Song of the Week: Common – “The Bitch In Yoo”

Regardless of the internet bootlegging, next week is the official release of Common’s Finding Forever. Also this week Common was named 9th as one of the “Hottest MC’s in the Game” by the MTV News hip-hop brain trust. This all made me think about one of Common’s older songs and one of the best diss sings of all time, “The Bitch In Yoo”. We all the know the story behind the song, but for those who don’t…

“The Bitch in Yoo” is a single and diss song released by rapper Common in 1996. Over a beat produced by Pete Rock that samples “Light My Fire” by Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, Common responds to verbal attacks by Westside Connection and its lead rapper Ice Cube. He claims that Ice Cube has not released a “dope” album since Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, that too many of Ice Cube’s beats sample George Clinton songs and that Cube took Common’s lyrics from “I Used to Love H.E.R.” out of context. In “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” Common partially blamed hip hop’s decline in quality on its movement to the West Coast and alluded to Boyz n the Hood, a movie starring Ice Cube. This caused Ice Cube’s group to release “Westside Slaughterhouse”, to which Common responded with “The Bitch in Yoo.”

Thanks Wikipedia! When I listen to this song today, I tend to compare it to Jay-Z’s “Takeover”. Download and/or listen and tell me which one is better.