Blogz.
J-Zone’s Mob Style Appreciation Post.
Fondle ‘Em, Official Recordings, Dolo, Rawkus, etc.
When the topic of New York independent rap rears its head in discussion, the aforementioned labels of the mid-late ’90s always garner praise for paving the way. While those labels and their flagship artists undoubtedly put their stamp on the niche, the D.I.Y., out the trunk, fuck-a-sample clearance, low budget aesthetic was done earliest and best by Harlem’s own Mob Style (which featured MCs Azie “AZ” Faison, Pretty Tone Capone, Gangsta Lou, and Whip Wop).
Circa 1989, independent full-length rap albums were as scarce in New York as New York natives are in Brooklyn today. NWA and Too $hort brought some major attention to the west coast, Luke Records planted the seeds for the movement in Miami, and Rap-a-Lot was setting up shop in Texas, but the locals from those regions were still churning out tapes independently. The mid-west was even more dependent on self-sufficiency. When it came to major labels and big time indies, they were all dipping in the rotten apple. The need to manufacture and distribute your own shit out here was years away, so chances were if you were decent, you eventually got some type of record deal. Despite New York’s stranglehold on trendy A&Rs, Mob Style’s rogue approach to music and presentation was more like their counterparts from less coveted regions. Grabbing the bull by the horns and breaking his neck is as old school New York as it gets, but by taking their product to the streets, Mob Style were entering uncharted territory and setting the early stages for a method that wouldn’t blossom until almost a decade later. And even then, the independent boom was primarily a vinyl “12 single phenomenon – independent full length albums didn’t become common in New York until the turn of the century.
Let’s not forget, Mob Style were also New York’s first ever (and one of only a few) bonafide gangster rap group.
Content and overall aesthetic surely played a role in Mob Style’s lack of appeal to label A&Rs. Gangster rap is often traced to every region except New York. Even nearby Philly (Schoolly D) got a piece of that rock, but in the late ’80s, New York rap primarily evoked imagery of high top fades, running man dances, Afrocentrism, Dapper Dan outfits, Al Sharpton rallies, and beats that clocked in at 115 beats per minute. New York City’s crime rate peaked in 1990 and all associated tensions peaked with it, so Mob Style’s whole approach shouldn’t have been such an anomaly.
By 1993, Winnie from The Wonder Years was most likely flagging a red bandana and talking about “doing a drive-by on a buster.” There were enough drive-by shootings and “buck buck” chants on record to match every low calorie Pete Rock or Dr. Dre beat imitation that made its way to tape. MC Lyte, MC Hammer, LL Cool J and others traded in their signature styles to get a piece of the gangster pie. With the smorgasbord of hip-hop trends and fads coming and going, Mob Style came in to the music business hard, left the music business hard, and still sound harder than anything to come out of New York (or anywhere else) today. Body counts may be higher and violence may be more exaggerated when others did it, but there isn’t a group in rap history that was more authentic and honest than Mob Style.
Urban legend can cross-match real life events to the ruggedness of Mob Style’s music. On-wax beefs with the west coast (namely NWA) were as far from shits and giggles entertainment as can be. The thought of Pretty Tone Capone boarding a plane with a pistol to fly to the west coast and dismember NWA (read about that here) in a skit (before Swiss-cheesing the stewardess for good measure) seems exceedingly far-fetched today, even hilarious. Especially considering that I can’t board a God damn plane with more than one piece of carry-on luggage. But beef in New York during that time was far from a ploy to sell records that could be patched up on Twitter a few days later. The all out brawl between Double XX Posse vs Live Squad was evidence of how thick shit got in the early ’90s.
AZ’s “Don’t Dis Nobody” was one of about seven Mob Style-related records that echoed the non-WWF nature of the NWA beef (which has long since been let go and outgrown).
