In the early days of this blog was a Funky Friday, a day where I’d post links to music videos that’d either have a theme or not have a theme. Then I called it ‘Make the Music with your Blog” because I found someone else was using Funky Friday. But back in the first post ever was one of my favorite videos from one of my favorite groups: Whodini. Unfortunately, the video was deleted almost right after I linked to it. Hell, just about all of them were. That’s what killed the feature in the first place. After checking out the usual place, I found that someone uploaded it again. So I present it with what I said in the old post:

‘Funky Beat’ by Whodini
- When I was a kid, Whodini was my favorite group, period. I’ll eventually do an entire post on Whodini. For now, just dig the only music video on Earth to feature the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dinosaurs, multiple chef hats (a true primal element of comedy), the ‘Funky Beat puppet’ and Theodore Huxtable.

Much respect to the uploader for allowing future generations to see the glory of the Funky Beat Puppet. “FUNKY BEAT! FUNKY BEAT!!!”

Seeing as how I’m sure this won’t be the last time, I’m calling this theme, “Too busy for a theme pt.1″ I’m just going to link to a few videos related to what I’m thinking of right now. Lazy? Yep. I’m working on a story, so this is merely a shifting of the lazy.

Whodini - the Freaks Come Out at Night If you have a station in your area that airs the long-running Soul Train program, watch it this week to see Whodini gettin’ down. To hold you over ’til then, watch that video.

Cameo - Candy Since I’m still funkin’ out to the Cameo CD I got earlier this week, that’s a link to their video for Candy. Why Candy? Because too many people only know Cameo for ‘Word Up’ and those people border on running it into the ground.

Minnie Ripperton - Reasons And now I combine the topics of ‘Soul Train’ and ‘you should know more than one song by this person’ with this clip of the late, great Minnie Ripperton. No, this isn’t the same Reasons that EW&F did. While I’ve been thinking of her classic Memory Lane this week, this is the best non-”Lovin’ You” video I could find (and a damn good one, too).

Sorry for cuttin’ it short, party people, but I have to be productive right now. Y’all have a good weekend and I’ll hopefully have some interesting artwork waiting for you next week.

I was going to do a completely different theme for this week’s music post, but I thought it’d be better if I waited until using that one for now. I have a week-long theme planned that’s related to the subject, so I figure I’d save it until then. Eh, I’m busy anyway. The apt. floor’s damp from the combo of rain melting the ton of snow we had here and the fact that these apts. have NO sub pumps. So they just got done working on that. Then I have to go to work earlier this evening, so I’m short on time. Plus, I have lots of stuff to work on. **strokes chin** Hold up… that it. This week’s theme may as well be work-related. So every video is going to roll like that whether or not working is in the song title. No genre limits this week, either. Dig? Solid.

Ghostface Killa ‘Apollo Kids’ (warning: uncensored version) - Besides being part of the playlist I was listening to today, I’m adding this one because that picture that you see up there comes from this video. No, you never get a clear, straight shot at it, so I took lots of screenshots, warped them, and cleaned them up to get as close as I could to making a normal version.

Big Daddy Kane ‘I Get The Job Done’ (Live on Arsenio) - From BDK’s album “It’s a Big Daddy Thing” comes another joint with more slick word play and references that most current rappers’ albums. It may not be the music video with sweaty women using construction equipment (because you know I looked), but hey, you get to see more of Kane, Scoob and Scrap goin’ off and Kane getting smoove with ladies in the crowd before starting the song.

Public Enemy ‘Brothas gonna work it out’ - Wish I could give you a better link, but I’m just working with what I’ve got. Besides being yet another good P.E. jam, the protest in the video is about the infamous Howard Beach incident. Yes, MTV used to show this back when it still had a spine.

Donna Summer ‘She works hard for the money’ - Allow me to get 80’s on you, even though you were probably expecting this one. Still, I’m trying to mix things up this week. Besides, Donna Summer has a damn good voice.

Daft Punk ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’ - Remember when Toonami used to be cool and played a bunch of the animated Daft Punk videos in order? If you’re wondering what’s up with the animated video, peep this Wikipedia page about Interstella 5555.

Loverboy ‘Working for the Weekend’ Can you get more appropriate than this one? I doubt it. Did you ever think you’d see Ghostface and Loverboy in the same post? I doubt it. And here it is, defying all expectations, shattering barriers and breaking your brain like an MF.

Time to jet, party people. Be sure to keep an eye on Illmosis this weekend to see a beta color version of that Mindsight picture and maybe some other newness or old newness. Later!

