ODB – Snakes
It was the end of March in 1995. The 1st quarter of that year’s music releases were ending. The Wutang Clan were becoming a global brand. Their classic debut in the Winter of ’93, followed by a Rza collaborative effort with the Gravediggaz project along Method Man’s
Tical, proved they were no one hit wonders. Ol’ Dirty b*stard was set to drop his debut
Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version coming off the hot single “Brooklyn Zoo”.
The Album dropped March 28, 1995. I did not purchase the album until the following Sunday from the music store Tracks
[1] with my mom. When I got home, I told my neighbor Edron that I picked it up, but I didn’t listen to it that day at all. The next day on my way to high school, I was anticipating the big NCAA championship game to be played that night between defending champion Arkansas and UCLA. I attended Coach Whitehurst’s class
[2] that morning as usual and anticipated seeing a friend named ________ who would buy sausage biscuits from Hardees in the morning and bring them to school to sell for a profit. I bought one and ate it that morning before lunch. I was feeling fine through school until the last period of the day.
As I arrived home on the bus, my aunt __________
[3] was there sitting with my grandmother. I went to my room and stretched out on the bed until I started feeling worse. I ran to the bathroom, got on my knees and vomited everything up I had eaten that day; most notably the sausage biscuit. I am sure that biscuit was the cause because school lunch had never made me sick before. I laid down on my bed and fell asleep not even interested in listening to ODB’s debut. While sleeping, ________ came over to peep the album and dub whatever songs he liked from it. I wasn’t paying attention because I was still in pain and trying to sleep hoping it would go away. I ended up sleeping through most of the night and waking up at the end of the championship game. I had missed it all and one of the best games by a freshman, Toby Bailey, since Pervis Ellison in 1986. I saw the trophy presentation and dozed off again
[4].
The next morning, I didn’t go to school because I was still feeling bad. I woke up around 10 am and then decided to listen to the album. I started with the intro, skipped to the next, and would preview a minute of each song until I got to #12. “Snakes” started with an intro that was lifted from the flick
Five Deadly Venoms as Killah Priest with a gruffy voice comes in and starts talking over the “Papa Was Too” drums with another Joe Tex sample which I thought at the time was a female’s voice
[5]. I was hooked. As I previewed the rest of the album, but I kept going back to that song. Initially, my favorite verse on the song was by Rza but over the years I’ve gone back and forth between his effort and Killah Priest’s. Masta Killa’s verse was dope as well while ODB sounded like he just got in the booth and freestyled his part. I never could understand Buddah Monk until internet sites with lyrics of hip hop songs became popular in the late 90s. Antwan used to laugh at my impersonation of Rza’s verse and would ask me to do it daily.
“Snakes” is from that category of Wutang solo tracks that are unacknowledged while being among the best on their albums. Songs like Meth’s “Sub Crazy”, Deck’s “Lovin’ You”, Gza’s “Killah Hills 10304”, Ghost’s “Fish”, and Rae’s “Verbal Intercourse” reminds of us of time when artists would make hot songs that never hit the charts. They had no intention of having only two hot songs on an album with the rest being filler. Still today I’ll always remember that Tuesday morning after UCLA beat Arkansas for the title and hearing “Snakes” for the first time.
[1] There were three Tracks stores in my city at the time. I have a lot of stories about each of them. We had the big Tracks that was located outside of the Pitt Plaza Mall, a smaller Tracks located in the center of the Plaza which was a shotgun store that you could walk straight through, and Record Bar Tracks located in the Carolina East Mall. The Record Bar Tracks was slightly bigger than the one located inside of the Plaza, but it sold vinyl whereas the other two did not.
[2] I shared the class with close friends ____, ________, and _______ as well.
[3] My aunt ________ during the Summer of 1984 took her daughters, my other cousin, and I to see
Breakin’ at the Plaza Cinema.
[4] The next morning, I saw all the highlights of the game on Sportscenter.
[5] This was years before Just Blaze, Kanye, and The Heatmakerz were known for 45 rpm sampling in hip hop.
