"And [Ninjas] Faces Are Scrunched Up..." (C) Pharrell In Fade To Black

(Summer 2006)

True story. Sometime during the summer of 2004, I paid a visit to my best friend Anthony in Palmdale for a couple of days. In the mits of wars in NBA Live and WWE Smackdown, this song came on his Sony Minidisk player. What made me immediately drop the controller and listen closely to the stereo was at some point during the song, the beat slowed down and started to jerk, like the record was skipping. I thought maybe the MP3 had glitches. But the beat recovered back into the original refrain... my face expression looked something like this...

The song was called I believe, "Hole In Ya Head." It was one of numerous mixtape tracks 50 Cent dropped that year (Between 2003-2004 is when G-Unit was at their peak).


Fast forward to this afternoon. I just got home from burning a $50 gift card from Best Buy that I received for Christmas, and popped in De La Soul last album "The Grind Date," one of the album I picked up. As the 12th and final track, "Rock Co.Kane Flow" (feat. MF Doom) drops, I had a feeling of Deja Vu; I had heard this beat before. I first recognized the "Deliverance" sample (used by Just Blaze for Kweli's "Hostle Gospel Pt. 1" from "Eardrum"), but when the beat started to slow down...

I dawned the Ric Flair face again.... WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! It was the same beat, supplied by Seattle's own Jake One.

What had also made me do a double take was the fact that while I heard the 50 version in August, that De La album did not drop until October that year. It must have been a case of Jake shopping beats and both artists got a hold of both. Regardless, I'm glad that beat saw the light of day from a commerical release standpoint. This beat is way too crazy just to be a mixtape track. Everyone rips it, ESPECIALLY Doom. Doom as always been underrated to me, and De La shows after over 20 years in the game, they still can set a mic on fire.

Anyways.... (hits cue button to bring back track. Hits play)


And on that note... I'm out.