Refocus and The Passion of the ’88: Dr. Octagon to the Rescue
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
With 3 months to go before I take a break I decided to change the focus of The Moose in the Closet: Year I. I realized that only a couple of stories focused on Robin so far and Robin is obviously a huge part of senior year in college. So, in order to give me more content for Year II I’m not going to do anymore stories about Robin and make MITC: Year II the Robin/after college story. There probably won’t be a Year III in this format because, well, we all run out of autobiographical stories eventually. So, here’s the plan, subject to change:
February 3rd, 2006 - Over 260 stories told I take a break and call Year I finished.
February 6th-April 28th – The Moose hibernates and gets his other shit together but “produces and occasionally MCs” a new collaborative blog run by three brothers that have an amazing story to tell and where inspired by the Moose in the Closet. It will update three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, each day by a different brother. There will probably be little updates from me on this site twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday, most likely) accompanied by a big ass countdown clock. More on that little project in January, once the details are ironed out.
May 1st-Sometime in 2007 – The Moose in the Closet: Year II. All depends on how many stories I feel I can get out of it until it gets lame.
So, for those that care, there you go. For everyone else (and those that care, still), story time…
_________________
Rap eventually became a parody of itself. The groups that survived the ’88 divide and pushed their gangbanging style on fueled a need for all hip-hop acts to become more and more violent. At least when NWA first started they were angry, oppressed and lashing out. Now they were rich and upping their gimmick to comical levels to keep up with the rappers they inspired.
“Cold” is probably a good word to describe how I eventually felt towards hip-hop.
By the time I got to high school I didn’t even really listen to hip-hop anymore. It just felt like everything that was coming out was a novelty act. Das Efx, Kriss Kross, Cyprus Hill – everyone just looking to be the originator of the next big trend. It might have been different, there might have been some good, deep shit out there – I just wasn’t hearing it. I found myself longing for b-boys and break dancers, graffiti artists and battle-raps.
I found myself interested in the music again the first time I heard Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck. I told this story already, about how NYC was ready for this. There was this video music station back then called The Box which was basically a video jukebox, you call some number and order a video for like a dollar-ninety-nine and it play eventually. When Protect Ya Neck was released on The Box, a couple of moths before 36 Chambers came out, it was the only goddamn thing you’d see on that channel. It felt like the hip-hop community, as a whole, was seriously let-down and was waiting for something like The Wu – 1993 felt like 1988 all over again.
The album was hot, I’d never deny that. Most of the solo albums that followed were dope as well. The follow-up to the solos (as well as the second Wu album) where mainly sort of “eh”. They were good, but they weren’t enough to make me feel like hip-hop was “saved”. It was sort of a marriage of East Coast and West Coast philosophy but the one glaring problem in this born-again pre-1987 enthusiast’s eyes – they were from Staten Island. And whereas that might seem like the most retarded prejudice of all time and whereas hip-hop historians might disagree with me on the impact of The Wu it really doesn’t matter, this is my story, and I fucking HATE Staten Island.
The b-boys of old – the battle was always Manhattan/Bronx vs. Brooklyn/Queens. Staten Island didn’t even exist in the hip-hop picture. So as nice as the Wu was, for me it wasn’t enough to bring me completely back into the fold. Nas released Illmatic the following year and that was a better attempt, Nas was from Brooklyn and Illmatic is most likely one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever made, but hip-hop still wasn’t “my music”. I just didn’t connect; I accepted the fact that I was just some white-boy that had a fixation with a culture that I didn’t belong to. Whereas I loved Nas’ rhymes and the production of that album, hip-hop was a part of my past.
I missed Company Flow’s release of the Funcrusher EP in 1995. I didn’t miss Funcrusher Plus in late-mid 1997, however, thanks to one man. (Funcrusher Plus feels like old-school New York, raw hip-hop, so much so I’m going to give you an illegal sample. Now go buy the album
).
Dr Octagon releases Dr. Octagonecologyst in 1997, the album that made me come back for real. I was smoking dope at somebody’s house (much like I did throughout all of 1997) when he put the album on. It was unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The lyrics were off-cadence but still enchanting, the beats were eerie yet head bobbing (just listen to this Blue Flowers sample and then go buy the album). The best part – the last track had this old-school feel as Dr. Octagon gave shout outs to Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Africa Bambaataa and other hip-hop pioneers. The album was fresh, innovative, invigorating and fun. I sat and silently listened to the whole album, then asked my friend “What the fuck was that?”
“It’s this dude Kool Keith. He, like, changed his name to Dr. Octagon and made this crazy ill album.”
Kool Keith – I knew that name instantly.
