Within 12 months of the Notorious B.I.G. taking him on the road, Smoothe Da Hustler had the hip-hop world at his feet. All due to this B-side. Fresh from crafting the grimy boom-bap behind M.O.P.’s debut To The Death, producer DR Period showed another string to his bow on ‘Broken Language’, flipping the bassline from Brass Construction’s ‘The Message (Inspiration)’ with a simple piano vamp and super hard snares. Above it real life blood brothers Smoothe Da Hustler and Trigger Tha Gambler traded tart verses, mangling words as they passed the mic between them like a live grenade. Far from a playground tussle to see who could come up with the craziest shit, their staccato lists and rhythmic phrases were riven with linguistic smarts and stark hyperreal imagery (random sample: “The white girl gang banger/The Virgin Mary fucker/The Jesus hanger…”), reflecting Smoothe’s aspiration to win at this new game after a recent prison bid. A swaggering flip that shook fans of all persuasions, it overshadowed the much funkier A-side ‘Hustlin’’, despite Smoothe serving up a clear raspy hook. Still, it was easy to understand why Profile put it on the B-side: how do you sell a dense, wordy 10-verse song with no discernible chorus? Little else on his rugged first LP Once Upon a Time in America was quite so elevated and Smoothe slipped behind the scenes (notably writing rhymes for a young Foxy Brown), his infamy assured.