In honor of Pharoahe Monch dropping his sophomore solo record, ‘Desire’ yesterday, let’s look back at the career of the rapper and his days with Prince Po as the group Organized Konfusion.
Organized Konfusion (formerly Simply 2 Positive) was a seminal hip hop act of the 1990s which released 3 albums between 1991 and 1997. The two Southside Queens natives dropped their first demo, which was largely self-produced with a little help from established producer, Paul C and employed sample heavy beats that drew from 1970’s b-boy (i.e break-boy) favorites such as Babe Ruth, Lyn Collins, & Skull Snaps.
Match these tunes from the first self-titled LP on Hollywood Basic with the sample artists named above and you get a cookie (er, I’ll mail it to you):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Releasing Hypnotical Gases (1991)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Fudge Pudge (1991)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Organized Konfusion (1991)
Interestingly, ‘Fudge Pudge’ is O.C.’s first appearance on record.
O.C. moved from Brooklyn to Queens at age 11 to became Pharoahe Monch’s neighbor and childhood friend. O.C., of course, made his greatest mark later, in 1994 with his genre defining classic, ‘Time’s Up’ released on his first record, ‘Word…Life’ on Wild Pitch. You can hear some more early O.C. in this old post on MC Serch from our archives. …This is a little bit of a tangent, but required listening for every hip-hop head that hasn’t heard it recently:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: O.C. – Times Up (1994)
Organized Konfusion released their second record in 1994, ‘Stress: The Extinction Agenda’. A record I and many other fans consider to be their finest, no doubt the stepped up production from Buckwild (who also produced ‘Times Up’ for O.C.) and Rockwilder (who later won Grammy for for co-producing ‘Lady Marmalade’ with Missy Elliot) helped push the record into a new level of maturity. It’s all cream, no crop, nor crap. That makes these the cream de la creme (and the A-side / B-side of their single):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Stress (1994)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Bring It On (1994)
Did you listen?! They sure don’t make choruses like they used to. Confrontational and profane chants are my favorite kind of chant ever! “Bring it on Motherfucker, Bring it On”. For serious, indeed! It’s our fucking theme music (and sometimes they do bring it, and sometimes we lose teeth).
The Organized Konfusion timeline ends with the 1997 record, ‘The Equinox’. Perhaps their most ambitious record, and undoubtedly their most thought-provoking record, ‘The Equinox’ was a concept album. Not quite an ‘operatic’ album, however it is bound together by skits and is gives a feeling of unity. A certain mode of delivery gives the record most of it’s depth, whereby Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po assume the voices of others in a dialogue. At best, the songs are thought provoking, and at worst, they still sound great enough to get one’s head bobbing, even if one isn’t processing the content (as I and many other passive listeners often do). The two songs that borrow other’s voices are ‘Invertro’ and ‘Hate’.
On ‘Invertro’, backed by more Buckwild production, the two emcees assume the voices of fetus twins in the belly of their junkie mother. While Monch curses being born and asks to be aborted, Po prays and hopes for life. They both make their cases, and we are left to weigh their possibilities and choose sides:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Invetro (1997)
On the self-produced ‘Hate’ the duo assume the voice of bigoted white folks on racist rantings.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Hate (1997)
I find ‘Hate’ interesting but odd. It’s a mockery of course, and a good one, but not quite as poignant as the similarly premised ‘Clear Blue Skies’ by Juggaknots that was posted earlier this month (hear it in the archive). While Juggaknots ‘Clear Blue Skies’ focused on the more prevalent ‘closeted’ bigotry, Organized Konfusion’s ‘Hate’ portrayed a smaller more extreme type of bigot persons. Not that these two tracks in any way or in competition, I just like drawing parallels. Is it odd that I found ‘Hate’ to be the less shocking and disturbing of the pair in the context of modern America? You don’t really have to answer that.
Here’s another one off ‘The Equinox’ that tries to make a point, however my only point of including it here is simply that it’s so bangin’ your frames is fallin’:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Organized Konfusion – Sin (1997)
…And then Organized Konfusion was no more. But that’s not the end of the story, as each emcee went on to a solo career.
This article, is weighed toward Pharoahe Monch, as he’s the man of the hour with the brand-new long awaited record, but I can’t ignore the other half, my man Prince Poetry. Let me touch on Po for a bit. He waited quite awhile before dropping a solo; Seven years after O.K. disbanded, Prince Po released his debut record, ‘The Slickness’. This record was low-key, but found devoted fans in the underground. Check the goods (Madlib on production):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Prince Po – The Slickness (2004)
Prince Po followed up in 2006 with the record, ‘Prettyblack’. Another solid for the underground! Here’s a personal favorite (with more Madlib production):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Prince Po – Mecheti Lightspeed (2006)
Pharoahe Monch released his first solo record in 1999 on Rawkus. The album was hit with the critics, the backpackers, and, thanks to the club hit ‘Simon Says’, got a good deal love from urban radio and clubs. “Simon says get the fuck up!” This song is everything I loved about ‘Bring It On’ attractively re-packaged. It’s a sing-a-long (the chorus is so easy to learn):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Pharoahe Monch – Simon Says (1999)
Now (finally), a track off the new album, ‘Desire’. This song and accompanying video is true feel good music and in the same vein as Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’ with Monch layering his hip-hop flow over elements of classic rock’n'roll and classic rhythm & blues:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
MP3: Pharohe Monch – Body Baby (2007)
Visit Pharoahe Monch on MySpace or at his official site.
Buy the albums! Amazon’s got everything mentioned all in some capacity (from Amazon or its affiliates): Be sure ‘Stress: The Extinction Agenda’ is in your collection, at the very least. Shop for Pharoahe Monch, Prince Po, Organized Konfusion, and O.C. (O.C. might need a little support from eBay).
Oh, lastly, I vaguely remembered the gurus at Palms Out Sounds doing a post on Organized Konfusion & Pharoahe Monch sample sources. I found it in their archives, and low-and-behold: Links is still active, son! Check the post! Sampling = Recycle, reduce, reuse and close the loop!
Postscript: Sorry for skipping this column for 2 weeks, real life got hectic and emo.
