing with many, much stronger things. It was fun to have these sounds swirling around at the club or in your headphones while the walls shapeshifted around you.
That said, it’s more than that; it’s a beautiful sonic landscape that transcends the era it was made in and many of the records that came out of the same place.
Which, I mean…fair. But I don’t think you need to be on anything to enjoy that record, and you certainly don’t while listening to 90. The music is more than enough. Compared to today, some of the production might seem rudimentary—or at least minimalist. Some of that is due to the technology available at the time and what the band could afford. But the magic they made with what they had was something to behold. Besides pulse-pounding beats and the just-right BPM rate, some jazz elements were sprinkled in, lending the whole thing an experimental feel. This is a group masterful at transporting you back to wherever your favorite dance floor was.
House music is very good at helping you break a sweat, but it’s often very cold (this is what happens when music is made with machines!). Nothing wrong with that, but one of 808 State’s superpowers was making these tracks feel warm. There’s a strangely human element to them that’s lacking in many of the records from the same era. Just when you’re running on empty, they work in a soothing track like “Pacific 202” to give you a chance to catch your breath. They know what they’re doing.
In a dark time like this, the best music can be escapist. Rest is resistance, but so too is checking out and immersing yourself in some beats. 90 is just what the doctor ordered.
Bottom Line: I am once again in the weird spot of picking one record for my bracket while voting for the other. If LL Cool J was the ruthless ladies man that would steal your girl and your wallet, 808 State were the homies that would take you out on the town to forget it all. Ladies Love Cool James, and so do I, but my heart is still on the dancefloor. My bracket pick is Walking With a Panther. My vote is for 90.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
Check out the full bracket here.
Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.
As always, thanks for being here.
KA—
Kevin Sent 