SNAFU!: RANDOM BAG CHECK - CHARLOTTE, COMPTON

I found this one while digging in San Diego with the Funeral Shock guys. The store (the name escapes right now) had a bunch of hip hop 12"s priced at .50 and dude was saying all hip hop was half price. Shit. For .25 I couldn't pass up a private press looking joint from Compton with a song called "Blunt Smokers". What I heard when the needle hit the wax had me bugged though. Rugged East Coast hip hop with mad cuts and samples. The stoned as fuck horn in "Blunt Smokers" is on the same vibe JVC Force was when they chopped Freda Payne till she sounded like a psych-fuzz guitar guru straight whylin'. PLUS you get a remixed version that's basically whole different track and no clean versions! This is programmed for the late night, incense and weed radio show crowd. The B side "Light It Up" continues down a hazy path of 8 bit chops. "Light it up and drink a brew with Snafu!" AND they hit you with a remix of this one too, damn. Why waste the space with radio edits? These guys knew their shit was in that piffed out, late night college radio zone.

Since I couldn't find it on Discogs (or anywhere really), I took to googling everyone listed on the label. First thing I found was I found was rapper S.C. Miles giving producer Ron B. a shout out on a page on his website. Well, I started this post about a year ago and I just checked the bookmark for S.C. Miles' website and the site no longer exists! Eventually I found Ron B.'s Myspace page and sent him a message to see if he would be down to enlighten me on the creation of this 12". In spite of not having logged into that page for months, I eventually did receive a response:

Sorry to just get back to you but I have been really busy workin and trying to make beats and be a dad but, YEAH!! thas sounds good to me!!! hit me with the questions and we can go from there....SNAFU is not together anymore but we still talk on the regular...just hit me up!!

Ron B: Ghost in the Machine

I sent some questions and to this day have not received a reply. This was in January so I'm assuming Ron either forgot or is just too damn busy. He did up some new tracks on his page since I last checked it so at least he's still making beats. My main question was how did a rap group from NC drop a 12" on a Compton, CA label in 1995, on the cusp the full blown East vs. West era.

Further searching revealed the Compton connection: co-executive producer Scotty Spencer (aka Scotty D) is a LA hip hop LEGEND who apparently was the first person ever to play a young King Tee tracks by the likes of Mixmaster Spade and Uncle Jamm's Army. Damn, shit is all coming together! King Tee would later give Scotty a shout out on his Mixmaster Spade collab "Ya Better Bring a Gun". Scotty says he was the equivalent of Dapper Dan on the West Coast making custom sweatsuits for OG LA hip hop crews. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of info on the web regarding Scotty D, however that may all be changing with the release of the forthcoming documentary (put together by Lemonlime from the OG West Coast Crew) "How the West Was 1". Check the trailer:



So how did LA's Scotty D link up with North Cackalack's Snafu? Apparently that is a story for another time and place. It's good to know Ron B. is still making beats and Scotty D is still out there reppin' real hip hop.

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