jGersonYes, it’s sort of stereotypical to rap about slanging crack and pretty much everyone and their mom has done it at one point or another. However, there’s a fine art to actually cooking it up. Do it wrong and you’re liable to get slumped; do it right and you’ve got fiends at your spot for days. If you follow the advice of the following men, you’ll undoubtedly have the recipe to cook the hottest ish on the streets.
Ghostface Killah
When GFK dropped his epic debut, Ironman, in 1996, few could fathom his hustle. It wasn’t until his 2000 follow-up that the world learned what a true hustler Ghost really is. For real, his ‘base is so tasty, “Woodrow The Basehead” still chases him around Staten with used VCRs. Ghost took his ‘work’ to a whole new level with Fishscale, which features imagery of everyone’s favorite formerly masked assassin stuffing trout full of yayo. Since, then Ghost has laced us with multiple heat rocks including More Fish and The Big Doe Rehab; but if Ghost ever offers to give you work on the arm, you better pay up because we all know what happens if you don’t…
Straight Crack: “Big heavy pots over hot stoves, mayonnaise jars in water/with rocks in ’em got my whole projects out of order/kilo is a thousand grams, beige, gold, brown, dirty fluffy, tan, extract oil comes from Cuban plants/the chemist is brolic, Pyrex scholars/professors at war over raw, killing partners for a million dollars” – (from “Kilo”)
Cam’ron
Take one look at Cam’ron’s attire and you know he’s a G (yeah, that’s a capital G). The Harlem kingpin might have spent a majority of his younger days going bar for bar with legends like Big L, but in his free time Cam was fascinated with the soft white. Even as he became an international superstar, Cam kept his name good in the streets by proliferating the infamous Stop Snitchin’ campaign. When he’s not “[Getting] It For Cheap” “In Ohio,” Cam’ron is most likely backhanding his mom for throwing away his “crack platter.” Sounds like Killa Cam had a change of heart from his 1998 tune, “D Rugs.”
Straight Crack: “Yeah I’m dumping it/the government can’t govern it/50 keys, Mickey D’s, yeah, I’m lovin’ it /outlet, unplugging it/house swept, they buggin’ it/spouse wet for f*ckin’ it/’bout wet, I bubble it/we blow down lofts/y’all n*ggas ain’t down dog/you see a shadow, go back in like a groundhog/stay in your lane/this is propane, baking soda, cocaine directly to yo’ brain” – (from “Cocaine”)
Yo Gotti
When you claim that you’ve went From Da Dope Game 2 Da Rap Game, you’ve got to find a way to live up to your image; and what better to do so than by presumably flipping your budget to pick up more work and make an even better second album? I can only speculate that’s what Gotti did because everything from the cover art down is pretty out-of-pocket. To say Gotti is a candidate for poet laureate is an understatement; the man’s penned such songs as “After I F*ck,” F*ck Your B*tch” and of course “After I F*ck Ya B*tch.” Yet amidst all this b*tch f*cking, Gotti has found a way to chop more work than that spot from Gone In 60 Seconds. Take for instance the song, “Standing in the Kitchen,” where Gotti does the math, breaking it down with “city kinda dry so this the time for you to hustle up/baking soda beacon cup/stretch it out whip it up/2 to 4, 4 to 8 I can make it double up.” With lyrics like that, it’s not surprising that his forthcoming album is titled Live From The Kitchen.
Straight Crack: “I got 36 ounces blocked up pure yola/make it times 2 once I hit it with the soda/whip it up good in a beacon and a blender/have it rock hard plus white as December/I switch up my raps yo I never go the same way/plus I get a different prepaid every 30 days” – (from “All I Ever Wanted To Do”)
The Notorious B.I.G.
It would be sacrilegious not to include Biggie on this list considering he broke down the game in 10 simple steps. Before Biggie became the Notorious spitter that he was, he “used to sell crack, so [he] could stack [his] riches.” Judging by Biggie’s appearance, I’m guessing that he “never [got] high on [his] own supply.”
