Well it’s Friday the 13th once again and while it’s not as dark and spooky as Halloween night, it’s still a good excuse to invite someone over for “Netflix and Kill” and kick back with a movie marathon of one of the worlds most well-known horror franchises. Hip-hop and horror have had a somewhat patchy and strained relationship in the past apart from the brief honeymoon period in the 90’s when Def Jam brought out the Flatlinaz, Rza was wearing fangs and running with the Gravediggaz, Snoop chipped in with his Murder Was The Case film and soundtrack and Dr. Dre & Ice Cube raised hell with Natural Born Killaz. Since then there has been an almost deliberate distance between the hip-hop and horror cultures, perhaps the violence and struggles of everyday life are a harsher vision than any made up film can portray or perhaps it just got stale. Either way here are 5 times that hip-hop has given a nod to Jason and his antics in Camp Crystal Lake.
Big Daddy Kane – “Ain’t No Half Steppin'”
The Marley Marl produced classic from 1988’s Long Live The Kane had MC’s running when Big Daddy Kane dropped the “It’s Friday the 13th and I’ma play Jason” line referencing the franchise 8 years after the release of the original movie. Nicki Minaj also paid homage to this line and spat it on the Ludacris single ‘My Chick Bad’ in 2010.
Eminem, “3 a.m.”
Although the Detroit MC has also referenced Jason in his lyrics on more than one occasion it’s fair to say that the teen terrorizing character also inspired the onstage attire for Eminem’s live show, most notably on the tours surrounding the release of the now diamond selling and record-breaking album The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000.
A Tribe Called Quest – “Lyrics To Go”
The usually cool, calm and collected Q-Tip hit us with “Bogle at the party then you got the bogle-ation/ decapitatin’ foes yo as if my name was Jason” an unusually violent threat and the calm demeanor in which it was delivered made it all the more unsettling.
Jay Z – “Regrets”
The Brooklyn legends debut LP put the fear into his hip-hop contemporaries with this 14-track classic. On the last track, ‘Regrets’, Jay-Z cemented the fact that he was here to take heads with the line “My hand got this pistol shakin’/ cause I sense danger like Camp Crystal Lake”.
DMX – “The Omen”
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – “Thug Luv featuring 2Pac”
Big L – “Da Graveyard” featuring Lord Finesse, Jay-Z, Microphone Nut, Party Arty and Grand Daddy I.U.
What do these 3 songs all have in common? Well, they all sample Harry Manfredini’s original Friday the 13th theme song. The Swizz Beats produced DMX track from his 1998 number 1 album Flesh of my Flesh, Blood of my Blood utilized the brooding sample as a backdrop to Marylin Manson’s guest vocals in the controversial collaboration. The epic posse cut from Big L’s classic Lifestylez Ov Da Poor And Dangerous actually has someone replaying it as an ad lib in the breakdown during a young Jay-Z’s verse. Finally, if you listen closely you can hear the chanting in between the gunshots and drum hits that play home to the adrenaline pumping verses of 2Pac and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on their quadruple platinum double album The Art Of War.