I could keep bashing my brains against the inside of my skull trying to come up with a replacement name for “Funky Friday” or I could just play around with names until I run into something that I like. For this week, it’s “Make the Music with your Mouth” day. Of course, it’s named after the classic joint by the Diabolical One, Biz Markie. While I’ve never seen a video for it, the closest I’ve found on YouTube features the musical stylings of ‘Tommy D’ What makes it pure genius is that he does the throat noise that Biz is infamous for. I’ve annoyed people with that for years and it’s just nice to see it done somewhere else. Anyway, everything today will feature making the music. With your mouth. Remember, party people: support true Hip-Hop and buy a CD or MP3 download of any artist you like here.

J.J. Fad - Supersonic - Ah, back when female emcees didn’t have to be skankified to get video airplay. Anyway, this version has Baby-D’s beatboxing intro that wasn’t always shown or was cut off by the programming editors. If you haven’t heard this song before but you’re wondering why it sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard this. Now go back to the Supersonic YouTube link and listen to it again while reading the feedback for extra comedy flavor.

Doug E Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew - The Show Now that’s a classic. To this day, I still don’t know how Doug E Fresh can beat box like that. Doug E also has a memorable cameo in Beat Street. I’ll talk more about Doug E and Slick Rick in another music post, since a short part here isn’t enough.

the Fat Boys - Stick ‘Em - While Doug E Fresh was probably the earliest amazing beat-boxer, the late Buffy (R.I.P.) from the Fat Boys is probably inspired more 80’s kids to beat-box (including me) than ANYBODY. Period. For me, this is the song that did it. I think all it took was hearing it one time on FM 108 WDMT (a long defunct Cleveland station) before I started doing that. You can catch the Fat Boys in Krush Groove and their own movie Disorderlies.

Rahzel - All I know - You know, in a perfect world, Rahzel’s version of Biz’s “Make the Music” would be on YouTube somewhere. Most Rahzel searches turn up his various live performances, this video and a bunch of beatboxers that put Rahzel tags on their vids to get hits. Still, this video fully showcases how Rahzel, the Godfather of Noise, is a one-man Hip Hop production team. That’s right: there’s no scratching in that song. He’s the one doing that. I first heard him do that on a cut from the Roots’ second album and didn’t know it was vocally done.

It’s time for me to get ready for work, so I’ve got to close things out with a gem:
Biz Markie and Doug E Fresh… LIVE.
How can I top that? I can’t. So I’m out! BTW: I may modify this one later on to post some more links and such. Either way, I hope you enjoyed yourself and maybe… just maybe… made some mouth music of your own. Go ahead and try it. I won’t tell. **does the throat-tapping noise**

Funky Friday is my continuing effort to start the weekend on “the good foot” for myself and anyone else bored enough to read this blog. Even though 75% of the vids from the last go-round being pulled less than one week after making the post, I’m going to take another stab at this.

Souls of Mischief - ‘93 til infinity: A lot of people seem to dismiss the West Coast as nothing but brain-dead gangsta rap, but real music fans know better than that. You’d have to ignore people like the Coup, Erule, the Pharcyde, Del and the cats in this video. This brings back memories of hanging outside with my friends like Steve Skinner (R.I.P.), Terry Tyler and anybody else that was around when Steve brought that giant tape deck of his. This joint was always good Chill Tape material.

Gangstarr- Mass Appeal: Quite possibly one of my favorite Hip-Hop songs of all time from what’s definitely one of my favorite groups. It’s hard to choose a favorite from GangStarr, but this one seems to be in most fans’ Top Ten lists. For one, listen to that beat. At a time when lazy producers were looping things that people had heard boozillion times or ripping off classic Marley Marl beats, DJ Premiere pulled less than eight non-repeating seconds from an obscure jazz song’s keyboard solo and made a classic. When I say non-repeating, I mean that part only happens once in the entire song WAS NOT meant to be looped. Stuff like that is why so many Hip-Hop heads love Primo. Meanwhile, Guru threw down some lyrics about what had started getting on the true fans’ nerves. Mainstream Hip-Hop’s zombification had already begun where weak, idiotic lyrical content and those lazy beats I mentioned were taking over the radio. To add insult to injury, a lot of radio stations that wouldn’t play “Mass Appeal” would play it’s instrumental as they told you what pop song was coming up next. Just one of the many reasons that I still hate “Urban Radio” stations.

