Capone N Noreaga: The War Report 20 Year Anniversary Thread

[Figaro]

Classic album..
"Halfway Thug" has some of the best Noreaga bars ever and was my go to track in high school to get me amped.

'Cause he's a halfway - thug that he betray
If you got locked that ass'd probably come home gay
Smack, blood out ya mouth (what the fukk you say)
Break your feeble ass down ('cause you ain't in my league)

Even though Tragedy said those bars first.

Nore went in on Prodigy in that joint though

 

[mobbinfms]

they way they was slanging on this album was fukking ridiculous

Rae, Ghost, Nore - slang vets

20th anniversary of this album and wu forever tomorrow, may have to get the bottle out for this weekend. got both on vinyl, wu forever limited edition unopened, think its gonna get cracked.

the fukking production though

War Report came out after Wu Forever.

 

[Bickin Back Being Bool]

what a classic

blood money, what a way to start the album

 

[Black White Sox Hat]

Underrated classic.Some of them tracks was like the pinnacle of golden era hip hop.Underrated.

 

[Yehuda]

I'm fouler than gats that don't bust when they're supposed to
Been around you, play close, but wasn't close to you
The setup was weak, you're coming
I saw you cutting corners, snake-type shyt
Tie you up, seal your lip, wrist bleeding
Cowboy rope, choke your throat
Put the bogey out in your face
Now your face laced like ash tray face
Stay with gat on my waist
Give the god some space, shoot you up above waist
If I ain't got beef right here or right there
Ice-grill stare, shoulda set it off right there
CNN war report, spread across New York
Guard him Indian style - knees bent, militant
Yo the world know Noreaga from Iraq
Beef with me serious, keep it real, that's that
Get stabbed in your back, my man Alley Cat
Little cousin from Jamaica, brown-skinned thug
Thug blood, yo we're stuck in the game like it's a drug
My pops was a thug nikka, was on the streets too
Uncle Wise been banned since '82
Back on the streets, A hundred seven Guy Brew
I see you, come see you, writing scrolls
To the rest of the fam, locked in holes
At age eight, money come first, snatch purse
Go to church, yo that's not me, mami I'm cursed
Iblis glamorous, diabolic, devilish, this game real, realer than you think
Just think, spots get rushed, knots get touched, police busts
Yo what happened? Police kicked door, yo we was rapping
Your wife - WHAT WHAT! WHAT WHAT! Dressed indecent
A hundred crackers, son it's the 110 precinct

Best Nore verse hands down.

 

[nieman]

CNN.....Live Long....Live On

The track in which Nore talks about the beef with Mobb

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

The War's On: The Twentieth Anniversary Of The War Report - Hip Hop Golden Age

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

We on

 

[Xtz23]

That buckwild beat might be one of the best ever. This songs gotta be my fave off that album

 

[mson]

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

BY MARCUS REEVES
JUNE 16, 2017
WAR STORIES: CAPONE AND NOREAGA SPEAK ON THE MAKING OF ‘THE WAR REPORT’
A hardcore rap masterpiece that still bangs 20 years later
As gangster-fied rap became the main commercial face of hip hop music in the late 1990s, selling a rapper’s street life was as crucial to selling music as his or her skills. Upping the ante on mafioso rap fantasies, famed Queens, NY duo Capone-N-Noreaga (C-N-N) would take the idea a step further. The electricity of their street life didn’t just extend to the rhymes but also the story behind the making of their landmark debut.

You never forget your first time hearing the intro to Capone-N-Noreaga’s 1997 LP The War Report. Over Charlamagne’s tense Royal Flush sample, Kiam Akasi Holley and Victor Santiago, Jr. take the toll of a bad day on the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait. “Jake just rushed everybody,” the combatants lament, recounting the names of their captured brothers in arms. They soon resolve to “revolt this revolution… just start wildin’.” While they are the first to admit that “everybody ain’t ready for this,” they see themselves as the only two left, “the Last of the Mohicans.”