Founder of the New York based Ultramagnetic MCs who dropped the album Critical Beatdown in 1988. I lost track of the Ultramagnetic MCs through the years but, to me, this album represented what hip-hop could have become if the record executives, the media and the listening audience pushed hip-hop in the right direction. This album was my Sergeant Pepper’s and I instantly realized that good hip-hop wasn’t dead, it just wasn't hanging around the radio anymore.
February 3rd, 2006 - Over 260 stories told I take a break and call Year I finished.
February 6th-April 28th – The Moose hibernates and gets his other shit together but “produces and occasionally MCs” a new collaborative blog run by three brothers that have an amazing story to tell and where inspired by the Moose in the Closet. It will update three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, each day by a different brother. There will probably be little updates from me on this site twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday, most likely) accompanied by a big ass countdown clock. More on that little project in January, once the details are ironed out.
May 1st-Sometime in 2007 – The Moose in the Closet: Year II. All depends on how many stories I feel I can get out of it until it gets lame.
So, for those that care, there you go. For everyone else (and those that care, still), story time…
_________________
Rap eventually became a parody of itself. The groups that survived the ’88 divide and pushed their gangbanging style on fueled a need for all hip-hop acts to become more and more violent. At least when NWA first started they were angry, oppressed and lashing out. Now they were rich and upping their gimmick to comical levels to keep up with the rappers they inspired.
“Cold” is probably a good word to describe how I eventually felt towards hip-hop.
By the time I got to high school I didn’t even really listen to hip-hop anymore. It just felt like everything that was coming out was a novelty act. Das Efx, Kriss Kross, Cyprus Hill – everyone just looking to be the originator of the next big trend. It might have been different, there might have been some good, deep shit out there – I just wasn’t hearing it. I found myself longing for b-boys and break dancers, graffiti artists and battle-raps.
I found myself interested in the music again the first time I heard Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck. I told this story already, about how NYC was ready for this. There was this video music station back then called The Box which was basically a video jukebox, you call some number and order a video for like a dollar-ninety-nine and it play eventually. When Protect Ya Neck was released on The Box, a couple of moths before 36 Chambers came out, it was the only goddamn thing you’d see on that channel. It felt like the hip-hop community, as a whole, was seriously let-down and was waiting for something like The Wu – 1993 felt like 1988 all over again.
The album was hot, I’d never deny that. Most of the solo albums that followed were dope as well. The follow-up to the solos (as well as the second Wu album) where mainly sort of “eh”. They were good, but they weren’t enough to make me feel like hip-hop was “saved”. It was sort of a marriage of East Coast and West Coast philosophy but the one glaring problem in this born-again pre-1987 enthusiast’s eyes – they were from Staten Island. And whereas that might seem like the most retarded prejudice of all time and whereas hip-hop historians might disagree with me on the impact of The Wu it really doesn’t matter, this is my story, and I fucking HATE Staten Island.
The b-boys of old – the battle was always Manhattan/Bronx vs. Brooklyn/Queens. Staten Island didn’t even exist in the hip-hop picture. So as nice as the Wu was, for me it wasn’t enough to bring me completely back into the fold. Nas released Illmatic the following year and that was a better attempt, Nas was from Brooklyn and Illmatic is most likely one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever made, but hip-hop still wasn’t “my music”. I just didn’t connect; I accepted the fact that I was just some white-boy that had a fixation with a culture that I didn’t belong to. Whereas I loved Nas’ rhymes and the production of that album, hip-hop was a part of my past.
I missed Company Flow’s release of the Funcrusher EP in 1995. I didn’t miss Funcrusher Plus in late-mid 1997, however, thanks to one man. (Funcrusher Plus feels like old-school New York, raw hip-hop, so much so I’m going to give you an illegal sample. Now go buy the album
).Dr Octagon releases Dr. Octagonecologyst in 1997, the album that made me come back for real. I was smoking dope at somebody’s house (much like I did throughout all of 1997) when he put the album on. It was unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The lyrics were off-cadence but still enchanting, the beats were eerie yet head bobbing (just listen to this Blue Flowers sample and then go buy the album
). The best part – the last track had this old-school feel as Dr. Octagon gave shout outs to Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Africa Bambaataa and other hip-hop pioneers. The album was fresh, innovative, invigorating and fun. I sat and silently listened to the whole album, then asked my friend “What the fuck was that?”“It’s this dude Kool Keith. He, like, changed his name to Dr. Octagon and made this crazy ill album.”
Kool Keith – I knew that name instantly.
Founder of the New York based Ultramagnetic MCs who dropped the album Critical Beatdown in 1988. I lost track of the Ultramagnetic MCs through the years but, to me, this album represented what hip-hop could have become if the record executives, the media and the listening audience pushed hip-hop in the right direction. This album was my Sergeant Pepper’s and I instantly realized that good hip-hop wasn’t dead, it just wasn't hanging around the radio anymore.
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