Fight the Power
FIGHT THE POWER
Packet 1
1. This song was used as the theme for season one of Yo! MTV raps. The opening line of this song’s first verse repeatedly sampled on the Black Eyed Peas single “Rock That Body”. The rapper who appears on this song calls himself “A slick brother that can easy outfox ya”, and at the end of this song, that rapper tells his DJ “when I count to three / I want you to get busy”. The first verse of this song includes the lines “I'm not internationally known / But I'm known to rock the microphone”.This song’s first verse starts with the phrase “I want to rock right now”, and its hook talks about how a certain number of people is required to “make a thing all right” and “make it out of sight”. For 10 points, name this single by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock.
ANSWER: “It Takes Two”
2. “Silent Murder” is a bonus track on the European version of this album, and Lupe Fiasco has repeatedly cited this album as his favorite of all time. One track on this album features an intro by AZ, and on it its artist calls himself “top papi Señor Escobar” and discusses “shin(ing) jewelry sipping on crushed grapes”. This album opens with its artist roleplaying as a slave rebelling against his plantation, and on one single from this album he discusses violence in the line “Red dot plots, murder schemes, 32 shotguns”. Another single from this album discusses making “Coretta Scott-King mayor the cities...and revers(ing) fiends to Willies”, and in the hook the lines “I'd free all my sons, I love 'em love 'em, baby / Black diamonds and pearls” are repeated. This 1996 album marked its artist’s shift towards more mainstream “mafioso-rap”, and it contained the singles “The Message” and “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That). For 10 points, name this second Nas album after “Illmatic”.
ANSWER: It Was Written
3. One of this artist’s songs samples heavily from clanging train tracks and a Youtube video of a tornado siren in Chicago. That song includes the repeated line “wake up with some liquor on me/wake up with some liquor in me.” The song “Paranoid Schizofren” is the first track on a recently released album by this artist’s side project, the punk band Död Mark. The hilarious lines “poppin ecstasy like pimples” and “my money stacked up/Bitch call me Hilary” appear on a song from this artist’s EP Lavender. This artist ditched his trademark uggs for the title shoes in the video for his song “Af1s.” This artist collaborated with bladee on “Hennessy & Sailor Moon,” a track from his most recent mixtape Frost God. This artist raps that “I’m Wario when I’m in Mario Kart” on a track that opens “Do me, I'mma do me I'mma make mine, I'mma make mine.” For ten points, identify this Swedish rapper and leader of the “Sad boys” whose singles include “Yoshi City” and “Kyoto.”
ANSWER: Yung Lean
4. This artist collaborated with A$AP Ferg on a song that repeatedly riffs on a Future verse by repeatedly stating “I fucked your bitch in some Jordan flip flops.” On one track, this artist raps “Call me Ricochet Rabbit/Cause I click and spray matics” before stating that “This is that get crunk move bitch/Get drunk stupid.” This artist raps that he “Talks a buck 80/If the bentley is the topic” before comparing it to Grey Poupon. Along with Freekey Zekey and Cam’ron, this artist was one of the founding members of Dipset. Although not Ashanti, this artist’s most famous album was primarily produced by Chink Santana. This artist’s most famous song repeatedly includes the interjection “Ballin!” and features the line “Foreign rides, outside, its like showbiz” - that song appears on this artist’s album Hustler’s Product Of My Environment. For ten points, identify this Harlem rapper of “We Fly High.”
ANSWER: Jim Jones
5. MTV’s censorship of the word “cold” in this song was seen by some as a racist move given the more restrained censoring of a Johnny Cash record. After a line stating that the music is on another level, one artist on this song raps that “The rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble.” This song’s intro features the line “you can’t be any geek off the street” and is taken from the movie Young Guns. On “m.A.A.d city,” MC Eiht references this song in the line preceding “down the boulevard with the pistol grip.” One of this song’s artists raps “If I had wings, I would fly” after stating that “They got guns to my head, I think I'm going down.” The first studio album released by the artist of this song was titled [This Song] … The G Funk Era. This song, which opens with the line “It was a clear black night, a clear white moon,” first appeared on the soundtrack to Above the Rim. For ten points, identify this Nate Dogg and Warren G. track whose title refers to laying down the law.
