Video: Doo Wop and Da Bounce Squad – 1994 Electronic Press Kit

This is amazing on a number of levels. If you’re wondering why Da Bounce Squad album never dropped on Noo Trybe, Wop discussed that with me in 2009:

So how did you get the Virgin deal? I only ever saw the 12″.

Doo Wop: ‘The Bounce Master’ and ‘Hit ‘Em In The Head’. That’s what actually got me the deal with Virgin. What it was, they just signed me and they signed The Luniz at the same time. I was in the process of waiting for my advance and all that to come in, and the A&R calls me and goes, ‘Yo, don’t you have a crew of MC’s called the Bounce Squad?’ Somebody put him up on it I guess – after he signed me. He was like, ‘Can we add two to the deal? We want Uneek and Snagglepuss’. Like a dick, not knowing the business, I added them to my deal. I was being cool to my peoples, but that was bad business. They shoulda got separate deals! It was a good thing that I didn’t fuck with ‘em, ‘cos they were doin’ shiesty stuff from the jump, right from the door.

Snaggapuss also went into the details of his ill-fated solo deal when I caught up with him in 2013:

What happened to the Virgin deal?

Snaggapuss: The actual deal would have been Doo Wop, Uneek and myself. Everybody else would have been ‘featured’ and able to get their own deals later on. That caused a rift within the group and ultimately led to the break-up. Noo Trybe offered me a solo deal, and that’s how I ended-up moving out to California for the two years that I was out there. My label mates at the time were Shyheim – I was on one of his songs too – and they had The Luniz. They released ‘I Got 5 On It’, which blew-up. They were going through problems with the label, as far as royalties and things of that nature. Numskull from the Luniz was my right-hand man at the time, he was staying in my crib for a little while because he wanted to move outta Oakland and he needed a place in LA to stay while he looked for a spot. They had a problem with the label, and we went down there and they flipped out! So that led to a whole lot of other things aside from business that was going down, threats and all this. I was like, “Damn, I left the East Coast to get away from this shit!”. Numskull had bought $30,000 worth of studio equipment and they had broke in my apartment and stole it. They just kicked the door in, went in there and ripped everything out. They didn’t even unplug the wires! It was a whole bunch of hood shit going on. I felt like my life was in jeopardy. I was like, ‘These dudes just kicked the door down! Imagine if I was here!’ That night I had went to Peanuts, a lesbian strip club out there on Lacieniga. When I saw that, I was like, ‘Man, I’m going back to New York’.

I hollered at the label, they told me, ‘Hey Snag, you’re already over budget. Let’s just go ahead and finish the project so we can get this money back’. So they were refusing to send me back to New York. So I concocted a story and told them my mother was sick. They booked the flight and I told ’em, ‘I ain’t comin’ back’. That’s how I breached the contract, which was like shooting myself in the foot, because it left me in limbo. Anybody who wanted to deal with me musically would have had to pay off the $300,000 budget first, so the only people who were in a position to do that at the time were Aftermath. So I got in with Ski Beatz and I recorded a new demo and my homey sent it out there to Cali. They showed some interest and sent for us. It looked like it was gonna go down, but once again due to a bunch of personal BS, I got into a fight on the plane coming back – and this is after I shook Dre’s hand and he said we were gonna do the deal after the New Year – and it never went down.

How much material did you record for Noo Trybe?

I recorded with E-Swift, with Dollaz and Sense from Oakland. They flew me to Texas to work with NO Joe. He did most of my production. Flying everywhere burned up most of my budget. My vision was to put a lyrical East Coast dude on those G-Funk beats.

Video spotted by Teh Martinator