Where you are gifted a big ass compilation of songs and freestyles by a rapper who definitely falls into the underrated category. Like Beanie Sigel, Black Rob and The LOX it's likely that a lot of purist backpacker types ignored him because of his label affiliation, which makes you wonder if Big L would've received the same treatment had he lived to see his Rocafella deal bear fruit. Sauce Money is a very similar rapper to L in that they both are highly skilled in amusing punchlines with an undercurrent of extreme violence.
I first became a fan of Sauce after hearing him on Reservoir Dogs in '98 although obviously he'd been putting in work for a few years previously. A few solid 12"s followed, including the amazing Pre Game which was taken from the Belly soundtrack (realised I haven't included it here but assumed if most people have just 1 SM track it's that), but the 'Middle Finger U' album got delayed after some label nonsense and didn't drop until 2000. It's not bad at all but like a lot of albums from that era it's suffers from being pretty long. It does feature production by Marley Marl, Premier, Clark Kent, EZ Elpee and Spencer Bellamy though so worth picking up if you see it cheap. I've only included a couple of tracks from it on the comp, the rest is notable guest verses, a few loose 12" releases that usually involve one or both of Jay Z or Jaz O, and a bunch of freestyles. The 'Ave' ones are taken from Kay Slay's 'Best of Sauce Money' CD, as is the savage Nature dis (anyone know the backstory on that?). The other freestyles are mostly sourced from tapes I've ripped over the last few years so you may have those already but it's good having 'em all in one place innit?
"thought you was Chinese the way you duck Sauce"
(click the image to enlarge)
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