ANSWER: “Regulate”
6. One track on this album has lyrics reminiscent of a bastardized version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” when it states to take “Liquor shot if you happy ... As you clap your hands to the thick snot of a poet.” One song on this album features the lines “Shoot, I'm steppin' in heart of this here/ Care Bear rappin' in heart of this here.” The hook of one song on this album asks “Something started today/Where did it go? What you want it to be?” before stating that “November has come.” Two music videos on this album make us of the Flying Windmill Island. The music video for on one song on this album features Shaun Ryder’s giant head hooked up to a machine - that song on this album repeatedly intones “Never did no harm, never did no harm” and “It's coming up, it's coming up.” The lead single from this album includes a maniacal laugh after the line “You watch the way I navigate” and opens “City breakin’ down on a camel’s back. For ten points, identify this second Gorillaz album, which features the singles “DARE” and “Feel Good Inc.”
ANSWER: Demon Days
7. A song about this person samples Ted Taylor’s “Be Ever Wonderful” and Haitus Kaiyote’s “Atari”. This person, who is said to hail from the “Robert Taylor Homes Southside Projects, Chiraq, the Terror Dome” is described as “light-skinned” with “a curly top an da gap in his teeth”. This person is described as having an encounter with a man who was “the oldest of seven / well-respected, calm and collected” with a family history of “pimpin and bangin / he was meant to be dangerous” to whom he gives “free chicken” and “two extra biscuits.” A song named after this former KFC drive thru employee begins “It was always me vs. the world / until I found its me vs. me”. This man’s generosity is said to lead to him befriending Anthony Tiffith, who eventually adopts the moniker “Top Dawg” and signs his son. For 10 points, identify this man, the subject of the final song on his son’s most recent album “Damn”, which is titled “Duckworth”.
ANSWER: Kendrick Lamar’s Dad [accept Kenny Duckworth or obvious equivalents]
8. This song was originally recorded for the New York group H. B. O., and it was its primary rapper’s first ever attempt to record a rap song. In the third verse, this song’s protagonist gets inebriated in the lines, “They greet me with a forty and i started drinking / And from the eight ball my breath started stinking”. At the end of verse 5 of this song, a woman named “Suzy” comes running, equipped “with a sub-machine uzi”, into a courtroom where Kilo G is standing trial. This song starts with the lines, “Cruising down the street in my six-fo, / Jocking the freaks, clocking the dough”. The hook of this song discusses how a certain group “are always hard”, and how they “Know nothing in life, but to be legit / Don't quote me boy cuz i ain't said shit.” This song also titles a 1991 Teen drama film that stars Ice Cube as Tre Styles. For 10 points, name this 1987 single by NWA, which features Eazy-E.
ANSWER: “Boyz-n-Da-Hood”
9. This artist released one of his many incoherent twitter rants after a video of him and Meek Mill riding a 4-wheeler together was mocked as being gay. This artist’s line “Pulled up on your bitch she sucked my dick and then you kissed her” caused Lil Uzi Vert to ad-lib “Goddamn!” during his 2016 XXL Freshman Cypher. This artist was the subject of many memes stemming from his line “I sit back read like Cat in the Hat / [This Artist], the cat with the MAC.” This artist raps that he’s “sipping codeine with the top down 20 grand on me, lot of jewelry and a Glock nine” while on the title street in one song. Future raps that this artist “gon get the stick” on one song that features the repeated line “Diamonds got the flu try not catch this.” In one interview, this artist’s tattoo of what appeared to be a cross on his forehead prompted oft-quoted reply “Issa Knife.” This artist’s most recent mixtape was a collaboration with Metro Boomin and included the tracks ‘Ocean Drive’ and ‘No Heart.’ For ten points, identify this rapper from Decatur Georgia whose projects include The Slaughter Tape and Savage Mode.
