Bay Area BUMS

West Coast Smack and Can You Do Without?
from the album Lyfe ‘N’ Tyme on Priority / All City (1995).

Following up the recent post on The Nonce with an even greater album from the same era, today I’d like to provide you with two tracks from the legendary Lyfe ‘N’ Tyme from The B.U.M.S. (the capitalizationally inventive Brothas Unda MadnesS: comprised of rappers Evocalist and D.Wyze). This album is amazing with a jazzy vibe throughout that recalls that golden age I production of ATCQ and Pete Rock, but gets a laid back slant from these two Bay Area, CA, area rappers (Hayward, what?!). In fact they even have these sweet little interlude samples a la Pete Rock + CL Smooth albums. Overall, start to finish a fantastic hip hop album. Credit where credit is very much due, I originally got turned on to these cats by O-Dub’s Soul-Sides.

I’ve put up two tracks that are similar in that they are built on a bouncy, old-timey jazz boogie sample. Additionally, I noticed after the fact that they are interesting in that neither are produced by the great Joe Quixxx, who produced many of the gems of this album. Absolutely nothing against Quixxx, it just surprisingly turned out that way. First up is “West Coast Smack,” produced by the Baka Boyz. A foul-mouthed pontification on how The B.U.M.S. (in particular) and the west coast (in general) dominates the game. Lots of people copied Das Efx’s rhyme style, but only a few like the B.U.M.S. could bring enough to the table to not sound like copying herbs. This track is lots of fun. I played this at a party recently and while I wish I could say it blew the roof off, truth is it didn’t but I got a very knowing nod from one of the heads in the audience (ten points to Ravenclaw for that cat’s knowledge).

Next up is a harder “Can You Do Without?” produced by King Tech (of Sway and King Tech, who executive produced and released this via their label All City Prod). Again we get the boogie horns, but now they are chopped down to just a short augmentation to color the pounding kick drums and cymbal ride. Both MCs run on with forceful, hip hop reference filled rhymes that ride the beat even when it drops out for almost too quirky samples.

Enjoy…this is a fantastic album with an overall quality and complexity these two tracks and this post do fully represent. Sadly, this album and the two related singles are the only releases from this group. Correct me if I’m wrong, I definitely want to find more.