Shyheim - "On & On" b/w "The B Side (Bring the Drama)" (Virgin Records, 1993)
Yesterday Jeff Weiss put up a new entry in his always good
weekly series Bizarre Ride over at LA Weekly. This week’s topic? “TeenageRappers Are Experiencing a Renaissance,” which is an argument that’s pretty
difficult to refute given the success of Odd Future, Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era,
and numerous others over the past few years. In the middle of the article, he
stated that “in the wake of Kriss Kross, the early ‘90s yielded
often-overlooked teenage talents like Illegal, Ahma, Shyheim and Da Youngstas.
Even if their albums were often unmemorable, they dropped minor classic singles
and rapped impressively.” He neglected to mention the Wascals, who were
produced by J-Swift of Bizarre Ride to
the Pharcyde fame. The quartet worked really hard to sound like a miniature
Pharcyde, with intermittent success, and considering how Weiss feels about the
Pharcyde (check the name of his column) it’s an odd omission.
He does however mention Shyheim, the youngest and one of the
most overlooked of the Wu-Tang Clan’s original crop of Killa Bees. He got
signed to Virgin Records and put out his debut single in 1993 at the age of
fourteen. The subsequent album AKA the
Rugged Child is a bit of a mixed bag, but that first single “On & On”
is amazing.
