120. the Beatnuts - "Off the Books (ft. Big Pun and Cuban Link)" (Relativity, 1997)
I confess that until very recently I thought the sample in the chorus was "yooooo better watch yourself." Turns out it's "watch your step" and I can hear it so clearly that my original mishearing sounds very silly.
Anyways, this is notable for being one of Big Pun's first appearances on record, but even more notable for the beat, which is just sublime in its mid-90s rap simplicity. It's such a hooky beat; the main melody is one those 3 second loops that I could prolly play for 20 minutes. And the way the drums drop out after the 4th beat of every other measure gives it this odd quality, like a not perfectly round wheel rolling over.
(I was gonna say that the Rap City logo in this YouTube makes it a perfect, because there surely was a Rap City logo the first time I saw this video in real life. But then I looked closer and noticed it was a Rap City: tha bassment logo, which means it's a show from post 99. The Big Tigger era just wasn't the same as the Joe Clair/Big Lez era, no it wasn't.)
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