6000 Songs: Mike Jones - Still Tippin'

Post Reply
User avatar
Rob
Die Mensch Maschine
Posts: 7350
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2012 3:53 pm
Location: Nijmegen, The Netherlands

6000 Songs: Mike Jones - Still Tippin'

Post by Rob »

This topic is part of the weekly 6000 songs, 6000 opinions. In this, every week another song from the Acclaimed Music song top 6000 is selected for discussion. The song is chosen completely at random, through random.org, making the selections hopefully very varied. The only other rule in this is that after an artist has had a turn, he can’t appear for another ten weeks. The idea for this topic came to me because I wanted to think of a way to engage more actively with the very large top 6000 songs that Henrik has compiled for us, while still keeping it accessible and free of any game elements. Yes, that’s right, no game elements. You are free to rate the song each week, but I’ll do nothing with this rating. I want it to be about people’s personal reviews and hopefully discussions. So in reverse to other topics on this site I say: “Please comment on this song, rating is optional”.
Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Mike Jones, the one and only/ You can't clone me”

Image

87. Mike Jones – Still Tippin’

The facts:
Year: 2004.
Genre: Hip-hop.
Country: United States of America.
Album: Who Is Mike Jones?.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #2611.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 1st, the only one.
Ranks higher than Crimewave by Crystal Castles, but lower than Icky Thump by The White Stripes.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.

The people:
Written by Michael Allen Jones, Paul Wall, Stayve “Slim Thug” Thomas & Salih Williams.
Produced by Salih Williams.
Vocals by Mike Jones, Slim Thug & Paul Wall.

The opinion:
Mike Jones’ debut album was titled Who Is Mike Jones?. You might or might not have asked yourself this question before, but Mike Jones was sure you would know by the end. Indeed, nowadays his self-promotion is perhaps more famous than his music. Not only did he mention his own name no less than 98 times (!) during the whole album, he actually printed his cell phone number in the liner notes of the CD (281-330-8004 for the curious among you). He also spread around t-shirts with the same number on it, just so you could always reach him. Indeed, this wasn’t a hoax, this was his actual phone number. It still is as far as we can tell, but apparently in recent years he’s no longer so prone to answering.

If you think that I tried calling that number to find out you are mistaken. Calling to the US from the Netherlands is too expensive to simply call to someone who I really don’t care about. That’s the tragedy about Who Is Mike Jones?: nothing on that album made me want to know who he is. In fact, his continuous repeat of “Who? Mike Jones!” became unintentionally hilarious and a little pathetic. Despite the critical and commercial success of lead single Still Tippin’, the album itself wasn’t well received by critics, although it sold very well. A returning criticism was that Mike Jones didn’t have much to say and continued repeating himself. Believe me, this complaint is very much earned.

It seems like self-promotion is the only modus operandi Jones knew. That’s unfair, as the album ended on the touching ode Grandma. Still, most of the time there isn’t much to Mike Jones’ lyrics but some surprisingly mild boasting. What does he boast about? Actually being Mike Jones of course, because being Mike Jones is an achievement in itself.

On Still Tippin’ he adds a few details that show how interesting he is. He rides the Los Angeles metro line 44. He rides a car too, freshly painted and with “supreme” gasoline. He flips his finger and sips syrup. This impresses the ladies, as stated in the line: “Back then hoes didn't want me/ Now I'm hot, hoes all on me”. Mike Jones was particularly impressed by this lyric and he doesn’t just repeat it three times in this songs, but several times again on his second single, Back Then.

That line about hoes was mentioned as a highlight by several critic and audience reviews I read. I guess that might be a sign of the rift I feel between me and people who hold this song up as a modern hip-hop classic. Every time that line comes up I cringe. I’m not particularly fond of lyrics centred on boasting, but this all strikes me as particularly silly. Whether he is referring to actual prostitutes or females in general (I suspect the latter), it only shows he is not a natural if it comes to accompanying women.

It is also the only bad moment to me in Still Tippin’. Otherwise I find it simply unremarkable.The beat is forgettable. The short, repeated violin sample from William Tell Overture is described as hypnotic by several critics, but I find the execution to sloppy to work in such a way. It loops to slow. Mike Jones delivers only one of three verses. The first goes to Slim Thug and the last to Paul Wall. Both of them actually sound a little more charismatic than Mike Jones and their lines are more memorable, if not quite great.

It should be noted that this song was originally recorded with Chamillionaire instead of Paul Wall. This version was released on a promotional CD by Rap-A-Lot Records. Quickly after, Mike Jones and Chamillionaire broke off their friendship because the latter accused Mike Jones of being an unreliable friend. For that reason Mike Jones rerecorded the song for the single release and switched Chamillionaire with Wall. The version with Wall is the famous one, the hit, and it is the only one officially available. The earlier recording can still be found on YouTube though and honestly, Chamillionaire is a more distinctive rapper than anyone else involved here, even if he sounds perhaps a little too much like André 3000.

