The 2nd greatest Dr. Dre song of all time is…
“About Me”, with Raekwon and Busta Rhymes
Click the above link to hear it.
Now, this sick is just straight fire. Very similar to number 4 on this list, called “Get You Some”, and in fact they were released around the same time.
First off, who would’ve expected that Dre, West Coast, G-Funk, LA, would ever hook up with Raekwon, Wu-Tang Clan gambino, Staten Island? The fact that two of the greatest got together for this song is just awesome. Rae absolutely kills it in his own unique styles – the slang he drops, in case you don’t know, is just crazy ill. I’m sorry, but that’s the only way to describe it. Although not from this song, his lines:
“Serial numbers is braille, so when you rub against it feels all twos” is sick. If you can’t figure out what that means, then head on over to rapgenius.com and look up the song. When it clicks for you you’ll be amazed.
Meanwhile, he continues to drop lines like, “Wash a nigga’s face with the mac / smoke ’em like steak-ums.” Excuse me, but wash a nigga’s face with the mac? He’s not sayin’ he’s gonna shoot you…he’s not sayin’ he’s gonna make you backflip…he’s sayin’ he’s gonna wash your face with the mac. Damn. I mean, we know what it mean from the context, but really, how much more sinister and generally bad-ass does it sound to say “wash”?
Furthermore, we should take note from Rae’s career of how to age gracefully as a rapper. He didn’t try to keep talkin’ about the same shit, but instead set up a whole album’s story loosely based around an aging drug dealer in the city.
But the beat is sick as well. If you listen to the piano again, it’s the quintessential Dre piano: block chords, HUGE sound, playing natural minor harmonies. This is where Dre’s piano ideas, which were first incepted way back with the start of G-funk, around The Chronic album, would become the most elaborate. The long scale that he plays in the right hand piano, being 4 bars long and all scalar motion, is quite an idea. Then, there’s the snare, which just like #4, bangs in your ears. You’re almost being assaulted by Dre’s music at this point.
Come back for #1 tomorrow. If you look back over the list, and realize what song hasn’t been on yet, it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s number one. This song, “About Me”, definitely challenged for the spot, but there’s no way, what with the context that the #1 song was created in, that it wasn’t gonna take the top spot.
And again,
@ComposersCorner
!