Pic courtesy of Fat Lace.
Back in 2006 I wondered why Schoolly-D never responded to Spoonie Gee’s ‘That’s My Style‘, included lines such as ‘Come in here from where ever you came/tryin’ to steal my style and plus my name.’ As was pointed out in the comments section, Schoolly fired back with a couple of lines at the beginning of ‘Housin’ The Joint‘ (‘You say I tried to diss you and I stole your style/but the days you was rockin’ I was still a lil’ child’), but I’ve always found this to be a weird piece of rap history, as I’d never noticed any similarities between the two. Looking back now, I can kind of see how the similarity in their names and the fact that the opening story in ‘P.S.K.’ involves trying to pick up women from a car in a similar vein to the start of ‘Love Rap’, but it still seems like a stretch.
In recent years I was able to speak to both parties involved and get their sides of the story, as well as a third party perspective:
Spoonie Gee: As far as I’m concerned, his style was my style. There wouldn’t have been no Schoolly-D if it wasn’t for Spoonie Gee. A lotta people thought he was me, it was crazy. We did a show together. He was OK, after we met each other, things alright. We didn’t have a fight or anything like that. He admit he was a fan of mine. It was OK.
Grand Daddy IU: I know Schoolly-D bit the shit outta motherfuckin’ Spoonie Gee’s shit! That’s uncontested, my nigga. Schoolly-D bit Spoonie Gee’s whole style and everything. If you was a hip-hop nigga, you knew! Spoonie Gee, that was his shit. I don’t know Schoolly-D – I heard that he’s an official nigga, gangster nigga, that’s neither here nor there – but nigga, you did what you did. And he made a living off it! So fuck it.
Schoolly-D: I think his New York homies got his head pumped up. There was a line of ‘PSK’ where they thought I was saying something about Spoonie. I was like, ‘What?’ It was fun for a second – I think that was a gold record for him. He made the diss record, then I made the diss record and then we went on tour. Everybody on the bus was from New York and I was from Philly, and they tried to get us to bang it out but it was a ridiculous thing. We both made a couple of dollars off of it, that song he did became a big hit. Mine became a big underground hit. Us being rappers, you’ve gotta protect your neck, but other than that I felt it was silly because he’s my hero and I didn’t want to fall into the part of just entertainment when I’m an artist who sometimes raps. It was fun, but I just wanted to keep it art. I just want to keep the respect I’ve had for the originators. I kinda pulled it from the radio, and he kept his on the radio and he toured for a long time with that. But me on the other side? I just felt like I was being disrespectful. I felt some kind of way because he’s my hero, so the only time I ever performed that song in public was for Chuck D. He begged me to do it and I never performed that song ever again.
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You remember the Spin magazine article? Kind of touched on this. I’m trying to find it now.
Everybody bit Spoonie Gee in one way or another.
Spoonie G great writer love a few of his records. So Schoolly D never answered the question properly you know what Im not too bothered when im playing ‘Parkside 5-2’ loud. How many great LP’s has Spoonie G made? Listen, id play any Schooly D joint over a Spoonie one. ‘Mighty Mike Tyson’ or ‘All Shook Up’ anyone?
Opsta Now.
Grandaddy pu(his rhymes stink) should’ve bit somebody’s style, cause his style is trash !! Schooly was hard, sponie was smooth. All MCs had similar styles early on a hip hop was still in an infantile stage
@franksi: He was accused of sounding like Rakim which is why he started yelling on the second album.
“Saturday Night” and “Am I Black Enough For You” alone make this discussion moot… Schooly-D is vastly superior in every possible way except for providing the blueprint that made Bid Daddy Kane suck before his time.
@Robbie- whether he screams or whispers, real heads ain’t feeling it
Funny lol but not true yell