Big Daddy Kane

“On The Bugged Tip”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: Yeah, it’s like I was still stuck in the late seventies and early eighties Hip-Hop; real strong. Still blasting my Cold Crush tapes, still blasting my Treacherous Three tapes, Force MC’s. That was my zone and I really wanted to do something like that.

“Ain’ No Half Steppin’”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: I never talked about the video like this before but I’m going to keep it real for you since this is the twenty year special. Dog, that grey suit, that was my graduation suit that I never wore and it was tight on me! Like that had the most Kanye fit that was ever known to mankind! Because when I graduated from high school Biz had a show in Camden New Jersey and I was chasing that paper. You could send that diploma to my mother’s house, f*** that I’m out. When I finally got to wear the suit it was in the “Ain’t No Half Steppin’” video and that sh*t was fitting me snug as hell; like real tight. If you look at it again it was real uncomfortable!

[In regards to the six samples that were used] By the time we added “U.F.O.” (ESG) Marley was tripping. He was like “Aight man look, how much sh*t you going to put in there?” he thought it started too sound cluttered. We were beefing at the boards. He wanted the sample lower and I wanted higher. Every time someone turned around he would lower it and when he wasn’t looking I would put it back up. It was that type of thing going on. I was just feeling all of that, the sample was crazy. I remember at park jams when they used to play “U.F.O,” they wouldn’t even let the beat play. They would just throw the siren part and go to another song. That was the memory in head and that’s what I wanted in that song.

“I’ll Take You There”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: That was the first joint I did with Marley. That was before everything else. I came to Marley’s house and Marley talked to me with the chain on the door saying Biz ain’t here. I was coming to bring some lyrics to Biz and he wouldn’t let me in. So I was like just give Biz these lyrics and he was like “You writing for Biz?” Then he invited me in. He asked me to spit something and I spit something and he was digging it. Then he found “I’ll Take You There” Staple Singers sample. I told him I was in a crew called The Debonair 3 in high school and we had a routine to that. He was like “Let’s mess with it.” When he heard the part of the record where it said “Big daddy,” he was like “Ahhh.” He put the whole thing together. I didn’t perform that record live a lot. That used to be my intro; I used to just spit the first four bars then go into my other joints.

“Just Rhymin’ With Biz”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: Well what happened was I did a song called “Somethin’ Funky.” Biz was in the studio that night and so was this female group called Frick N Frack. After I finished we all just wanted to rhyme. They said they dug the beat so me, Biz and Frick N Frack kicked some freestyle rhymes off the beat. Biz started it off, then I went then they went. It was like Marley played “Somethin’ Funky” the following week on WBLS. Then he played “Rhymin’ With Biz,” and people were calling the following night asking for the Biz record. It was around the time that Frick N Frack were about to come to Cold Chillin’ and the deal didn’t work out so they had to take them off. That’s why the song ends so crazy (“Do I come off? Yup.”) Because I introduced them next and we had to shut it off right there. That was basically it. It was a mistake; that freestyle ended up becoming a song.

“Mister Cee’s Master Plan”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: Mister Cee was always to me that talented dude that would find the strangest sh*t in the world to cut up or find the strangest way to coordinate scratches. Playing block parties he had ways of coordinating scratches. There’s a Bambatta song that says “Al G rock on.” But with that echo effect it sounds like he is really saying “LG,” and those were his projects, Lafayette Gardens. So he would play that and the people would go crazy. That was him. He put it all together and it was his master plan. I just wrote a verse to it.

“Word To The Mother (Land)”

Produced By Marley Marl

Big Daddy Kane: It was a song I was really feeling. It was something I wanted to really spit a verse about. At first it was just one verse but when it came to the album I knew it had to be more. I was basically trying to get that across. Marley helped out a lot. I was happy the way it came out. In regards to when I knew this album was something; I forget who was it but it was someone in 1988 on the radio talking about albums and they were discussing Long Live The Kane, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, By Any Means Necessary.

The conversation kept going back and forth on what album was better. And they kept bringing mine up when they would talk about best albums that year. My album was either number one or number two. That made me feel like okay, cats is really digging it like that. Because at that time I was rocking that Public Enemy joint; it was my favourite. I was knocking it hard. The funny thing is, Long Live The Kane isn’t my favourite album. My favourite album was my second album, It’s A Big Daddy Thing. I had joints like “Warm It Up Kane,” “Another Victory,” “Smooth Operator,” “Mortal Combat,” “Young Gifted And Black,” and “Pimping Ain’t Easy.” It was just a longer record. The first one only had ten joints.