Method Man - Bring The Pain: I remember already still having my mind blown by Wu Tang’s first album when I first saw this video and how I damn near broke my neck nodding to the beat. That beat is just as “insane/crazy” as the lyrics. Listen to that “Mmm-mmmmmmmmmmm” vocal and the instruments that just lounge in the back. That’s the RZA being a mad scientist again. As usual, Method’s lyrics and delivery are perfect, but a reply on the YouTube.com page reminded me of something. After this video came hit, A lot of other rappers started moving just like that. Such is the power of Tical.

Main Source - Fakin’ the funk: So let’s close this Funkky Friday out with another song with “Funky” in the title. Another favorite group of mine with another prophetic song about commercialized rappers that still rings true. A lot of Main Source fans bought the “White Men Can’t Jump” soundtrack just for this hint at Main Source 2nd album. Unfortunately, the group broke up a while after this. Large Professor still went on to do good solo work and produce cuts for other artists including Nas, who debuted as a guest star on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” posse cut.

That’s it for today. Stay funky, party people!

I did a Dreamhost Clicky McUpgradey with the WordPress blog, so it was looking a bit FUBARed for a bit. All seems to be as well as expected on a blog named Beans vs. Cornbread. If you can see this, it worked and my mention of this was pointless. If it didn’t work, then you probably can’t see this anyway which would make this just as pointless. Then again, who the hell is reading this thing anyway?

I’ll tell you who: spambots. When not eating old people’s medicine, they search the information superhighway for blogs to link to. Apparently, two found mine and one credited the post some other guy. If your so desparate for attention that you have to take credit for this crappy blog, you’ve officially hit an all-time low.

Sad news: YouTube.com had to take down a whopping 3 of the 4 videos from last week’s Funky Friday. You know, unless there are upcoming Kid ‘n Play and K-Solo DVD’s that I don’t know about or BET started showing a decent “Old-School” day while I’m still avoiding that channel, removing the videos is bass-ackwards. If it was from a request from the record companies, then they’re idiots. Having those videos on YouTube.com is pretty much free advertising on one of the most popular websites ever. It’s a shame to think that future generations may never know the glory that is the Funky Beat Puppet.

Funky Friday will be a once-in-a-while thing that I’ll do (if I have the time that week) to post links YouTube videos. No, I’m not going to embed them, because that can lock up some folks browsers. Each Funky Friday will have a theme or a music style that links them together. This week, it’s all Hip-Hop. No, not that crap that you hear on the radio. I’m taking you back to a time when even Mainstream Hip-Hop was still worth a damn.

Kid ‘n Play - Gettin’ Funky - Some may know them from the House Party movies or their Sealab 2021 appearance, but heads from the late 80’s/early 90’s knew Kid n’ Play from funky joints like this. That little combo dance move they do at the end is the ‘Kick Step’ and a lot of people around here knew how to do that. I knew how to do that, which will probably blow the mind out of anybody that didn’t know me from then. Yeah, once upon a time I had some decent boogie-down skillage.

Serious Lee Fine - Nothing Can Stop Us Now - In what’s probably the best ever sampling job ever done with “One Nation Under a Groove” by Funkadelic, these three emcees thow down on a level that puts most current pop rappers to shame. Oh, I forgot: mainstream Hip-Hop doesn’t have shame. Anyway, this group was highly slept-on even though this video was always on Yo! MTV Raps at the time. In fact, I could never find that album back then, either, so distribution may’ve failed them. Speaking of Yo! MTV Raps, Ed Lover used to constantly make fun of the one guy’s hat. Hey, I like that hat. The group eventually appeared on the show and the results were pretty funny. I have it on tape somewhere and I’ll convert it once I find it.

K-Solo - Spellbound - Back when rappers were still exploring the art of the rhyme, K-Solo took the idea of spelling in the middle of a rhyme, expanded it into a song and did it without sounding like an disjointed idiot. He didn’t just spell a word in the middle of a rhyme, but he did it in a way where the letters became a part of the rhythm AND the rhyme. Give it a listen, trip out to that rhyme style and, damn, funk out to that beat.

Whodini - Funky Beat - We kicked it off with funk and so shall we end it. When I was a kid, Whodini was my favorite group, period. I’ll eventually do an entire post on Whodini. For now, just dig the only music video on Earth to feature the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dinosaurs, multiple chef hats (a true primal element of comedy), the ‘Funky Beat puppet’ and Thedore Huxtable.

That’s enough for today. With any luck, I’ve made your Friday a much funkier experience. Have a good weekend!

edit: found new version of a vid that was deleted after the post was made