Download: Showbiz featuring AG – Goodfellas [cassette advance version]

Update: I lost the first version of this so here’s a new comp, plus a bonus quote from AG:

‘I definitely didn’t like Showbiz featuring AG, that little tape that they put out. I don’t know what PayDay was doing at the time, but it’s all good. We gotta lotta songs like ‘Ain’t No Fun’ and ‘Under Pressure’ on it that just didn’t make the album.If you listen to it, it was a little too smooth. We listened to it a little bit later and it was like, ‘Nah, we gotta come harder than this.’

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For Runaway Slave fans (basically anyone who had functioning ears), the wait for Showbiz and AG’s second long-player was a fairly drawn-out affair. When it hit the shelves, several songs mentioned in magazine review weren’t on it, and it wasn’t long until a white label featuring the cut tracks and alternate mixes showed-up to give us a glimpse of how the first incarnation sounded. As The Giant told me over the phone back in 2014, it was a major shift when Showbiz decided to stop rapping with him:

‘I feel like Runaway Slave was a better album, but it was directed by Show – most of the concepts, the songs, the interludes, the intro – I’m just playing my part. Now I’ve gotta be the front man and do everything. I accepted the challenge, and at one time during the album it was like, ‘Hmm, I’m doing OK.’ One day he’s driving me home and he’s like, ‘Yo, you gotta step up even more, cos you holding it down by yourself now.’ That took me to a whole ‘nother level. So we stopped going to the studio for a week. ‘Just stay in the house and get your shit crazy.’ So I did, and that’s where that song [‘All Out’] comes from: ‘If I was a nice motherfuck I wouldn’t be here!’ – the Redman sample I took. That’s my personal song, saying ‘Damn, I’ve gotta step up to the plate now, the pressures on!’ You’ll hear the process of what I just told you, in the rhyme. Show has always done that for me though – even now, even during this album – he pushed me to a place where if he wasn’t there I probably wouldn’t go to that place.’

Years earlier, I’d asked Showbiz if Payday had asked for them to redo some of the tracks before the album was released:

‘Oh, no. We felt we didn’t want those out. We ain’t have no issues with the A&R – we never really had no problems at any time in our career with creative control. We was always basically free to do what we wanna do.’

Thanks to the magic of Discogs, there are photos of the original press advance tape, and because I don’t really fancy dropping $600 to buy this wonderful piece, I thought I’d cobble together the track-listing by combining the retail versions with the stuff that was bootlegged. So sit back and pretend that you are an unpaid intern in 1995 and discover this on your desk one Friday morning…

Download: Showbiz featuring AG – Goodfellas [cassette advance version]