Freestyle Fellowship f/ The Heavyweights – “Heavyweights“

from Inner City Griots (4th & B’way, 1993)

Aceyalone, Spoon Iodine & CVE – “Jurassick“

from Project Blowed Compilation (Project Blowed, 1994)

Spoon Iodine – “Dollar Bill”

Spoon Iodine – “Dollar Bill (Live Accapella)“

unreleased (199?)

Spoon Iodine – “Anti-Christ“

from Tags Of The Time 3 (Mary Joy, 2001)

Omid f/ Spoon – “I’m Just A Bill“

from Monolith (Mush, 2003)

Some interesting Good Life / Project Blowed discussion has been going over at the Ning site promoting the This Is The Life documentary (now on DVD! I just ordered one yesterday.) In particular I wanted to highlight this post from Abstract Rude about Spoon Iodine. Spoon was one of the more enigmatic emcees from that camp. After demolishing Freestyle Fellowship’s “Heavyweights” (”style messiah / hot like a volcano with fire”) he basically disappeared, give or take a small handful of hiss heavy dubs and a brief turn of the century resurgence with producer Omid. We’ve talked about him here before, so I figured I’d just up the bulk of his catalog and let Ab fill in the blanks after the jump.

Well, I never really got to know the brother that well, but I have vibed with him on occasion. What I do know of him is all 2nd hand info from Acey & Myka… about Teaspoon of Iodine his full artist name and Eric something his real name: to my knowledge he was from the Bay Area i think Oakland, CA. He moved to LA sometime in like the 80s and became a junior high school classmate of Microphone Mike & Aceyalone, Acey was known as some other MC name back then, something E because his name was Eddy. Anyways, according to Acey and Mike; Spoon or Eric had a unique skill set – he could rap & beatbox at the same time kinda by inserting words around the beats his mouth was creating (superb breath control), and simultaneously beating on his chest and/or on a lunch table, and wouldn’t lose his rhythm at all. That’s hard to do – try it if u don’t believe me.

So anyways, Mike & Ed were already rhyming finding their voices, however intrigued by Spoon’s hip hop savvy: he was the 1st they had seen record himself beatboxing on one radio tape deck, then using that tape as his soundtrack to then record himself rapping over the beat – ghetto studio-ing it in other words – now that I had even tried and figured out in ‘84 as a young kid myself. They soon formed a group: The MC Aces, one of their oldest routines being a fun little ditty called Mike, Eric & Eddie – get it now? That idea for us to do Mike, Aaron & Eddie was like a 20 year old MC Aces jack when we re-did it in 2004. Crazy right? Of course I was honored to kind of stand in for Spoon, and nervous that he’d hear it and be like, “Aww fuck that shit” ala Etta James vs. Beyonce, lol. I’m still waiting for a response I guess. And when they disbanded post high school, Eddie’s nostalgia wouldn’t let him kill the memory of the group so he became Aceyalone – the sole Ace from the Aces.

But honestly man, they had so many dope routines, that was just 1. I even think Mike & Acey implemented some techniques the 3 of them had as the Aces into the FF vibe, which is what made that so dynamic. So to be real…Spoon is like a MAJOR unsung style contributor of our whole shit. And when u listen to all his old or even new demos, u hear that choppy, patterned cadence that was coined as an FF flow – he helped birth that shit and never stopped rhyming like that or even caring about the mainstream or even underground success that came from it. I think he is forever dope and has 1 of the illest voices to ever spit.

Today, I believe he resides in Modesto, CA, married maybe, but again, Acey knows more than me about what he’s up to now.

Now who has a rip of Spoon’s homonegativity anthem “I Bash” for me? I see you, Aurich.