MC Shan: Juice Crew Law

In the history of hip hop, there are those folks that comprised an important part very early on in the development of the art form as well as helping to create the lore that surrounded it all. A good many of those folks have since vanished – or at least not maintained a high level of visibility over time.

MC Shan has remained relatively active in music since his few mid eighties releases. But while he’s continued to work in music in a variety of capacities – including producing some of Snow’s 12 Inches of… - the legacy that he amassed early on in the development of the genre easily trumps anything that he’s done of late.

At this point, Shan might better qualify as an historical artifact than a bill toping performer, but his early recordings, including “The Bridge,” are as important as any other ‘80s rap stuffs floating around out there.

Yeah, MC Shan was Marley Marl’s cousin – and yeah, that’s probably how he would wind up as a member of the Juice Crew. But more important than all of that was Shan’s part in what would eventually be termed the Bridge Wars. A verse from “The Show” apparently upset KRS One enough to craft a track that sought to explain that hip hop started in the Bronx and not Queensbridge. All these years later, the discourse is really a moot point considering KRS’ point of view is accepted as gospel, but the entire ordeal was created by some confusion about semantics.

Shan apparently never intended to intimate that his part of town was the origin of the genre, but as he answers KRS back on the 1988 Born to Be Wild, the track “Juice Crew Law” perpetuated the problem. The offering begins with a vocal sample that cries out, “What’s wrong with you man? Are you crazy?”

The inclusion of the track, even as the song represents one of the better performances on the album, served to move forward a feud that didn’t really matter, but has since become part of hip hop lore.

Beyond that track, though, there’s enough top tier rap stuffs to keep listeners riveted even as this disc is, at this point, over twenty years old.

“So Def,” which sports a tempo almost as fast as the aforementioned “Juice Crew Law,” finds Shan detailing how he goes about constructing a track. On occasion, he apparently scraps verses he writers, but assisted by the buddah, Shan and Marl apparently are nothing short of a Brutus, ready to smash rival emcees.

Soon the track moves on to the ladies and how Shan impresses them. But as he gets back into describing rap culture, the song represents an early insight into the life of a Queensbridge rapper – and yes, it should be assumed that Nasir Jones was a fan of this particular effort.

Even as Shan is largely forgotten – although never too far outta the minds of today’s most thoughtful emcees – his second disc stands as a mid decade success while still mired in myth and disputes.