This all doesn’t matter, because this song was meant to announce Mike Jones to the world. But wait a minute, if this is the purpose than why is this song so dependent on Slim Thug? Not only does he get the first verse, he also deliver the chorus. To complicate matters, the song as a whole is based on Slim Thug’s I’m a Hoe Freestyle, a track from his 1998 mixtape I Represent This. That song isn’t sampled here, but copied for a large part. Why isn’t this seen as a Slim Thug record featuring Mike Jones, instead of otherwise? Seriously, he seems the main creative force here and his rapping squashes Mike Jones’.

I have no proof for it, but maybe it was a promotional trick. Maybe Mike Jones seemed more marketable? There was quite something riding on this song. It was recorded in Houston, whose hip-hop scene wasn’t widely recognized in the US. This song was meant to change that and showcase some of Houston’s finest. Perhaps Mike Jones seemed like the guy to lead the Houston invasion at the time. This promotion of Houston hip-hop was moderately successful. Still Tippin’ and the album were hits and other local rappers, including Slim Thug and Paul Wall, had briefly got the spotlight put on them. I’m no expert on this matter, but as I understand it, national interest in the Houston scene had completely expired again within two years.

Perhaps these people were a little too reliant on the success of Still Tippin’? When Paul Wall released his own album a year later he named it The Peoples Champ, after one of his line on this song. One of the tracks was named Internet Goin’ Nutz, another reference to his Mike Jones collaboration. It samples Still Tippin’, as does I’m a Playa. A year later Wall made a track with Obscene named Hoes Wanna Know, which again contains a sample of the song that made his name.

Slim Thug also can’t seem to be able to let this song go. He recorded an uncut version of it and sampled it on his song Creepin, whose title is once again a reference to this song, or his earlier I’m a Hoe Freestyle. I understand that you are proud of your first hit, but I think the way Paul Wall and Slim Thug kept circling back to it might have been a bit too much. Hell, even Chamillionaire recorded a new version of it and he was never associated with the hit.

Then there is Mike Jones himself, whose career quickly slowed down. He featured on many, many remixes and rerecorded versions of Still Tippin’. He didn’t rush real new material. In 2007 there was the EP The American Dream, which also included a film about Mike Jones’ life. This EP contained some new songs, but the centrepiece was once again Still Tippin’. Not a rerecording, still the same version as on the album from three years earlier. Give people a break. A real new album followed in 2009, which thank goodness included no sample of Still Tippin’. Since then Mike Jones only took a guest spot on a couple of other people’s song. In 2014 a new album was announced and according to some rumours it is already finished for years. The title will be Where Is Mike Jones?. That is a better title than his first.

Forgive me my arrogance, but this whole back story and the subsequent ventures (or lack thereof) of Mike Jones and his pals just highlights what I felt all week while listening to Still Tippin’: that there just isn’t much to it. I don’t dislike the song so much as that I am completely indifferent to it. Then again, this isn’t really the type of hip-hop I like all that much and the only thing I can really hold against is that it didn’t make me care regardless of my tastes (which sometimes happens). The song was big back in its day, though I don’t recall it, but that might be because it wasn’t big in The Netherlands. The many times it is still sampled shows that it isn’t forgotten in the rap community. The Acclaimed Music Forum is another matter. We recently had a poll for the best songs of 2004 here and the song didn’t get a single mention.

At least now I know who Mike Jones is.
5/10

Other versions:
I already extensively discussed the ways this song was covered and sampled by its own creators. There are also several remixes and versions in which guest stars are added or switched around. None of these add anything meaningful or change the original song too much. It just shows that this song has a grip on its five creators (yes, producer Salih Williams is as obsessed with it as the four rappers) that make it seem like its cursed.

Rap songs get rarely covered. Why would anyone else want to say that he is Mike Jones anyway? Still, Slim Thug’s lines have struck a chord. Not only does his chorus get sampled a lot, many rappers repeat his first few lines. Other lyrics, like the reference to the Nintendo GameCube or Paul Wall’s “internet goin’ nuts” get varied on a lot. Mike Jones usually gets ignored here. Still, the flow, the beat and the violin sample get copied a lot. There are several songs here that seem covers in loose sense: the song sounds exactly the same but the lyrics are changed. See Arabic Assassin and Magnificent for example, or the Dutch-language translation by Zwart Licht. There is even Still Tippin’ 2017 by Lucky Luciano and Simes Carter, a real modern update in a higher tempo.

None of this is done badly, but perhaps because I don’t care about the original I find myself not caring about any of these covers. I guess that for everyone who does care about Still Tippin’ there is this extensive playlist full of treasures below.

The playlist:


Slim Thug’s I’m a Hoe Freestyle, which forms the basis for Still Tippin’:
The first recording with Chamillionaire:
Post Reply

Return to “Music, Music, Music...”