Straight Crack: “sh*t lyrically, n*ggas can’t see me/f*ck it – buy the coke, cook the coke, cut it.” (from “Notorious Thugs”)
Clipse
When your former manager is indicted on charges of hustling 100 plus pounds of blow, chances are you’ve seen your fair share of yak refined into dense product (guess he “Got Caught Dealing”). Since the late ’90s, the brothers Malice and Pusha T have been moving weight state to state – rain, sleet or snow (no pun intended). Although Pusha T can brag that he lyrically “force feeds ya the metric scale,” I have a sneaking suspicion that addicts were willingly running back for more of his product. Word on the street is “you gonna love how it melt[s].”
Straight Crack: “Open the Frigidaire, 25 to life in here/so much white you might think ya Holy Christ is near/throw on your Louis V millionaires to kill the glare/ice trays? Nada! All you see is pigeons paired/the realest sh*t I ever wrote/not Pac inspired, it’s crack pot inspired, my real n*ggaz quote/b*tch never cook my coke/Why? Never trust a ho with your child/at you make believe rappers I smile!” – (Pusha T from “Keys Open Doors”)
Young Jeezy
The man also known as Residue (you know, because he (“leaves blow on these beats“) has spent the last ten years making street urchins fiend like Tyrone Biggums. Now we all know that if you “mix the flake with the soda, you got Young Jeezy,” but who knew that when his “kitchen[s] fumed up” he gets his “Benny Hannah on?” That’s a world class culinary crack experience!
Straight Crack: “Copped ten sold five then I hide three/baking soda residue/I’m gone with the other two/f*ck a magic stick Jeezy got a magic wrist/David Copperfield on the stove all types of sh*t/stack it up like Pringles, all type of chips” – (from “Make It Work For Ya”)
Scarface
Before he started rapping, Scarface was attempting to go from the streets of Houston to Tony Montana’s mansion. Over his prolific career Scarface has made over ten full albums chronicling how to bake and flip cakes. After spending his time in the kitchen with a “coffee pot full of yellow, bags of razors and resin,” Mr. Scarface was able to have “the whole hood smoking.” In the immortal words of the Geto Boys – “Damn it feels good to be a gangsta!”
Straight Crack: “I got a brick from a sucker that he wanted to move/but the whole while I’m cookin I’m like, ‘f*ck this dude’/It’s on, thirty-six zones of my own/Keep the money fo’ myself and take the work back home/Call that n*gga on the phone, ‘I just got knocked/And the cops was askin bout you, come get me hot’/
Never showed, so f*ck him and the money that I owed/I got a get rich quick scheme, steppin on the dough/It’s cold, but that’s it, I’m on it like I want it/and twenty-eight cash and change, the whole game on it/that means I’m on my feet and I can front the homies D./break ’em off a couple of C, and double up they fee” – (from “In Cold Blood”)
No Ghostface ‘base reference is complete without a Raekwon guest appearance. They call him “The Chef” based on his culinary skills with the baking soda. Street level dealers can learn how to step their game up by listening to Rae‘s last album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Part 2, which serves as a field manual for baking krill. Who knew that if you “put a little milk in it, the fiends love it?” Sounds like an average dinner for certain Shaolin residents.
Straight Crack: “F*ck it, pull out the pot let’s cook it/light the stove up/Julie go to the store get some flour/Sat back burning a big Dutch/with the crisp 18 shot glock, stashed in my nuts/poured it in the Pyrex, sizzling/now it start drizzling/rainy day murder, black won’t miss him/still I’m yelling, ‘this sh*t is business’/but they still ain’t gonna violate what I stand for with these drizzers/he took it off the stove, run the water/trying to work me, yo knew I shouldn’t’a hit the n*gga’s daughter/he might a showed more love then, went in the freezer/broke the ice down, pour it in/we both looking at it on the twirl around particles grew/fly Kahlúas is mad sliding Coronas through/feeling like Castro’s cousin/gave them n*ggas all of my life, all of my paper, all my judgment/it droppa only like an ounce worth/should I just come out my shirt/go berserk and let the Macks burst?” – (from “Yae Yo”)
This is Some ill shit my dude look forward to pt.2
I would have to include the OG Kool G Rap in this.