Kurious, Sadat X & Mike G : Mansion And A Yacht (from I'm Kurious 12")

Kurious featuring Mike G & Sadat X : A Mansion And A Yacht (Hoppoh, 1994)
Kurious & Leaders Of The New School : Freestyle in the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show
Brand Nubian : Freestyle in the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show

Having guest on your previously unreleased B side is always a plus, especially if he’s not your hype man (or you're not his hype man !) or part of your crew.

For his third single (but the only one released after the Constipated Monkey LP), Kurious had to offer something fresh. The puerto-rican MC got his start by co-hosting the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show in it's early days, hence his fan base consisted of some the most underground heads, but with it's Blackbyrd played out sample I'm Kurious was his most commercial song (OK, I admit I didn't know where the sample came from back in 1994, but I knew it had been used one too many time).

A Mansion And A Yacht was an unlikely posse cut produced by VIC, where Kurious teamed up with Sadat X and Mike G. You could have imagined him trading rhymes with his CM fam friend Zev Love X, or his Hit-U-Off management mates Artifacts or Hard To Obtain, but instead he decided to randomly pushed to the studio a couple of rappers at the lowest in their carreer. I don't know the story behind the song, but they probably just met while working in the same recording studios (part of All Or Nothing was actually recorded in the same studio as this song) or freestyling on the radio. And quite honestly the result sounds more sincere than a lot of posse cuts where each verse is written diplomatically, everybody kicks one verse, and no one has more bars than the other. Also you can bet that most times the host has his verse in the middle of the song, or if it's a group the guest verses will be intertwined with the host verses. Here we have a feel-good song where they all pass the mic back and forth, kick two different chorus, and don't even bother to repeat the title twice.

The album seems to be in high demand nowadays, despite the fact that Hoppoh vinyles were manufactured by Sony, which means very bad pressing. This LP and Big L's Lifestyle Ov Da Poor And Dangerous can be qualified as some of the lowest hip hop vinyl ever, along the line of the whole Relativity catalogue. Anyway, the 12" sound was correct and had two mixes (the Baja Panties an the Merchantz mixes), this is the horn-less Baja Panties one.


Kurious featuring Mike G & Sadat X : A Mansion And A Yacht (Hoppoh, 1994)
Kurious & Leaders Of The New School : Freestyle in the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show
Brand Nubian : Freestyle in the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show

Le fait d'avoir un invité sur sa face B est toujours un plus, en particulier quand il ne s'agit pas d'un membre du crew.

Pour son troisième single (le seul sorti après l'album A Constipated Monkey), Kurious se devait de proposer quelque chose de nouveau. Etant donné qu'il a débuté comme co-présentateur du Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show au début des années 90, la plupart des fans de Kurious étaient des fans de rap underground, mais avec son sample grillé des Blackbyrds I'm Kurious était son morceau le plus commercial.

A Mansion And A Yacht était un posse cut improbable produit par VIC, sur lequel Kurious rencontrait Sadat X et Mike G. On l'aurait plutôt imaginer rapper aux cotés de son pote du CM Crew Zev Love X ou bien ses camarades d'Artifacts ou Hard to Obtain (deux groupes managés alors par Bobbito), mais au lieu de ça il semblait avoir coincé dans le studio deux rappers choisis au hasard parmi les MCs les moins cotés du moment. Il y a surement une histoire derrière ce morceau, mais on peut imaginer que Kurious les a tout bêtement rencontrés dans le studio d'enregistrement (Alladat de Brand Nubian a d'ailleurs été enregistré dans le même studio) ou lors d'une émission de radio. Honnetement, peu importe le contexte, le résultat semble plus sincère que beaucoup de posse cuts où chacun à exactement seize mesures pour son poser couplet. Et dans la plupart des cas on peut parier que le MC principal pose au milieu. Ici l'ambiance est décontractée, le micro semble passer de main en main, les deux refrains sont totalement différents, et le titre n'est mentionné qu'une seule fois dans tout le morceau.