WC and the Maad Circle: Get Up On That Funk

There’s not now, nor will there ever be a shortage of old tyme west coast rap stuffs – BG Knocc Out and Dresta, Battlecat and Dru Down for starters. But there’s so much more beyond those works that remains relatively unspoiled over time. Not every disc that gets a revisiting – or a discovery – ages as well as those aforementioned albums. WC and the Maad Circle, though has. Unfortunately, the group is going to most probably be remembered as a stop over for Coolio. And while he might be broke and the butt of jokes at this late date, as a part of Maad Circle, the emcee added a bit of ambience to the first of two albums from the group.

Affiliated with da Lench Mob and eventually a Westside Connection member made up this crew with WC coming from a defunct, late ‘80s group that wasn’t able to gain too much of a following beyond its immediate surroundings. But by 1991 the G-Funk thing was fully underway with proponents of the sound stretching from north to south along the coast of California. It can’t be figured that WC and his cohort straight copped someone else’s approach to making rap tracks and even if there are similarities between what’s represented on Ain't A Damn Thang Changed and tracks that ended up making folks millionaires, it’s safe to say that everything here is genuine and from experience as opposed to ideas gleaned from television spots.

Similar in scope and approach to a great many other discs of this vintage, DJ Crazy Toones saw fit to include a track whose scope is as broad and all inclusive as any other music from the period. “Caught In A Fad” begins in traditional boom bap fashion and as WC hops on the beat to examine why other emcees cop a gangster motif one moment and then look like exiles from the DAISY Age the next. It’s a thoughtful rap. But what serves to make this all that much better – in addition to the fact that he rhymes ‘Jamaican’ with ‘bacon’ – is that the hook on the track is taken over by a reggae groove. It’s a small portion of the song, but endlessly pleasing. And what’s more, the bridge includes a snippet of an all too familiar early ‘90s pop/rock hit that pretty much anyone should recognize.

Elsewhere, WC takes a look at fashion from another perspective. While trying to get a job, a loan or otherwise, it seems that you need to be properly attired – who knew. During “Dress Code,” though, WC decries the fact that people stereotype him based upon his khakis. It’s an understandable gripe. But at the same time the answer to the problem that not just WC, but countless others have encountered is to dress in an appropriate manner if you’re trying to get a job – silk shirts at clubs, though, are not acceptable under any circumstance.

“Dress Code” might not be the most philosophically heavy handed offering from ‘90s rap, but the production coupled with the entertainment value inherent in those raps makes this first disc from WC and the Maad Circle pretty indispensible.