The 39th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from Justin Tenuto, bassist/wordsmith for San Francisco’s Birdmonster, which released its sophomore album, From the Mountain to the Sea, this fall.

Read more of the group’s musings at its blog.

• Birdmonster | Born to Be Your Man

When Kevin asked me to do this here post, part of his continuing I Used To Love H.E.R. series, I honestly found it a little incongruous. After all, I’m a scrawny, banjo-playing white boy who feels uncomfortable when he accidentally forms a rhyming couplet in an email. My formative years were spent playing Iron Maiden on a Japanese Washburn whilst hipper suburban crackers were discovering Dr. Dre. I thought Slick Rick was a pirate. If Kevin wanted to ask my opinion on, say, the best Kurt Russell movie, he would have received a fifteen page thesis, arguing the merits of “Tombstone,” “Tango & Cash,” “The Thing,” and “Captain Ron” and none of our lives would ever have been the same again.

Unfortunately, you will not be reading about the thespian prowess of a man whose face is ninety percent chin. Instead, you will be getting done learned about some rap music, or, rather, hearing about some hip-hop you already know, through the eyes of a man wearing a shirt with a unicorn on it. I apologize.

E-40
The Hall of Game (Jive, 1996)

Listening to E-40 is like reading “Clockwork Orange” without using the glossary. By which I mean, in the grand tradition of Anthony Burgess and the septuagenarian virgin who created the Klingon Dialect, E-40 lives in a world where the Queen’s English is merely a jumping off point for all manner of hallucinated verbiage. Crackulating? Hoe cake? Penelopes? Bootch? Undefinable really. It’s like that Lewis Carroll poem about the Frumious Bandersnatch: you don’t really have to understand it if sounds totally kickass.

Of course, there’s more to Forty Water than just an entire lexicon of slanguage and nonsensicality. Take, for instance, “The Hall of Game.” Just don’t take mine. That wasn’t a Benny Youngman joke.

Because, really, what other CD starts off with Rasheed Wallace saying the maker of said CD sucks? None, with the possible exception of Darko Milicic’s debut “I’m an Oaffish Fraud of a Billionaire,” which, coincidentally, barely missed the cut for this post.

You might not be impressed with the inclusion of Jail Blazers-era Rasheed Wallace-ness. I’m not sure why, but I’ll play along. See, when E-40 isn’t defending himself against roundballers with perplexing skunk spots, he’s laying down hyperspeed, genuinely goofy verses over beats made on twenty dollar, Salvation Army Yamahas. Too Short, Tupac, and other indefatigable Californian rap Gods guest here and there, but the disc is definitely E-40’s, which is to say, he’s not one of those guys who seems outshined by his guest rappers; rather, his bizarre originality pops out in extreme relief.

(Highlights include the surprisingly dusty “The Story,” the not-quite-a-hit-single “Rapper’s Ball,” the dated pager-related rhyming on “Ring It,” and the inspired use of that Bruce Horsnby jam “The Way It Is,” recorded the same year as Tupac’s “Changes,” in case you’re curious.)

• E-40 | The Story

Missy Elliott
Under Construction
(Goldmind/Elektra, 2002)

At the risk of sounding like a misogynist, I never really enjoyed female rapping. Sure, I thought, there were the Lauren Hills, Roxanne Shantes, and Queen Latifahs of the world (although Latifah’s career is now notable more for her horrendous post-Living Singles roles in Bringing Down the House and other nefarious poppycock), but largely, feminine rapping was a world I avoided with aggressive diligence. Sure, I’ll listen to “No Diggity,” with it’s brilliant Bill Withers sample, but I’m pressing fast forward when Queen Pen comes on. Sorry Queen Pen, but that verse is sorry.

Then, Missy Elliot entered my life. It was an innocuous moment, really, sitting in my old high school buddy’s car, listening to his vast collection of CDs I didn’t own, when “Under Construction” found its way into the CD changer. I listened, I smiled, and then I jetsammed my bias like an atheist who saw Jesus on a tortilla.

The simplest answer for this abrupt conversion is the pure and unadulterated awesomeness of Missy Elliot. In a way, she’s kind of like a female E-40: she’s gifted but she doesn’t take herself seriously; she’s genuinely bizarre without it feeling like some weirder-than-thou posture; she’s hilarious. Sure, she starts every song with “This…is a Missy Elliot…ex-clusive” but in time, even that becomes completely endearing. Plus, it’s probably the only album that uses a meowing kitty and trumpeting elephant as euphemistic stand-ins for a vagina and a dick. Respectively. Obviously.

Anyway, if you don’t own this: buy it. Or download it. Or whatever it is you kids are doing nowadays. It’s a perfect party LP: bouncy, dirty, and devoid of the bogus attempts at sketch comedy that wouldn’t make the cut on American Dad. You’ll thank me for it, even though you don’t know who I am.

• Missy Elliott | Work It

The 38th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from Belief, who in 2006 dropped his great debut Dedication (featuring the likes of Murs and C-Rayz Walz and previously discussed here). Belief’s newest project is a 40-minute mixtape, Let It Breathe, available as a free download at his MySpace page.

In his entry, Belief sheds some light on an overlooked Los Angeles gem by Freestyle Fellowship, a group that gave us, among others, Aceyalone.

• Belief | Let It Breathe mixtape (Zshare)

Freestyle Fellowship
Innercity Griots (4th & B’Way/Island, 1993)

This album represents the L.A. underground renaissance that I am a product of. The album came out during a time when people in that scene only respected innovativeness. Fellowship were the clear leaders of that movement. The beats were not 100% incredible on every song, but the ones that were are still some of my favorite beats ever. It took me a year or so to totally get into it, but eventually I realized it was somewhat of a Bible for me and other L.A. kids that were into underground hip-hop at the time.

They had a combination of street consciousness, artistic relevance and really pushed the envelope. This is what hip-hop music is all about to me, and especially West Coast hip-hop. It was a four-man group but they all were great and important to the sound. The production on Six Tray is so hard. P.E.A.C.E’s verses are chilling. Shammy’s is the ultimate booty anthem of all time and still gets love by L.A. DJ’s in the know. Mary is the ultimate weed classic. Bullies of the Block was too hard. DJ Kiilu’s little sister gave me the cassette when we went to Palm’s Jr. High together but I didn’t really understand its relevance until I went to high school and joined a crew called Suns of Kneeshak with some Living Legends members and our homegirl Faith. They are the ones who really put me on to it. Eventually I started hitting up the Good Life Café with them and to this day I’ve never seen a hip-hop movement so alive and innovative. Its what got me inspired to start making music.

Eventually I moved to NY and pretty much 100% across the board that album got dissed for being too out there. People preferred their hip-hop to be more meat and potatoes, simpler and more grounded. I would come home on breaks from school and our older homies who only listened to East Coast shit or Dr. Dre were finally coming around, 4 or 5 years later. I still take a listen to this album every once in a while for inspiration.

• Freestyle Fellowship | Six Tray
• Freestyle Fellowship | Mary