Few hip hop veterans are more qualified to be the subject of a graphic novel than MF Grimm. For those unfamiliar with his compelling story, I’ll summarize it briefly: Percy Carey was born and raised in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and through connections with his neighbor Morgan Freeman, was a regular child cast member of Sesame Street for four years. As he entered his teens his business interests shifted to those of the illegal variety and around the turn of the ’90s, Carey’s reputation as a notorious drug dealer was matched by his skills as a ferocious battle rapper; he supplemented his income from the narcotics trade by ghostwriting and working with everyone from Kool G Rap to MF Doom. Then, in ‘94, while being courted by several major labels and on the cusp of blowing up, Grimm was shot seven times, leaving him blind, deaf, and paralyzed from the waist down. He recovered his sight and hearing and continued to write and record for the remainder of the decade, yet he still requires a wheelchair for mobility. Grimm was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000 for narcotics conspiracy charges, was released three years later, and is currently focused on overseeing the operations of his label, Day by Day Entertainment, which releases his material.

The handful of 12″’s that Grimm recorded during the ’90s were gathered and released by Day by Day two years ago on a collection titled Scars and Memories (2005), which is about as essential as breathing for heads like me who used to regularly fantasize about a hungry Grimm verbally destroying tracks by producers like Doom and Rob Swift (for proof, hear his devastating first single “So Watcha Want” from ‘93). The A side of one of those original platters was called “Get Down” and was released in ‘96 on the underground Dolo Records. The track is about as close as Grimm achieved to a club hit, which is to say it barely registered at all, but it’s a fascinating cut nonetheless for its half-assed and ultimately failing intentions (packing the dance floor) yet has aged much more gracefully than any of its peers from that era (ahem, Bad Boy Entertainment).

The production on “Get Down” was handled by the legendary turntablist and studio wizard Dr. Butcher, and was obviously influenced by the sound of A Tribe Called Quest’s then-popular Beats, Rhymes & Life (1996): plenty of electric keys, subterranean bass thuds, and swinging, downtempo grooves. Butcher’s beat consists of a two-bar loop of a minor-keyed chord progression outlined by a Fender Rhodes, emphasized by pedal bass hits and an uncomplicated, no-frills drum pattern; the only variation occurs when the keys drop out for a brief four-bar spell at the beginning of the second verse. Grimm is joined here by guest DJ E-Kim, who supplies the run-of-the-mill “Everybody on the floor, throw your hands up” hook for the chorus and echoes a few of the MC’s lines during the verses.

What’s so odd about “Get Down” are Grimm’s unusual lyric patterns in his verses, to say nothing of his overall disposition here: he doesn’t exactly seem amped or committed to an attempt at a club banger, yet he’s not completely resistant either. E-Kim opens the track with some standard exerpts from the DJ lexicon before Grimm begins:

Days of Alazay, nights of Cristal
Champagne corks bust like your pis-tals
Feelin’ good, sit back, wine, dine
Watch the diamonds glitter, gold shine
Expensive games we play
Mad shout outs coming from the DJ
Some come as couples and others single
DJ scratch it in, everybody jingle

Grimm opens his verse by reciting a laundry list of time-honored hip hop standbys: guns, jewelry, alcohol – nothing new here. What’s so unique about it lies not in the content, but Grimm’s delivery (I’ve underlined the syllables that fall on every downbeat). Around the third bar, he begins to shift his rhyme scheme two beats so that the rhymes fall in the middle of the bars rather than toward the end. What at first appears to be accidental is revealed to be intentional; note the casual but methodical pacing of the words and how Grimm pauses after the word “expensive” to preserve the pattern.

A lot of players party, game’s tight
But jealous motherfuckers only come to start fights
You’s a bigger nigga, ignore it
They’re broke, mad at you for it
Eye on bottle, really want to pour it
Throat’s so dry, playa haters don’t know why
They can play too if they really try
There’s enough for everyone to have a slice of pie
To the bar, more drinks we buy
“How we live?” Live the good life ‘til the day we die.

Grimm continues this inverted rhyme scheme, hesitating before the downbeats and progressing in short, compact phrases rather than extending ideas and thoughts. The second half of the first verse is dominated by his exploration of two vowel sounds: “-or” and “y,” the latter of which is exhausted for five bars. He slows his pacing for the line, “Playa haters don’t know why,” which suddenly brings him back to a standard rhyme pattern for the last four bars; the change in feel is subtle yet noticeable. E-Kim then enters with the party chants before the second verse:

My crew’s representing jitty
Exotic women, perfume, dress pretty
See the DJ, he got the music flowing
Party over here, Soul Train line going, have no fear
Ladies hypnotize with bootys on the low
Players smile with cuties, dress spandex
So you know the ass out, niggas sweaty
Drunk about to pass out, but fuck that
Hear a favorite song, to the floor, stagger back
With the slight ditty-bop though, stepping like The Mack
Bitches roll in packs, eyes on money stacks
All dime pieces, none seem wack
Soul come through speakers as sound
Can you feel it? Can you feel the love all around?

Compared to the off-kilter rhyme patters of the first verse, the second is more conventional but not by much, as Grimm can’t resist playing with the downbeat for the first eight bars. As he depicts the atmosphere in the club, he strangely eschews elaborate descriptions for direct, almost dumbed-down outlines like, “ladies hypnotize with bootys,” “dress spandex,” and “hear a favorite song.” The whole thing seems like it was penned in less time than it took to record it, a sentiment that is carried over into the third verse:

Look – you come in here to have fun, don’t act up
No wins, you’re outgunned a thousand to one
Represent Monsta Island, shine like the sun
Parties rock straight from start, continue, never done
Five families unite, become one
Invisible on map, the world we run
Accumulate the papers, nonbelievers left stunned.

Grimm drops a few references to his crew, organized crime, and his bank account before abruptly concluding the verse. At this point in the song his enthusiasm appears to have diminished for the party-over-here! vibe, though to his credit, his delivery and rhyme patterns remain consistent throughout. Perhaps he was aware of the song’s somewhat thin transparency during the recording, realizing that his style was better suited to “Emotions,” the record’s gullier B-side. Regardless, “Get Down,” remains more listenable than 95% of what qualifies as a ‘club banger’ today, and if anything, helps to further illustrate a curious transitional period for one of the ’90s most slept-on lyricists.

“Get Down” – MF Grimm 3:23 (Get Down/Emotions 12″, Dolo 1996)