Having already put together concept albums based on black Republicans and BBW pr0n, the obvious next step for Cole James Cash was to make an album about early '90s-era fighting video games, like Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES, arguably the best fighting video game of all time, of ALL TIME.
Cole James Cash @ Twitter
INSERT COIN
Some classic pre-Street Fighter shyt talking, not unlike in the movie Juice, and then the beat kicks in.
The production really does sound like the select character screen music from some video game. I played my share of Street Fighter II back in the early '90s, but I'm not the kind of person who would recognize any of the music in that game if I heard it, I don't think.
SELECT CHARACTER
I'm familiar with maybe two or three of the rappers featured on this project, and most of these tracks have multiple featured artists, to give you an idea of the difficulty of having to sum this up in the time it takes to give it a once over.
Prediction: None of these kids will be the next Drake, but a few of them aren't half bad. Think some of the random no name brand Queens rappers sometimes posted on Unkut.
ROUND 1
Hot Rod is on this one. That's not the same guy who was Fiddy's weed carrier back circa... I don't know, whenever I was with XXL? I'm gonna guess 2009. If so, that's an impressive "get." I'm sure he still harbors illusions of being a legit celebrity.
The second guy who raps here refers to the producer as James Cole Cash, which suggests to me that this may have been recorded via email.
CREW54
Featuring a special guest appearance from boxing announcer Michael Buffer. If he's still alive, he might try to sue for half of Cole James Cash's BBW pr0n collection. He owns the rights to the phrase "Let's get ready to rumble." In fact, that was the name of some video game that he may or may not have been involved with, back when I was in college. Was an attempt made to draw that connection? It's possible that there was and I just didn't notice. I'm no nerd!
AKUMA VS GOUKEN
A sort of rap version of one of the fights in a Street Figther game, with Spit Gemz and Big Pun's son Chris Rivers trading vicious battle rhymes. Gemz, to his credit, avoids any number of obvious references to Rios' parents that someone in one of those DVD rap battles would have trotted out.
PRACTICE MODE
This guy's name is Metaphysical. Why doesn't he just call himself Lyrically Lyrical and be done with it?
ROUND TWO
H. Alston sounds like the name of a scion of a family in the oil industry. Like, someone whose parents actually named him H. Later, he of course has to leave college in his sophomore year behind some sort of sexual misconduct.
SAO PAOLO
Maybe there's some reference to a video game here that's lost of me, but nothing about this really suggests Sao Paolo to me. Saolo Paolo is the name of a city in Brazil, right? I knew that. I was just checking to see if you did. Oh wait, at the end there he lets the sample play out and it does kinda sound Brazilian.
ROUND 3
Sounds like a chill version of a mid '90s Boot Camp Clik song. There's a reference to Five Guys Burgers and Fries, in case anyone from #GamerGate is listening to this. In the industry, I believe that's known as an Easter egg.
BISON
Sounds like someone who wasn't even alive in the early '90s (or maybe just has a high pitch) rapping over something along the lines of what was once called jazz rap. Could this be the next Joey Bada$$? Sure, why not.
BONUS STAGE
There was a Meyhem Lauren song called "Bonus Stage," or something to that effect, on the album I reviewed here the other day. What a coincidence?
HUNDRED HAND SLAPS
This doesn't sound anything like what you'd expect a song called "Hundred Hand Slaps" to sound. Maybe it's purposely intended to be ironic. The lyrics really are about slapping a bytch a thousand times. Some people just don't learn.
FINAL ROUND
Oil family scion H. Alston returns, and is the Blaq Poet here the same guy from Screwball? Even if it's just an area schizophrenic, I'm truly impressed by the sheer level of guest artists on this, given that he probably put the entire thing together via unsolicited Facebook messages.
CHUN LI AND SAKURA
As you might have guessed, this is like "Akuma vs Gouken" but with female rappers.
AFTER THE FIGHT
It wouldn't be a rap album without one of these hoodrat shower singing choruses. There's even a category for them at the Grammys. Maybe this will be nominated in 2017.
TIGER VS JAGUAR
What's a liger? It's pretty much my favourite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.
RYU AND KEN
Trying to determine Ryu's relationship to Ken (they're best friends; nullus), I was reminded that there was a Street Fighter movie, back in the mid '90s, with a rap music soundtrack. I think Nas was on it, but 20 years after the fact, the only thing I've heard from it was "Come Widdit" by Ras Kass, Ahmad and Saafir, which, as I recall, was the single.
NYC SUBWAY FIGHTS
I may or may not have posted this here a while back. It's a song about that World Star video where a guy in an 8 Ball jacket (in like 2015) slapped the shyt out of a woman. It features actual audio from the video (if that makes any sense).
YOGA FLAME
Alternate definition of Yoga Flame: When you put your legs up over your head and light a fart.
VEGA
There's boatloads of the other f-word on this album, and this may or may not be a song dissing a guy for dressing like a girl. This album is retro in every sense of the term. My name would probably be put on some list if I said I found this refreshing, so I'll refrain from commenting on this either way.
GAME ENDING
Not a song about the end of a video game, but rather a relationship song with a broad singing and a guy rhyming, a sort of Method Man and Mary J. Blige for the mom's basement set. I see what he did there.
COMMENTS: On the one hand, this sounds less like an early '90s era fighting video game than I would have imagined, which is probably for the best, but on the other hand, the lyrics have a lot more to do with video games than I would have imagined. I'm surprised Cash got so many people to rhyme on this in the first place, including a few surprisingly big names (at least by rap nerd standards), let alone the fact that so many of them bought into the album's central conceit. It's a testament to the amount of free time some in our community have.
really liked Akuma vs Gouken and Round 3 too and that's just on first listen