Forgotten Classics: Eightball & MJG’s “On Top Of The World” Posted by Max Weinstein on 02/25/14 | Filed under Opinion, Rap Nerdery, Forgotten Classics

Everyone knows your "Ready To Die"s, your "Illmatic"s - classics so canonical it’s almost cliché to talk about them now. But for every well-known rap standard, there are 10 albums that hold their own but never caught the same kind of coverage. They were overlooked, or their distribution was poor, or they didn’t sell very well, or all of the above, but to those who knew, the music was unforgettable. Every Tuesday, we’ll take a look at one of these "Forgotten Classics" albums to help put on those that didn’t know and jog the memory of those that do. 

Everybody has their own biases regarding regional rap. New York rappers were speedy, West Coast rappers were gang bangers, and Southern rappers were…ignorant (gasp!) It’s easy to spot a novice rap fan – they espouse these stereotypes with ease after shallow samplings of different shades of rap. Dig a little deeper below the Mason-Dixon and you’ll find a history richer than chocolate Thai, from the Geto Boys to Three 6 Mafia, Goodie Mob, and the Memphis duo Eightball & MJG.

If you only started listening to rap after the year 2000, you might not be familiar with Premro Smith and Marlon Jermaine Goodwin beyond their feature on “Stay Fly” or their single, “You Don’t Want Drama,” from their 2004 album Living Legends. Their legacy dropped off significantly after the millennium, despite making quality albums, but those familiar with their early catalogue know how integral the two were to the South’s sturdy rap history.

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Two years after their debut album Comin’ Out Hard, Eightball & MJG dropped the historic On Top Of The World, a rap album that still reverberates through hip-hop today (Big K.R.I.T. recently sampled “Top Of The World” on “Made A Lot”) not only sonically, but thematically. They kick the album off with “Pimp In My Own Rhyme” by utilizing the word “pimp” in an entirely different way. You can’t exactly call the group crusaders for women, but the term is used much more loosely to mean anyone who excels at what they do. You pimp at your job, you can pimp on your homework, you can even pimp behind the counter of McDonald’s, as long as those fries aren’t soggy.

They explore topics that rappers today seem scared, unwilling or simply unable to examine. On “What Can I Do,” slinging rocks is the only way to get money. Eightball considers opening a soul food joint, or maybe selling stereos (Buck Swope learned that lesson the hard way), but he’s merely daydreaming as he keeps his hand on his gat while peddling crack. Fast money is more addictive than the drugs they sell, and so they resort to trap houses in their momma’s name.

Street life inevitably leads to prison, and “For Real” chastises the materialistic lifestyle that leads to the demise of many. This is the first song I play for the uninitiated, and everyone loves it (especially “I come from Tennessee and love drinking Hennessey”). The light guitar play, mixed with the background synth, gives the track a narcotic feel. It’s also one of the best choruses on the album.

MJG lets it be known on that song – fuck radio, magazine talk, and your thoughts. They don’t conform to any one way of thinking, and “Funk Mission” finds them contradicting their own actions by taking an unpopular stance on dealing drugs – don’t do that shit. Their argument is straightforward:  crack/cocaine destroys lives. Ever be around some friends who love drugs a lot and you just don’t feel the same? You feel the need to partake with them or else face being ostracized, so maybe you do a little yourself, or if not, you just sit around without saying a word. It’s tough to speak up as an individual, but “Funk Mission” drives the message home: expressing yourself is a lot cooler than getting high or biting your tongue. It sounds corny until you see peers more worried about spending money on their nostrils than they are on their bills. If more people spoke out intelligently, maybe others might think twice about their decisions.

The production aesthetic, handled by the group alongside Smoke O, is soulfully funky and showcases the fellowship with West Coast styles. A whistling synth is prominent on the opening song “What Can I Do,” Mac Mall and E-40 guest star on “Friend or Foe,” and the album as a whole rides a breeze that sounds like it could have blown in from DJ Quik’s zone and snaked through Dre’s neighborhood on the way down South.

Today, rap seems banal. Even Scarface said the shit sounds stupid. People can’t decide if something is good or not because they’re focused on it’s originality, and that’s all that matters in an environment where everybody sounds the same. Eightball & MJG had a magical combination – they didn’t chase trends and they didn’t try to make them either. They rapped about what they knew – sin, paranoia, distrust, racism, economic dead ends – and ended up making one of the greatest Southern rap albums ever made. If you’re tired of all the bullshit that gets broadcast these days and want to discover an album that’s top quality front to back, On Top Of The World is always a great choice.

(By Max Weinstein, @dubmaxx)