King of New York

PSK, we're makin that green
People always say, "What the hell does that mean?"
P for the people who can't understand
How one homeboy became a man...

With the Rockies sweep of the Mets, and their previous sweep of the Yankees, they were dubbed "Kings of New York" by the local sports rag after their 6-0 shellacking of Gotham's two teams. It got me thinking of the 1990 classic gangster flick King of New York:

-The title character, portrayed by Christopher Walken, inspired Biggie Smalls to adopt the character's name, Frank White, as one of his aliases. Easily one of the slickest MC aka's ever.

-The film only netted $2 million at the box office before becoming a VHS/DVD cult classic, especially among the Hip Hop set.

-The music of gangsta rap pioneer, Schoolly D, is featured throughout the film. Amond his joints played are "Saturday Night" and "Am I Black Enough For You?" from his earlier CD releases. He included the title track on his 1991 release "How A Blackman Feels." Peep the video

-David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Steve Buscemi, and Vanessa Angel all hold roles in their early careers. Lawrence Fishburne holds it down in his role of Jimmy Jump, his last before his breakout "Boyz N The Hood" role as Furious.

-In the initial DVD release, an included extra is about Schoolly D and his snowboarding passion.

-The film had to extensively edited to avoid an 'X' rating.

-Wesley Snipes lived in his car during production

-Schoolly D's track "Signifying Rapper" sampled the Led Zeppelin track "Kashmir." The band sued Schoolly and won a settlement. Ironically, Schooly's early tracks have been sampled by it seems like everyone in the game, most notably the track "Gucci Time"

-Perhaps Schoolly's conflict with rockers inspired his hits such as "I Don't Like Rock N Roll"
and "No More Rock N Roll." The term "long haired freaks better be on guard" was a popular refrain from my crew during our younger years.