Demo versions you can’t afford to igNORE
Back in March of this year, I put together a bootleg version of Capone-N-Noreaga’s stone-cold classic, The War Report, sourced from DAT tapes played on Stretch Armstrong Show radio episodes and white-label bootlegs. Since then, I was able to update and improve this compilation thanks to some help from the comment section and a wonderful discovery via the Do Remember! rap mixtape book.
Although I’d tracked down the original versions of tracks such as ‘Stick You’, ‘Parole Violators’ and ‘Channel 10’ with different lyrics, I had a hunch that a demo mix of ‘Illegal Life’ existed as well. When my eyes wandered over a scan of DJ Envy’s If I Ruled The World tape in the book, they popped-out of my head in a cartoonish, Merrie Melodies style when I noticed the listing for ‘Illegal Life by Capone and Noreiga f/ Royal Flush’ listed.
As luck would have it, this entire tape had been posted on YouTube so I was able to snatch it and discover that, lo and behold, this version has a totally different NORE verse at the end (but no sign of Capone’s cousin Royal Flush). This sent me down yet another rabbit hole of searching through old tapes, and resulted in finding an early, rough mix of Pete Rock’s ‘Strange Fruit’ with a different intro and just him and Tragedy rapping!
The original CNN demo tape submitted to The Source included the ‘Safai All Rap Remix’ of R&B group Asante’s 1995 single ‘Look What You’ve Done’, where Trag and Capone take over vocal duties, alongside ‘1/2 A Mil’ and the still vaulted ‘Creme’, and featured a mug shot style pic of the group. At the time I wondered why they used that image instead of the standard Rap Hands press shot.
Combat Jack finally explained the origins of this press release back in 2009:
‘Funny shit is Trag – when he was about to get CNN signed – dude was thinking of all types of ways to market CNN, so what he did was make these handmade – they looked really authentic – he made these ‘Wanted’ posters. It showed Capone-N-Noreaga, mug-shotted out, and I guess he was offering like a million dollars and shit like that. It was like, “These guys are killers!” – shit was like some real-ass Wanted posters! He was up in Queensbridge in the subway station, posting them shit’s up.
A couple of days after he posted them up he was in the subway station and he sees some QB kids – and you know QB got some killers, man – looking at one of the ads like, “Yo! These motherfuckers? When we see these motherfuckers, we gonna body these motherfuckers and get that money!” Trag said the minute they said that shit he spent the next couple of days taking every fuckin’ poster down!’
Combat then went on to explain how CNN’s ‘T.O.N.Y.’ single came about:
‘The funniest shit was I used to represent Nasheim Myrick, who produced ‘Who Shot Ya’, and Nasheim ran with a crew that had beef with Tragedy’s Queensbridge crew. Both factions were on some party boat ride and the shit got hectic, and somebody from Trag or Naheims crew got thrown off the boat, they was bangin’ so hard! That’s how serious it was! Like a fuckin’ commercial boat, man! You’re falling three or four stories before you hit the water.
What was cool about it though, was that when cats would meet in our office – like Tragedy was a street dude and Nasheim was a street dude – but they were also business dudes, so when they would meet and figure out they had the same attorney they be like, “You know what? That street shit – getting’ thrown-off a boat shit – that shit is cute but both of us are in here trying to make some money! Yo Nasheim, can you produce some tracks for me?” And Nasheim was like, “Yo, CNN is dope! I got you!” They crafted that “T.O.N.Y.” record right out of my office.’ 1
Looking at the track list for the official preview tape that DJ Clue put together for Penalty Records, a few changes were made by the time the album hit store shelves. Given that the label had a limited budget at the time (the group had wanted a DJ Premier beat but couldn’t afford him), the samples for both ‘Calm Down’2 and ‘Married To Marijuana’ proved too pricey to clear and were sentenced to languish in promo-only vinyl purgatory. Another song, ‘Stuck’, was benched after it was singled out as the weakest link in Elliott Wilson’s review for The Source.
Download the new and improved version of this boot, live and direct from my Google Drive and make like it’s 1997 all over again:
Capone-N-Noreaga – The Raw Report V2 [Unkut Bootleg]
Noreaga told Complex: ‘In the studio, that’s when I realised Nashiem is an excellent drinker. We would be in there from eight to eight and he would drink Hennessey the whole time, maintain his composure, and make a hit. Yo man, I call myself a drink champion, but I haven’t hung out with Nashiem lately so I don’t know if I deserve that title.’
Just to mix things up, this time I used the original version of ‘Calm Down’, titled ‘Thugs Calm Down’ and featuring E-Money Bags instead of Tragedy on the first verse.
I have to go to the second hand store to look for an oversize hockey jersey and foam covered headphones before I bump this. Dope write up and invincible untouchable idea. also props for being one of the few people keeping downloads alive, streaming gets the bozack. RIP combat jack the originator!!!
So “Strange Fruit” existed before the Mekolitious demo?