Big L & Jay-Z Freestyle on the Stretch & Bobbito Show (Februrary 23, 1995)
I heard “Ebonics” for the first time around ‘99 or 2000, sitting in the kitchen at a friend’s place in high school. Even though I don’t remember the exact year, I vividly remember the experience: there were four of us sitting around a table, playing cards, and we had a tape/CD boombox on the kitchen counter.
The CD spinning was a mix one of us had put together, DMX, Dipset, Pac, Cash Money, No Limit — artists with the distro required to put their CDs and tapes into the hands of some 15 year old Midwestern suburban kids (you may be familiar with the phenomenon)…but anyway, all of a sudden the previous song had faded out and “Ebonics” started blaring out of the stereo, mashing everything in sight, and I kind of lost my shit. “Who is this?! Who’s on the beat? The dude is like…*explaining* slang…and, oh yeah, he’s absolutely tearing the mic apart!”
I played that record non-stop for the rest of the year. The energy, the technique, the subject matter - it totally blew my mind. Now, I’m not an L stan by any means, but in terms of my obsession with rap music, and especially rap music from the 5 Boroughs, “Ebonics” was definitely a catalyst.
So, yeah, I just caught this freestyle via SFJ’s Twitter (via @keyescore), and had all these memories of hearing that track come flooding back. Reason #54,632,000 why music is fucking great.
(via DJ Premier Blog)
