Happy 30th Anniversary to WC And The Maad Circle’s second & final studio album Curb Servin’, originally released October 3, 1995.
Most people associate Los Angeles hip-hop of the mid to late 1990s with Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Tha Dogg Pound. But Southern California generated a lot of dope music in the final five years of the 20th Century, much of it of the “gangsta rap” variety. One of those crews was WC And The Maad Circle, who delivered their underappreciated second album Curb Servin’ 30 years ago.
The Maad Circle was originally made up of William “WC” Calhoun, his brother Lamar “DJ Crazy Toones” Calhoun (R.I.P.), Garland “Big Gee” Celestine (R.I.P.), and Artis “Coolio” Ivey (R.I.P.). The group’s face was WC, who got his start as a member of Low Profile. He helped form the Maad Circle in the early 1990s, partnering with Ice Cube, who, at the time, had just left N.W.A.
Ain’t A Damn Thang Changed (1991), the Maad Circle’s first album, was a similarly underrated gem. It sounded like the spiritual sibling to Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990), in terms of subject matter and production, due in no small part to the fact that the album’s construction was overseen by Sir Jinx, who contributed heavily to Cube’s debut solo LP.
Curb Servin’ feels like a different animal. Though WC and crew carry over many of the thematic elements, along with the humor and lyrical bluntness, it’s a more straightforward affair. Rather than the dense approach to production used by Lench Mob affiliates Jinx and Chilly Chill, the beats on Curb Servin’ feature no frills and hit hard. DJ Crazy Toones handles the majority of the production this time out, occasionally joined by Madness 4 Real and Ice Cube himself. The beat-makers often utilize more familiar sample sources but utilize them in way where they sound fresh.
The Maad Circle line-up was a bit thinner for Curb Servin’. Coolio, of course, had released It Takes A Thief (1994), his debut project, the year before. He was in the midst of dominating radio waves and video channels throughout much of 1995 with his super-smash “Gangsta’s Paradise,” and recording his sophomore album of the same name. That left WC to hold down the vast majority of the lyrical duties, as Big Gee is still only credited for contributing background vocals. WC stands tall throughout Curb Servin’, effortlessly delivering serious doses of rugged street reality, some gallows humor, and a lot of straight-up emcee shit. The lyrics are often raw and honest in a way that few emcees were at the time.
WC delivers this candor throughout Curb Servin’, kicking “that local janky-ass junkyard funk” on songs like “Feel Me.” He sounds similarly energized on the Crazy Toones produced title track, calling out fakers and charlatans over a sample of the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” The Madness 4 Real produced “Taking Ova” is a defiant anthem, as WC calls out doubters on the album’s most G-Funk sounding track. “And to you rap critics who said I wouldn’t last?” he asserts. “I need to jump out the speakers and strangle your ass.”
“The One,” Curb Servin’s second single, is a smoother affair, musically. Flowing over a sample of Chocolate Milk’s “Girl Callin’,” WC delivers one of his strongest lyrical and stylistic performances. He spins a winding and twisting delivery, “taking this so called gangsta rap to another level.”
Listen to the Album:
WC teams with Ice Cube and Mack 10 on “West Up!”, the album’s first single. The song was an early test-drive for the Westside Connection supergroup that the three would form soon afterwards, built around the idea of West Coast artists demanding respect from their East Coast counterparts. Even though I still find the West Coast/East Coast beef from this era extremely fucking stupid, I do admit that “West Up” is dope, as all three drop verses to a Crazy Toones produced track that samples George Duke’s “Reach For It.”
Despite his often-serious demeanor, WC has always been a funny guy, and it’s reflected in some of the tracks on Curb Servin’. “Put On That Set” is the third best song about smoking angel dust from the 1990s, as WC describes his ridiculous hallucinations after getting blasted on some Coolio-supplied sherm. After spending an inordinate amount of time “standing in my drawers, in the hall, talking to walls,” he sees himself on a (still unplugged) TV, journeying through classic sitcoms and other late-night programming. He kicks game to Tiffany from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and wreaks havoc on the set of American Gladiators.
Coolio briefly returns to the fold on “In A Twist.” The pair trade verses while narrating a heist caper nearly gone wrong, as they attempt to rob a busload of churchgoing senior citizens on a shuttle bus to Las Vegas. The track showcases the strong chemistry that WC and Coolio had together on a track, navigating the ridiculousness of the situation to a sample of Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie.”
The darkly humorous “Kill A Habit” is one of the best songs about drug addiction ever. It zeroes in on how addiction impacts the family unit. I have no idea if WC really has/had a “basehead” for an older brother, but the visceral frustration and anger that he expresses sure feels real. As does the exasperation of the non-ending cycle of recovery and relapse. People who’ve had to deal with the addiction issues of someone they love can relate to the dichotomy of simultaneously fearing for their safety and pondering if things would just be easier by putting a bullet in their head. WC’s eventual revelation that “The only one to kill a habit is the one doing the crack” is a kernel of absolute truth that the long-running reality show Intervention was built around.
“Wet Dream” is a particularly potent entry, built around the premise of WC having a nocturnal emission while dreaming of an armed rebellion against the U.S. Government. He envisions a reality where 30,000 gang members unite to create “a horror flick for every motherfucker who dissed the Black.” The imagery is still shocking and brutal three decades later: former California Governor Pete Wilson gets dragged down the streets of Los Angeles naked behind a ’64 Impala, while General Colin Powell gets anally raped. WC then dreams of leading a full assault on Washington DC, hauling then President Bill Clinton back to South Central where he also meets a grisly demise. The over-the-top imagery serves its purpose, as WC laments that so many friends have succumbed to “gang violence created by the beast,” preferring the dream where “this bullshit ceased; we killed the real devil.”
The album’s more laidback fare is also excellent. WC takes a journey back to his ’hood on the Ice Cube-produced “Homesick,” which incorporates elements of the intro to Bootsy Collins’ “Can’t Stay Away” into the track. It functions as his own (IMHO, superior) version on “It Was A Good Day,” as WC decides to revisit his old haunts, rolling down the streets, “bumpin’ the oldies, lookin’ for the muthafuckin homies.” He doesn’t even sweat getting arrested and sent to jail for a few days over an old warrant, content that his day overall was well spent.
Curb Servin’ ends with “The Creator,” WC’s dedication to the higher power for looking out for him over the years (“’Cause you could have laid me down a long time ago / But you let me live, and God knows I ain’t an angel”). A lot of the song’s poignancy can be found in its first two verses, as he recounts his origins, “going through life with a permanent frown,” and reflects on how the paths and fortunes of himself and many of his childhood friends have diverged over the years.
Curb Servin’ would be the final WC and the Maad Circle album. WC would next focus his energies on Westside Connection, and eventually on his own solo career, eventually earning some of the biggest accolades and the most sales of his career. Curb Servin’ became the oft-forgotten link. While it ended up becoming a stepping stone for WC to move onto even bigger things, the album is dope on its own merits and should be celebrated for its excellence in execution.
Listen: