Don't be a dangler

I'm not sure what's best about Too $hort's "I Ain't Trippin'"-- the insidious bassline, the way $hort pretty much mumbles/whispers all of the lyrics or Mark Curry's adlibs. Probably the adlibs, which perfectly capture the feel of Oakland at the time.

A few years later, Berkeley rapper Mac Mill came out with another single featuring a pre-"Hangin with Mr. Cooper" Curry riffing on street life and, in particular, danglers.


Mac Mill: "Straight Dangler" (No Question, 1990)

Danglers are still with us, but sadly, the word "dangler" has pretty much passed from the lexicon, although E-40 did drag it out of the mothballs for the Federation's "Hyphy" in 2003. Hopefully he'll include it in the slang dictionary he's been promising to publish since about that time.

As for Mill, I don't think he has put out anything since like 1995, when he released the EP with "Arabian Hump" on it. [I have a vague recollection of that song making the local news and Mac Mill explaining that he was shocked, shocked I tell you, at the controversy, because he was just imitating dudes who owned the local liquor stores-- anybody else remember that?] A couple years ago, I was surprised to read that my man Lyrics Born was in a crew with Mill in the dangler era, but when I asked Tom about Mill, but he said they lost touch years ago.