Big Daddy Kane: Just Rhymin'

Despite having derived his name from some oblique incident on a ski trip – seriously? – Big Daddy Kane has been one of the most consistently revered figures in the rap world for about twenty years now. And considering the impact that this one figure has had on the game, I think that it’s more than appropriate to take a minute to look back at the man’s first album - Long Live the Kane – in order to understand where the game’s gotten to today. It kinda seems like it’s all the same, but despite that or even because of it, the first Big Daddy Kane record seems to encompass a great deal of what rap is today.

There are a number of albums that have been touted over time and have been figured to have changed the way in which rap exists today – Masters of Ceremony for one – but every topic that needs discussion finds it place on Long Live the Kane. It wasn’t too early for emcees to proclaim their ties to the Nation or Islam in general and while Kane wasn’t one of them, the omission of religion here is understandable especially in the light of what raptastics the disc holds.

As Kane gets into how great he is, maybe a few too many times, the first three tracks of the album are comprised of various boasts and descriptions of how this emcee is better, different and more talented than anyone else on the scene. While such self congratulatory lines have become a requisite part of the rap genre, as Kane was in the process of these proclamations, it was true. He was on another level that others weren’t able to get to. Of course, the production that accompanies Long Live the Kane, courtesy of Marley Marl, would be able to make any cobbled together lines palatable.

While Kane is endlessly entertaining – as when he figures “Play like Roy Rogers and sloooow down…”  - on “The Day You're Mine” the emcee apes some pretend soul-speak, booty groove persona that isn’t only unbefitting such a talent as his, but is just kinda sad as he sings the hook. Of course, the emcee needed to make a run at the charts. And while this was the lone stab at such a market, the result is so atrocious that only the following "On the Bugged Tip" with its Grand Wizard Theodore and DeBarge samples can make that nightmare disappear.

The avowed center piece to this entire disc, though, is “Ain’t No Half Steppin’” – about which Kane seems demur in describing its creation. It does have a “nice, mellow beat” even as the emcee gets into some more boasting. But again, the production here, in tandem with Kane’s flow, must have made the track seem like a futuristic rap extravaganza. At this point in time, it doesn’t sound like a brand new endeavor, but it surely doesn’t sound like it’s twenty one years old. Whatever aspect to that track that makes it timeless is at play over much of Long Live the Kane. It might not be a perfect album, but it’s the closest that the ‘80s ever got to such a thing.