MC 900 Ft. Jesus – One Step Ahead Of The Spider (1994) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

I've been wanting to write a few words about Mark Griffin, the crazy Texan behind the nickname MC 900 Ft. Jesus, for some time now, but my memory, corroded by years of excess, never reminded me. Until today.

Griffin got his start in music in the early 1980s as a member of a new wave/ska band called The Phones, but it was between 1990 and 1994, as MC 900, that he released three great albums in which he fused rap with whatever he felt like, from industrial to jazz, from dance music to rock, and he never really became known outside the addict ghetto in music, at least at one point it reached a larger audience: “If I only had a brain” went around the world on MTV, put the guy in the spotlight and what did he do right after that? It disappeared. Haha ha.

That song is on the guy's latest album, One step ahead of the spiderreleased exactly 30 years ago and the talk of the town here. In it, the MC opened up about his relationship with jazz/funk and spoken word that began in Welcome to my dream (from 91) and completely let go of the industrial hand that he held tightly in his debut, Hell with lid off, from 1990, where he was closer to people like Meat Beat Manifesto and Consolidated.

One step ahead of the spider It's based on muscular grooves and lazy vocals, difficult to label and delicious to listen to. If he had to put the record on an imaginary shelf it would be next to Beck, Tommy Guerrero, Miles Davis in the electrified phase and Beastie Boys; I think that with these references you can figure out what the MC 900 is like in its swan song.

But the best thing is to listen and get into the guy's trips. So turn up the volume and enjoy the trip!