Song of the Day

"Shook Ones" by Mobb Deep.

Once upon a time, I hated hip-hop. It wasn't anything personal, I think I was just trying to be different. While listening to rap in the suburbs is probably some sort of rebellion, listening to rap in Brooklyn is the default option; and a young Karol was all about questioning expectations.

This song came to represent everything I hated about rap. My brother loved this song and I would say "what instrument is that?" whenever he'd put the song on. The opening sounds like some sort of metal on metal rubbing against each other (right after he says "what up, son"), and neither of us thought it was an actual instrument.

Now, though, I recognize that this is one of the best hip-hop songs ever, the wacky sound in the beginning notwithstanding.

A sidenote story about Mobb Deep. While most of the prominent, mainstream-known rap beefs end in violence and death, the Mobb Deep/Jay-Z clash is something of a legend in hip-hop circles and no shots were fired. Basically, Prodigy, one of the members of Mobb Deep took ballet lessons in his youth. The group had some sort of escalation of words with Jay-Z. Jay-Z warned them in a song, "you was a ballerina, I got the pictures I seen ya." Instead of gun violence, Jay put the photo of Prodigy, in his ballerina outfit, up on the screen at Summer Jam. It pretty much ended Mobb Deep's career. Don't mess with Jay. (Another quick side story, Jay-Z used the line "don't be the next contestant on the Summer Jam screen" to warn his nemesis Nas not to mess with him in what I think is one of the best rap dis songs of all time--"that's a one hot album every ten year average" remains the most on-point dis of Nas evah. Then he went and signed Nas to his label. Genius.)