Following Saga of A Hoodlum, it would be a few more years before we heard from Trag again. Having become frustrated with the struggles that come from being an artist on a clueless major label, plus an unforseen “up north trip”, he soon focused his attention on the bigger picture, and pieced together a project from the ground-up, investing his own money into two youngsters with a lot of potential. The duo I’m referring to is of course Capone and Noreaga, and under Tragedy‘s focused leadership they birthed the landmark War Report album, despite Capone getting locked-up midway through recording.
Tragedy had by this stage adopted the Khadafi handle as part of his offical title, and he explained where he was coming from in this interview from MVRemix:
It’s a real good story; even in terms of how CNN got started. And not to incriminate myself, and you can print this, but I had to take to the streets and do a lot of shit to get money just to get them in the studio. Sometimes that meant risking my freedom just to put us in the studio because I believed in the project so much. I had to get out there and grind and hustle and do all types of shit to put us in the studio cause I believed in what we were trying to accomplish and I believed in my vision. We came and renamed the globe on this side of life. Queens Bridge became Kuwait, Lefrak became Iraq. That came all from my mind, I initiated that Middle Eastern field because we were reporting from the streets.
During the same period, Trag was dropping solo material on his 25 Ta Life label, hitting us with winners like “Thugs Paradise”, “Judas Theory” and “True Confessions”. One of the best songs from this period was “Alluminati”, and cut he made with Iman Thug for the Iron Sheiks EP. Basically it’s some mixtape shit, complete with shouts to all the big tape makers of the day, and features a dope beat which combines eerie Arabic samples and wailing female vocal snippets over a thick piano riff and drum track. The rhymes combine 5% wisdom, ancient religious themes and street science with a precise delivery (“I didn’t ask to be here – God, see I was placed/Amongst Canaanites with six carved in face!”), a style which has been heavily influential in the sound and technique of current groups such as Jedi Mind Tricks, who have even featured Tragedy on a couple of tracks.
“Blood Type” is an episode from Trag’s falling-out with Noreaga, who proved to be less than grateful for Khadafi’s guidance and decided to seek solo stardom. This whole thing got squashed before shit got out of hand, so I won’t dredge up all the details, but here’s a few key quotes:
Trag on “Norefaker”:
Yo, Noreaga a.k.a. Nore-faker, beat biter, rhyme style taker/
Animaniac get clapped with foul gat, send you whole skeleton back to Iraq”
“Blood Type”:
Taught you how to spit taught you how to breathe on beats/If it wasn’t for me you’d probably be on the street
NORE shot back with “Halfway Thugs Pt. 2”:
When I met this cat he was eatin’ veggie burgers, now you see him, yo, he think he about murders/ I used to write his rhymes and let him shine, knowin’ that he old school and out of time.
Ex-crackhead and lived in a crackhead crib,never sold records now he tryin’ to live/
But he was my man, I was the key he was a quarter gram,you like 37, lets give it up man!
Whatever went down between these two, Noreaga’s claim that he ghost wrote for Trag isn’t fooling anyone who’s heard “Superthug”!
Tragedy Khadafi w/ Iman Thug – Alluminati (Iron Sheiks, 25 Ta Life, 1996)
Tragedy Khadafi – Blood Type (25 Ta Life, 1998)
This UK’s Best Kept Interview goes into a lot more detail about what happened through this period.
I always thought that NORE meant Tragedy took his song Noremati. The Tragedy song is obviosly done mix tape style but NORE had the beat first and you can tell as it has the complete sample and intro for the song. The lyrics also are actually about some illuminati type ish and the Tragedy cut, though classic, is still mostly straight spittin mix-tape type flow
Are you sure that it was NORE’s beat first? I’ll have to check it out.
One of the interesting pieces of the who wrote whose shit puzzle is the super fresh white label track First Day Of Spring with Havoc and Trag. There is no way to really tell when this track was put together but I’m thinking it was done before the War Report. In the beginning of the track Tragedy uses the same intro rhymes Noreaga uses on Halway Thugs. My friend Rich, who actually has the white label, put me on. Anyway, Tragedy at the very least, had these cats spitting about something by steering the subject matter. I’ve still been feeling alot of the stuff that Nore has dropped since the split though. Dude is hilarious, “and my coke come white, like Barkley’s wife.”
Not a hundred percent sure. The only way I ever heard the Tragedy was on a few mixtapes and the Iron Shieks EP. On all these the music just kicked in and there are no breaks in the inst. On the NORE track there is a spoken intro and outro sample about NWO as well as a few breaks in the song. The lyrics also make much more sense to the song title. I’ll try to burn it from wax to computer tonight and you can be the judge. I like Trag better as an emcee but in this case the NORE song just sounds like it was his first…all though the style he uses is CLEARLY influenced by Tragedy.
anyone have “judas theory” on mp3?
but Trag outshined both of them on “LA, LA”
Noreaga – “Noreminati”
http://s20.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3JJMZYCHKBS08249VIPD1XLBSY
“Noreminati” was around first and is iller than Tragedy’s version. Either way, the beat is insane.
Thanks for that…do you know who did the beat?
G-Money is listed as the producer for “Alluminati” so I’m sure it’s the same.
Great blog entry. Trag is always interesting.
http://www.philaflava.com/blog/plugtwo.html
^For all of your mid-90s underground hip hop cravings.
“The Judas Theory”
http://stylesbythegram.blogspot.com/2005/11/judas-theory.html
could anyone please repost the nore track? Never heard it before, the Trag version is dope so……..
Tradegy’s Version was 1st!…How do I know because I’m the one who produced it. Both “Alluminati”,”True-Confessions”, and also”Live On,Live Long” which was placed on “The War Report” album. The singer I used on true confession & live on live long was Sunshine Woodall. …And yes Tradgedy can confirm! My producer name was GMONEY!
GMONEY, did Nore take the beat, then? Also, do you know who sang on other Trag tracks, and Real Live#s Turnaround remix in particular? Oh yeah, dope beats, all three you named haven’t dated at all. I always thought the Beatnuts’ Do You Believe was kind of like Live On, Live Long-dropped around the same time, too.
Holy shit GMONE704, that beat was DOPE, respect!
Tf is a arab nazi lol. I know in rikers in the 90s they called Puerto ricans germans haha bugged out 90s sh●T LOL!!