R&B singer Tank dropped his This Is How I Feel album (purchase it on itunes here) this week. But even though he’s all about the smooth R&B and we are all about Hip-Hop here, The Source married the two worlds by asking Tank about his favorite Hip-Hop tracks. Drum roll, please…
1. LL Cool J’s “My Radio”
I rewound that tape a thousand times, until I knew every lyric. And I’d go outside and rap the song like it was my song. Because I was a rapper when I was a kid. I’d rap against all the old school gangsters, the vice lords, gangster desciples. I was a young kid doing raps, killing it. I had a rap called “Rated R” I used to do my other raps, but when it was crunch time they’d say ‘drop that rated r on ’em.’ I only got beat one time with rated r, that was the only time.
2. Digital Underground “Humpty Dance”
That was one of my first concerts and it was so amazing to me. Nobody has done it to this day, where you actually had a character in a group. Shock G was Humpty, but I didn’t know it. I’m a kid so I didn’t know. So all of a sudden shock g comes on stage doing his thing then he disappears. Then humpty comes out with the fur and the big noise and I bugged out. That was crazy.
3. Run DMC “My Adidas”
I couldn’t afford Adidas at the time and everybody in the neighboorhood would talk about me. Because I didn’t have any adidas, but I really loved the song. I knew the words to the song, but didn’t have no damn Adidas.
4. N.W.A. “Straight Outta Compton”
Mind you, I wasn’t supposed to listen to this stuff. So all I knew was the videoversion, the clean version. So I go to school thinking I’m doing it singing all the clean words and everyones like, ‘that’s not the words!’ So I go to my friend’s house to listen to the explicit versions of all the NWA records. I thought I was NWA’d out. The Raiders became my favorite team b/c they always had Raiders gear on.
5. Drake “Best I Ever Had”
I was kind of in between albums, and when you’re in between albums the heat kind of dies down a little. So people were like, ‘Have you heard this dude Drake talking about you?’ And I’m like, ‘Nah, what are you talking about?’ So months go by, and my baby mother was like, ‘Have you heard Drake? He mentions you in a song.’ I’m like ‘No, is it hot?’ And she’s like ‘Yeah he’s on fire.” So she burned the mixtapes and I’m listening to the songs, then I play ‘Best I Ever Had’ and he hits the ‘Sex, Love, and Pain baby I be on some Tank shit’. I said ‘I’m back! I’m back!’ The record goes to #1 and I’m in the club and I’m poppin to that bottles song, but only when that song comes on (laughs).
–@DamnAnthony
