...Speaking of fanatical behavior, I might be receiving some angry complaints and/or threats from P.M. Dawn enthusiasts because of this week’s featured bootleg, the eclectic hip-hop duo’s unreleased 2000 album “Fucked Music” (available through next Friday). There are only a limited number of copies in existence, and to the fans who have the actual CD I’d like to say, “Fantastic! You own a collector’s item.” But for casual fans who didn’t hear much about P.M. Dawn after 1998’s Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad, their follow-up album with the less church-friendly title may come as a complete surprise. At the risk of sounding blasphemous, if God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, can’t the chosen ones of the P.M. Dawn fan club give their less fortunate online brethren a gift as well?
Think of “Fucked Music” as P.M. Dawn’s attention-grabbing
“mixtape,” only it arrived at the end of their string of studio albums rather than the beginning. The audio on the MP3s I was given isn’t perfect — there are digital pops and hiccups — and I accidentally deleted the final track, “Hope,” though it only amounts to a few seconds of silence, a riddle like the title track of
Sly & the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.”Is there really no hope of “Fucked Music” getting a proper release? There’s also the matter of “The Jim Sullivan Syndrome,” originally set for release in 2003. It was preceded in the fall of ‘02 by a single called “Amnesia,” one of the best soul songs I heard all decade — P.M. Dawn’s MC, Prince Be, is a good rapper, but he’s a great singer — but 2003 came and went without any new album in stores.
So, for anyone who’s been jonesing to hear new music from P.M. Dawn since the Clinton years but didn’t realize any existed, here’s your chance. I’ve also included “Amnesia” since it’s no longer available for purchase — and because a song this transporting deserves to be heard. But all of P.M. Dawn’s studio albums and their best-of compilation, as well as the self-released
Greatest Hits Live, are available at
iTunes, so please throw down some money there when you get a chance.
Prince Be could probably use the financial help: according to P.M. Dawn’s DJ, Doc G (he replaced DJ Minutemix in 2006), at
pmdawnonline.com, Be had a stroke on July 4, 2008, and another one seven months later. He suffered his first stroke in 2005, and in 1992 he went into a coma for three days, after which he learned he was diabetic. Be is now on dialysis because of his 2008 stroke, and his right leg was amputated below the kneecap due to a gangrene infection that cropped up after his third stroke.
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