Canibus-Can-I-Bus (1998)

 

Artist: Canibus

Title: Can-I-Bus

Label: Universal Records

Format: CD

Cat #: UD 35136

Year of Release: 1998

Country and Year of Edition Issue:  US 1998

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 1/19/21

Sell Price: $3.00

Discogs Last Sold: 12/8/20 $5.93 NM/VG

Low: $1.03 VG/VG+

Median: $4.74

High:  $7.99

Current low price: $2.00

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 21

Have/Want: 350/43

Where Sold:  Plainfield, NJ

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: internet late 90's used whoever was cheapest maybe half.com, paid 8-10 bucks

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B-

Sad To See It Go: No

"I came to see that hip hop is NEVER 'tarded!"  After laughing to myself I realized that like many many times before I misheard the lyrics and realized the word was tarnished.  A toss off line I would never bother to mention when discussing "Get Retarded."  He isn't talking about getting drunk, he's talking about the inferior minds of others in comparison to him!  Dems fightin' words: 9 out of 10 rappers are retarded in the view of Canibus.

Canibus dropped out of music a couple years to join the Army in 2003 (no shit!), and his love of Navy Seals reverberates through the album.  The single off this Gold record debut is "Second Round K.O."  He rails at "homos" and the Platinum selling "faggot" whose vast majority of fans "wear high heels" but what he finally reveals was a head turning line that "you ain't got the skills to eat a niggas ass like me."   Battling hard in every way.  It's all clean drug free livin' and pushing weights in the Boogie Down Bronx.  Fun until "What's Goin' On" asks "why is everybody packin'?"  Cuz someone's tryin' to sneak a gat in!  Has anything gotten better in the last 20 plus years? 

The rest of the album is a bit of a mix 'n match.  It closes with "Rip Rock" featuring some sub-Body Count/Rage Against The Machine grunge with a guitar wank of the Arabian Riff aka "The Poor Little Country Maid" aka "The Girls In France Don't Wear Their Underpants" among many, many others.  There's some conspiracy theory "knowledge" 10 years after Chuck D's girl watched "Channel Zero." The theories match the homeless veteran I sat next to in the subway who was spouting theories loudly to whomever was in earshot.  "I Honor You" reminded me of a halfass version of "So Into You," the Tamia song from the same year that Fabolous merged with his rap five years later.   I actually liked her original enough to track it down from hearing the Fabolous song a few times working the line in a South Bronx warehouse a year or two back.

I bought this CD in the late 90's either because it made the Voice year end top 40 or Christgau gave it an 'A'.  While I was trying to figure it out after listening and formulating what to write about in my head, I noticed that reviews were spottier in the hip hop world at large, matching my gut assessment.  It seems the production was something that bothered people, but that wasn't my issue.  Hell, a quick look at whosampled shows a nice range of sample sources.   

Can-I-Bus had no impact on me at the time it was released and I mean no impact.  To the point of not remembering listening to it in the Brooklyn Navy Yard neighborhood near the BQE overpass where I listened to everything I bought at least once before filing away.  For this reason, I was extra curious to focus on this today in headphones and write about the first hip hop sale since I started this blog 140 reviews ago.    

I part ways with Canibus in thinking "the rapper who died on March 9th" is the greatest rapper of all time.  I liked and bought Notorious B.I.G.'s first one in the mid 90's which I would hear in bars all the time (it was on the Max Fish jukebox on Ludlow for sure).  This didn't translate into liking the posthumous double whose hits I couldn't escape passing out to MTV on the couch after coming home drunk in the late 90's.   In that era, I would seek something out if someone I respected was talking about it (like the "underground" Cannibal Ox, which I ultimately didn't like) or if I heard something see I liked in a cab ("Ruff Ryders Theme Song" by the mismash of  90's pop idols Ruff Ryders). 

When I say Can-I, you say....

Bus!