ANSWER: 21 Savage
10. This album was re-released by Roadrunner Records in 2004, with bonus tracks like “Mentally Mad” and “A Chorus Line”. Some of the wackier lines on this album include the lines “Equipped, with a white handkerchief / To wipe away the germs who wanna hang with this” and “I'm like a merchandise, a customized item / Computer rapper for ducks who wanna bite em”. The lines “Change my pitch up / Smack My Bitch Up” from this album were the inspiration for a 1997 Prodigy single. This 1988 release was the first a group containing the rappers Ced-Gee and Kool Keith. The cover features four posing men, two in black-and-white tracksuits, and green-and-yellow wordArt-style lettering at the very top and bottom of the album cover. For 10 points, name this highly influential and eccentric album, the debut album of the Ultramagnetic MC’s.
ANSWER: Critical Beatdown
11. A website that plays this song in the background contains a flashing multicolored background and a bouncing picture of Aseem Keyal. The album cover for the single version of this song features its artist with sunglasses wearing a black shirt with gold buttons. The music video for this song features a massive spinning globe, which explodes into a fireball and spawns backup dancers. At the 40th American Music Awards in 2012, this song was mashed up with “Gangnam Style”, and its artist discusses how he “crush(es) the strong and / Percolate(s) the weak daily”. The first verse of this song starts with the line, “Sweat...running all over my chest”, and its artist implores the listener to “roll with a guy who's / Physical and fit”. For 10 points, name this SECOND most well-known single by MC Hammer, about how he’s “Too Legit” to perform a certain action.
ANSWER: “2 Legit 2 Quit” [The website is www.aseemslegit.com]
12. A song with this name, which begins “Miss Nina Simone, Jimmy Jones / Missy Elliott musically were my relatives” is featured on Noname’s Telefone. Far East Movement’s “Like a G6” was originally inspired by a line in another song with this name. A song with this name, which was released as a single from the documentary More Than a Game, has a music video that begins with a PokerStars advertisement featuring LeBron James. An artist that appears on that song asks “Life is such a fuckin roller coaster then it drops / but what should I scream for? This is my theme park” and begins his verse “Okay, hello it’s da Martian, Space Jam Jordans.” Another feature on that song of this name claims that “superbad chicks givin me McLovin / you would think I ran the world like Michelle’s Husband”. The first verse on a song with this name features a series of punchlines like “Swimmin in the money, come and find me: Nemo / If I was at the club you know I balled: chemo”. That song begins with the line, “Last name ever, first name greatest”. For 10 points, give this name also shared by a posse cut featuring Lil Wayne, Kanye, Eminem and Drake.
ANSWER: Forever <RN>
13. This artist’s albums include “Steal Hear” and “From the Bottom 2 the Top,” and a web series that appears on My Damn Channel is called “Cookin’ with” this artist. A location where there “Ain't no bloodin, ain't no crippin” and “where everybody kick it, kick it, kick it” is described in a song by this artist. That song repeats lines like, “Don't ya say shit just get inside”, and “Slide, slide slippity slide”. On another song, this man calls himself, “a loc'd out gangsta, set trippin' banger” and “a educated fool with money on my mind”. This artist once was irked when Weird Al Yankovic created an “Amish” version of that song. That song starts with the line “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”, and the hook of that song discusses how “we’ve been livin’ most our lives / livin’ in [the title location]”. For 10 points, name this artist behind the singles “Fantastic Journey” and “Gangsta’s Paradise”.
ANSWER: Coolio
14. This artist repeatedly intones “Yes Lawd!” on the track ‘Suede’ as part of a collaboration with the producer Knxwledge [Knowledge]. On one song, this artist raps the phrase “It’s made up” four times, with each successive iteration dropping in pitch. That song by this artist includes the line “And she loud as fuck so I grab and touch and she don’t get offended” before stating that “she just cares about the drugs … don’t get it twisted.” This artist raps that the is “rolling up trees in the belly of the beast” on a song before stating that he “Got a son of [his] own, look him right in his eyes I ain't living in fear, but I'm holding him tight.” On one song, this artist describes himself as a “Warhol with an 8-ball and paintbrush” and that he “AWOL but … ain't done.” This artist is heavily featured on the tracks “Animals” and “All in a Day’s Work” on Dr. Dre’s Compton. This artist raps “baggie full of piff, can’t you see I’m livin” on one track that this collaborated on with KAYTRANADA. For ten points, identify this artist featured on “Glowed Up” and released the albums Venice and Malibu.