I was diggin around in my crates and pulled out this old 12-inch single from 1997. I bought this because HDM aka Hype Da Madman was from Staten Island, and at the time I was ALL about anything even remotely Wu-Tang related. The b-side Real MC’s was produced by Nick Wiz under the alias Nik The Wiz. For those who don’t know, Nick Wiz has a lengthy track record including beats for Rakim, Cella Dwellas, and Mad Skillz.
As per a video by Nick Wiz himself, the beat for “Real MC’s” was given to Pharoahe Monch for an Organized Konfusion song. HDM pressed up the single without telling him and Pharoahe heard it, getting pretty upset with Nick Wiz.
This wasn’t the first time HDM ran into some bad luck. Apparently, he was on the original version of Mobb Deep‘s “Right Back At You” from Infamous. Prodigy didn’t like his first and asked him to change it. HDM basically told him f off and he was removed from the song and replaced with Ghostface and Raekwon. Classic case of when keeping it real goes wrong!
Regardless, this single is pretty dope so take a listen. When researching info for this article, I did a search on the single on Discogs. For whatever reason, the single goes for $50 to $100!? Maybe I should sell my copy…