Pretty Tone was the Ghostface Killah of Mob Style, in terms of animation and personality level. He chose not to speak in codes and never concealed the identity of his targets, either:
Faggot ass nigga nigga nigga Eazy-E
Ya haven’t heard of murder til ya heard of Pretty T
MC Ren, the pussy, quiet as kept
Dr. Dre, ya soft and gay, straight up and down
As soon as I’m meetin ya clown, I’m beatin ya down
Faggot niggas squeeze triggers on water guns
Hide ya moms, hide ya pops, daughters and sons
- – from Mob Style’s “God Bless Ya Soul”
Tough talk was one aspect of their approach and actually living the lifestyle was another, but truth be told, the hardest element of Mob Style’s approach was their refusal to glorify that lifestyle. AZ’s heartfelt stories of watching crack and violence destroy NYC in the late 80s and his non-fiction downfall as a drug dealer came to life songs like “Crack the Mack”, Mob Style”, “What’s Going On Black?”, and “The Pipe”.
By the time the major labels went gangster, their radar only spotted one-sided, image-driven, Hollywood-themed shit. Mob Style had zero to prove in terms of being gangsters, so the honesty of their approach was hard to market, as was their low budget approach to production and presentation. They straight jacked the beat for “Live and Let Die” from the kingpin of beat jacking himself, Ice Cube. The song mixdowns sounded like overly loud high speed tape dubs and were choc full of hiss. Rarely were 12″ singles and videos released to promote the albums. It took me two years to find The Good, The Bad, The Ugly on cassette after hearing “Untouchable” on the radio. In fact, both the aforementioned and Street Wise (AZ’s cassette only and void of distribution solo album) I bought at Music Factory in Jamaica, Queens, a shop that AZ himself admitted selling the music directly to (I had the pleasure of interviewing AZ for London’s HHC Magazine in 2008).
Unless you were looking for Mob Style in broad day with a flashlight, you weren’t going to find them. If you were a studio gangster, though, they were looking for you. That could be why until the movie Paid in Full was released – the movie chronicles AZs life as a hustler pre-Mob Style – even the most die hard rap fan had no idea who Mob Style were. Meanwhile, Harlem’s Cam’ron and Dipset (as well as many others) took pieces of the Mob Style formula and reality and put it in a blender with digestible elements of pop culture and waltzed to the bank. By that time, though, Mob Style had already been there, done that, and moved on.
Today, Mob Style’s influence still runs rampant through rap, albeit beneath the glitter. Parts of Harlem have since been slapped with gentrification; much of NYC has followed suit. The protocol of rap has done a 180 and become a modern cartoon rife with chatroom threats, gangster correction officers, and onomatopoeia-style violence. The big money and big media buzz generated from gangster rap never fully trickled down to unheralded pioneers like Mob Style, nor did the credit for their role in jump-starting 100% D.I.Y. entrepreneurial efforts in New York rap. However, in the minds of those who know, the importance of Mob Style lives on forever. Salute.
****BONUS TREATS****
I only know of one other person who owns Pretty Tone Capone’s “Can’t Talk Too Long On The Telephone.” The song is nil in Google searches, absent from You Tube and was never commercially released. As a rap pack rat, I salvaged my bonus CD from The Source magazine’s 1991 Christmas issue, where the song was featured. If the 1991 Wu-Tang video I posted was the rarest thing I own, this is the second rarest. Pretty Tone Capone at his best, enjoy
AUDIO: Pretty Tone Capone: “Can’t Talk Too Long On the Telephone” (Promo only, 1991)
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Mob Style Discography and Collectables
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (1989)
Initially released on cassette and limited vinyl. Executive produced by Vaughan Mason (of “Bounce, Skate, Rock, Roll” fame). CD re-release appeared on the market circa 2003 (to coincide with the Paid in Full movie release), but was just as scarce as the original.
Street Wise (1991)
Cassette only AZ solo effort.
Game of Death (1992)
Mob Style’s most visible album. Featured videos and “12 singles; the album actually made it to a few major chain stores. PT Capone had already gone solo, but returns as a guest.
“Case Dismissed” b/w “Kidnapped” and “Gangster Shit (Part 2)” (1992)
Pretty Tone Capone’s first solo single.
“Across 110th Street” b/w “Sexy” and “Marked for Death” (1993)
Pretty Tone Capone’s second solo single.
“G-Spot” (1995)
Pretty Tone Capone song that appeared on a compilation called On The Down Low (Volume 1). Coincidentally, the first J-Zone production ever was a track I produced for Preacher Earl; it appeared on On the Down Low (Volume 2).
Game Over: The Rise and Transformation of a Harlem Hustler (2007)
AZ’s book. A must-read for any Mob Style fan.
If I’m missing anything, one of my fellow Mob Style fans drop me a line.
YOU MIGHT WANNA PEEP:
Man this is a really great post. Its kinda shocking how near all Dipset fans/people who’ve seen Paid In Full know nothing about Mobstyle.
You should check out this blog, dudes hilarious, has impeccable taste and is also a huge fan of Azie et all:
http://themartorialist.blogspot.com/search?q=mob+style
You actually put me up on the first Mobstyle tape in your Greatest Slept-On Gangsta Rap Albums column in HHC.
You’re such a swift writer! Thank you, because I learned something today that added more value and sparked more motivation to keep it moving with terrific speed. Utmost respect for you and yours.
Hah. Thanks, Done.
I’ve actually just dropped a Mobstyle related post just now, but featuring a cut from Blood On My Money.
Great post, J. I’m tryna do an interview with the Mobstyle producer Fred Flak after he popped up in the comments for the post I dropped on Can’t Talk Too Long On The Telephone and the Case Dismissed video last year.
Thanks for the comments, y’all. I’m up on that matorialist blog. It came up when I was looking to see how much stuff on the group was online. M…keep me posted on that Fred Flak interview. That song sounds insane when played in a good system. The pan mixing is wild.
When I interviewed AZ, he gave me some info on the recording of the early stuff. But I’d be interested in hearing stories behind the making of the PT Capone solo stuff. Those records were dope as shit.
Yeah I wish more people nowadays would make use of pan mixing, headphones/surround sound with that shit can really make a song stand out.
Well mp3 ruined having tight mixes these days… The younger generation don’t care for it especially when they getting it for free on the bootleg… Mp3 stripped the soul out of the music.
I hear you Distrakt. Less people have car systems too, at least in NYC. So rap from this region is never mixed for cars anymore.
J – you know the Azie & Mobstyle Blood On My Money album from 2003? It only features P.T on 1 song and doesn’t feature Lou and Wop (obviously) so it’s just Azie and a bunch of his local weedcarriers. It definitely has some joints.
There was also the The 80s joint Azie did with L.G around the time of the Game Over book which he leaked to the ‘net to try and promote the book.
Also of interest is a snippet of an unreleased Real Live track from their shelved 2nd album featuring P.T.C which K. Def is cutting on Serato on Youtube. Go to 1:36.
M….thanks for all the info, I wasn’t aware of the Blood on my Money joint. What I wanna know is what happened to Jay Nitty, P.T. Capone’s side man? He had the meanest voice in hip-hop.
J-Dope you wrote this up, the past month I had been bumpin The Good,the Bad, the Ugly in my whip all over town. The kiddies in their skinny jeans and colorful laces think I’m retro. So yeah still got my tape, and all my dam tapes. Red Alert played this on the Kiss back then, and the first time I heard them was on his radio show in 89-90. Big ups!
That’ll be a question I’ll ask Fred Flak, along with who was the chick who looked like a Puerto Rican Winona Ryder who was ridin’ with Tone in the vintage Rolls Royce and shaving his chest when his crew bumrush the barbershop in the Case Dismissed video.
There was some sort of best of Mob Style compilation floating around the internet back in 2004 with no song titles that I’ve never been able to find any info on since. It featured all the classics from the 2 albums and some cuts I’d never heard before which sounded like they were from the late 90s/early 2000s with Tone going apeshit on them. I should still have them on CD-R somewhere so I’ll dig them out.
