Black Rob 'Permanent Scars' (2004)

I love this track. I was only made aware of it last year and recently Mike Nice has been kind enough to hook me up with the full length, untagged version. I was originally put onto it by esteemed blogger The Martorialist so its only right I hand over to him on this one...

Realistically, I only have 2 claims to fame in this internet-Rap shit : originating "Hennessey/enemies" 2pac jokes and being the first person to upload Permanent Scars by Black Rob to the 'net after my friend Bradley brought me the Kay Slay mixtape it originally appeared on back from NYC in summer 2004. I've since managed to lose the CD but, for the record, it was the same 'tape that Juelz's Red Bandana freestyle debuted and the 2 songs were mixed together as a shining beacon in amongst a plethora of shitty freestyles by Papoose, Grafh and J-Hood.

Permanent Scars, the original title of Black Rob's shelved 2nd album, ended up being rebilled as Live From The Eastside when it reappeared on Kay Slay's essential The Return Of Black Rob collection in late 2004 (which included many of the tracks recorded for the B.R album like Business Never Personal; probably the only time you'll hear a Neptunes production being used as a hookless storytelling joint) and it comes with some prime Rap-nerd trivia since Heavy D resold the beat to Beanie Sigel for Feel It In The Air after the B.R song ended up in mixtape purgatory, and Feel It.. went on to become a minor hit as well as one of the greatest Emo-Rap jams of the last decade.

Beanie's take is the superior cut, but Permanent Scars/Live From The Eastside is a mixtape classic and there are enough differences between the two songs that you can enjoy them both as separate entities anyway. Thanks to Mike Nice for unearthing this untagged version, although it's pretty weird to hear it with no Kay Slay bellowing after it's been a personal favourite of mine these past near-eight years.



Thanks to Mike Nice and The Martorialist on this one.