Song of the Week: Smoothe Da Hustler feat. Trigga Tha Gambler – “Broken Language”

This week, let’s take it back to 1995/1996. Even though the West Coast was still doing their thing, a slew of new “second tier” New York artist were making a little noise. In this category you can throw in rappers like Mic Geronimo, Royal Flush, Blahzay Blahzay, and…Smoothe Da Hustler with his brother Trigga Tha Gambler. Now, like most of these artists I’ve mentioned, Smoothe and Trigga had only one hit, but what a banger it was. Smoothe Da Hustler’s “Broken Language” was a whole song full of adjectives and descriptions over a hard rugged New York beat that was creative but still street and brought a kind of freshness to the game. Even though the duo never recaptured the glory of their first hit, at least they gave us this. Craziest line? “The gun seller, the chest sweller, the stick up smack bank teller, the money-back dweller, the stitch provider, the guess rider, the clip inserter, bullet shooter exporter, the man next to murder…”