Good looks Rob. Yeah, Red Alert used to play “Mob Style” at the start of his show, I believe. I remember first hearing “Untouchable” on the radio in ’90, I think that was Red too. Thanks for reading.
Man, if you have those Tone joints I’d be hyped to hear em. I remember that Case Dismissed video too. I saw it on Video Music Box once and never again. AZ called up Tone on the phone (no pun intended) and let me speak to him for a sec when I interviewed him. He was mad chill! I heard 50 was looking into working with Tone somewhere, but don’t know how true that was. Someone needs to put him on a track, but then again, they may not wanna do that. Tone was a show-stealer and probably still is.
Good news and bad news. Firstly the bad news : there’s only 1 full new song on the compilation, but the good news is that I just asked Fred Flak and it’s a 1996 joint called Where The Thugs At? and that he still has a couple of unrealeased joints from 1989 in his stash. I uploaded that and the compilation’s intro for you here.
Also, you do know that the Case Dismissed video is on Youtube, right?
Good looks on that! I appreciate. Yeah, I saw Case Dismissed is on You Tube. When rap videos were shot for under 2 grand.
Case Dismissed is pretty much the greatest rap video ever. If only the likes of X-Raided, Cool C & Steady B, Boosie and Max B had used Tone’s tactics in the video for beating trial.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you uploading the HBO documentary with Lou in it to Youtube? Or even just the scenes with Lou? I’ve still never seen that.
I don’t even have the HBO thing with Lou. But I vividly remember me and my man Kev watching that shit in 1995 and he came on. We were both like, “Yo! Mob Style!”. Never taped it or nothing, but I definitely remember that shit.
Tone sounds exactly the same on “Where the Thugs At?” The rest of the song is eh, but Pretty Tone does no wrong.
J-zone droppin knowledge on ‘em. I never heard of this group, but I was like 7 in ’89 and didn’t begin listening to that good gully rap until I was about 10 or 11 y.o. when wu-tang came out, even though my older sis used to play BDK and ‘em for me back then. I guess thats where Infamous Mobb and Mobb Deep got their steelo from too. The fact that they were doin diss tracks aimed at America’s most dangerous studio gangstas, N.W.A. just goes to show you they were way ahead of their time. Definitely gonna have to check for these dudes and get their back catalog on my radar. Good looks Zone. I thought I was an old head, articles like this humble me and remind me of a Socrates saying: the truly wise know that they know nothing.
No doubt G Statty! Always glad to put folks up on Mob Style. They were the blueprint for that style of rap in NYC. They’re artist’s artists. Every rapper knows em, but never shows love publicly. If you remove Paid In Full results from Google searches, its shocking how little is out there on ‘em. Thanks for checkin the post.
What up J-Zone? Good looks on this post. As a fellow PT Capone fan I felt compelled to post Cant Talk…on Youtube. Now the whole world can enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grt9hFTPTrw
Dope! No snobbery here. Don’t hide it, supply it!
Funny thing about the first Mob Style album, I didnt even know the shit existed until about 5 years ago. I found it on cassette at a swap meet in South Central, SEALED!!!! $10 no tax. I coulda swore that was Kelis doing the vocals on “Blowin Up”. These dudes really dont get any mention. Damn shame.
On another note, in Cleveland we had a group called Brothers For Struggle. They were gangster as fuck. Just like Mob Style they were actually were doing the shit that they were rappin about. Not much about them online, but here is one of their classics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOV0xG1rXNQ&feature=related
J-For me the song “Blowin up” had great rhythm and dope open sounds. Love that joint. I just wish my name was Whip Wop to this day…..”you can tell by the horn it’s european…” Peace
Wow. Thanks for the link. I’ve actually heard of Brothers for Struggle. I may have seen a tape of theirs when I was diggin in Chicago, but I passed it up. Good looks on this
Actually, wait. I have this group’s shit. My man from Dayton sent me the album. They got a song called “Let go My Ego” right? Hahahahaha, they’re ill!
