Because I F**King Want To….Pharoah Monch’s “The Mayor” (Listen & Download)

When I posted "Because I Fucking Want To....Talib Kweli's "Move Somethin" I honestly didn't plan on it becoming a series. All I knew was that I wasn't really feeling any new music so I turned to my trusty catalog and realized, "oh damn, I almost forgot how dope this track was." In the same spirit, let's all take a moment to appreciate the tragically slept on "Mayor" from Pharoah Monch.

If you rode in my car in high school (RIP to my '90 Pontiac 6000 LE") chances were high that you were going to be listening to "Soundbombing II". But even on one of the decade's best compilation mixtapes that featured work from a young Eminem ("Any Man"), Mos Def ("B-Boy Document '99"), Common ("1-9-9-9") and more, "Mayor" was always the track I found myself returning to over and over again.

Intro skits often do more harm than good on a track, but "Mayor"s cinematic opening sets the stage perfectly before flipping into Lee Stone's impeccable beat, fueled by Pharoah's dopely narrative, openly aggressive verses. There are only a handful of tracks - "Shook Ones pt. II", "Hip-Hop", etc. - that I thought sounded truly dangerous the first time I heard it and "Mayor" is at the top of that list.

Seriously though, I"m prepared to put "And so it was that I had shot him / several times in the head" as one of the best opening lines in hip-hop history. Don't even bother to argue. Enjoy some of that old school shit RefinedHype Nation, you're welcome.

(p.s. - Yo, because I really fucking love RefinedHypeNation, fellow Rap Nerds rap nerdy enough to want the instrumental and a capella to "Mayor" can get it here, or so I've been told. And I know The Niceguys have been told the same thing.)

See Also: Because I F**cking Want To….Talib Kweli “Move Somethin” (Listen & Download)

(Looking for all of RefinedHype's dope downloads in one place? We got you covered.)