Even as The War Report garnered acclaim for Capone and Noreaga’s stand-out rhyme flows, the artists were earning extra street cred due to the issues they would face while completing the album. Little did they know when they began the project that Capone would soon go to jail for a parole violation, having only recorded a few of the album’s cuts. The situation compelled Noreaga to take the helm and complete the recording (with a strong assist from Tragedy Khadafi), n ot to mention handling much of the promotion of The War Report by himself. For future C-N-N fans, it was a tale of a hustler (Capone) fighting to overcome the odds and counting on the loyalty of a street comrade like Noreaga to hold him down.

C-N-N may not have been known by players at major music labels—N.O.R.E.’s Neptunes-produced smash “Superthug” wouldn’t be released until the following year—but they’d garnered enough hip hop credibility to get producers like Lord Finesse, DJ Clark Kent and Marley Marl to help craft the album—which came out on Penalty / Tommy Boy / Warner Bros.

This Saturday June 17 marks the 20th anniversary of The War Report‘s release. To mark the occasion we connected with Capone and N.O.R.E. on the same secure phone line. Here’s the tale of how Capone and Noreaga (later to become simply known as N.O.R.E) got it done.

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

The Come Up

How did you two originally form C-N-N?
Capone: We actually came together in jail. We were young. We both were in jail for serious crimes. And we got introduced by a mutual friend. But also we traveled similar paths growing up. We went to the same junior high school. I was locked up at Spofford (juvenile jail). When I left he came to Spofford. I went to jail up north. After I left, he came to came jail up north. I was just a matter of time before we met because we also knew some of the same people. We just didn’t know each other. We came together because of basketball. Someone I knew in jail who played ball told me about this dude named Papi (Noreaga). And it just so happened that his house played my house in the jail. At the end of the game we both had 30 something points and the rest is history.

Capone: I was in a whole different mindset back then. As everyone knows, when part of the album was being recorded I was incarcerated. So for me it was a whole different atmosphere when I dropped that first album. It was a dope feeling because I had my brother Noreaga behind me. I had the label behind me. I felt the support while I was locked up. And we had radio in the joint. I didn’t get to experience the true feeling of doing the sales numbers we did that first week independently or hearing the cars drive by playing our music.

Noreaga: As for me, I got to experience the love and hear the cars driving by. The love on the street and trains and the busses and things like that. But the other side of that was that my financial situation didn’t change. So if you asked when I’d just dropped an album did I think it was a classic or know it was or we would be talking about it 20 years later I would have to say no. And that’s because I didn’t see the immediate success that a person nowadays can drop a record and you see them tour across the world and their career change. Our career didn’t change. It kind of stayed underground.

The Musical Context

What was going on in hip hop music around the time you released The War Report?
Noreaga: To me, the music, commercially, was the total opposite of what we were making. It was the beginning of the shiny suit era. We wore our army fatigues and we were completely different from that. And for us to stand the test of time is great. I remember back then it was us and Bad Boy being played in the club. Nobody else. You had to fight to get those slots or on a playlist. You had Nas out. You had Mobb Deep and something like that. But for us to come out so hard during that shiny suit era and blow up, it was a blessing.

The Concept
How did you come up with all the references to Islam, the Middle East and famous world leaders/dictators?
Noreaga: For me, I just remember us wanting to be different, like Wu-Tang coming up with the Shaolin thing. Although they were Black brothers from Staten Island they came with the Shaolin approach. We came out, off the top, calling ourselves Capone and Noreaga. And people had already started to taking on that mob boss, Mafioso type of mentality in hip hop when we came out with our name. So, for the album, we wanted to be even more different from them. So I remember saying yo, let’s adapt some Middle Eastern shyt. Actually, I was thinking Operation Desert Storm, which happened a few years earlier. So we adapted what went on out there: Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia. We just really wanted to be different.
“We changed the name of our hoods: LeFrak became Iraq. Queensbridge became Kuwait. The desert was Queens and so on. We just wanted people to distinguish us from the crowd. To this day I will go to the Middle East and someone will think I’m actually from Iraq.” —N.O.R.E.

War Stories: Capone and Noreaga Speak On The Making Of 'The War Report'

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

My personal fav album of all time

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

My personal fav album of all time

Sohh era queens cnn trag chats *high five*

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

Sohh era queens cnn trag chats *high five*

STILL Looking for the "Criminal Warfare '99" song with Mic Geronimo, Nore and Trag & co.