Great write up here J-Zone. Appreciate the depth & detail you provided here. I remember hearing how NWA was slated to perform at the Apollo and Mob Style ran up on them on some “What’s really good?” uptown. Seems the Mob is still keeping it real, while doing some other Googling on the group & its members, seem Gangsta Lou is currently on the NYPD’s Most Wanted…
Good lookin Drew! Yeah. I heard about that Apollo thing. That NWA beef was real – no ploy to sell records shit. Good to see people know and appreciate Mob Style today. Salute!
Yo dope post! I first discovered Mob Style 7 years ago at the age of 12 when I was going through my parents’ vinyl collection and came across “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.” That record seemed so mysterious compared to the many classics I found in their collection such as Big Daddy Kane and Gang Starr….The jacket of this album featured the same image on each side, credits were scarce, and there wasn’t even a year listed on the label or jacket. I took it upstairs and gave it a listen and was blown away at how dope the samples were and how authentic they sounded. A couple of years later I started reading bits about them on the net and developed an even greater appreciation for Mob Style when I discovered Paid In Full was based off of them. This was around the time Dipset was really really big….and it just amazed me that AZ, Pretty Tone Capone, Gangsta Lou and Whip Wop were who Dipset was pretty much modeling themselves after. This is definitely one of my favorite albums of all-time.
Thanks for reading. Mob Style set trends that are still being followed 20 years later.
No problem. And yeah I always try to play some Mob Style whenever I spin on the air.
Ha! I think I am that only other person that has that “can talk too long on the telephone.
Video Music Box definitely used to play Mob Styles videos
Kinda interestin’ that people have picked up on the fact that Ghostface jacked Pretty Tone Capones flow.
Yet nobody seems to have mentioned that Ghost also adopted the moniker ‘Pretty Tony’ a minute back.
I’m just sayin’, kinda uncanny, no?
WOW wealth of info on mob style. i was seeking some info on them. i was checking their youtube videos.
I know this post is crazy after the fact, but I have been playing Mobstyle since the late 80′s. Gangsta Lou lived around the corner from me. We used to hangout at The Book, Willie’s Lounge and The Ebony Lounge in Harlem back in the day. When everybody was riding around blasting N.W.A. I kept it true to my Harlem roots and blasted MobStyle. I let my tape rock until my tape popped, opened it up glued it back together and rocked it again. Thanks for the post and thanks for the bringing back a memory of being 19, zippin around Harlem in a kitted up Acura Integra GSR blasting “Gangster Shit” and “Big Nigga” because that is exactly what I thought I was.
ALOTTA PPL DONT KNO BOUT ME…BUT IM 1 OF MOBSTYLES PRODUCERS…I PROD..GANGSTA SHIT PT2..THE D.L,,KIDNAPPED..CASE DISMISSED..CANT TALK TOO LONG..AND A BUNCH OF OTHERS…I WAS N STILL AM ,TONES MAIN PRODUCER..I PRODUCED THIER 1ST EVER STUDIO SESSION..IF U CHECK MY U TUBE N FACEBOOK I HAVE A FEW UNRELEASED JOINTS ON THERE..IM THINKIN OF DOIN 1 MORE MOBSTYLE REUNION SONG!!
BEATZ ON DEK!!
Which Pretty Tone Capone joint did he spit “three days later/freak face down/in an elevator in the Polo Grounds”?
That was “Case Dismissed.”
wats good j-zone…fredflak(freddie robles) on deck…mobstyle..
Classic Beats! Love the shifting backbeats!
It was 1993 and I was a kid listening to ‘live at the BBQ’….play mr tuffy while I’m on some pretty tone shit….had no clue who the reference was but then my homies older brother let it loose on us…mob style. Changed how I heard a lot of the other “gangsta” rappers especially of the ice age or late nineties early 00 era. As always j zone with another premo job on a slept on crew.