Craig Mack’s flava (and the subsequent delivery into ya ear) emanated mainly from his flow. It was an unorthodox stream of slowly enunciated vowels and consonants that funneled toward his non-sequitur punchlines in a dat-dat-dat scamper. Paired with his trusty Suffolk County, Long Island lisp and sing-songy baritone, that flow helped Mack create his trademark robotic futuristic style. Today he’d be a RapCaviar favorite or a SoundCloud hero. When his 1994 breakout, “Flava in Ya Ear” arrived, however, there wasn’t a frequency invented yet to calibrate his sound.
After a cursory listen, you’d be forgiven if you thought his single was a DJ blend, a mix of his vocals with an indiscriminate beat underneath. Easy Mo Bee provided rollicking production, but Mack took less of a straight road down the funky soundscape. It made all the difference.
“Just. Like. Uniblaaaab/Robotic kicking flab/ My flavor bidder badder, chitter-chatter Madder than the Mad Hatter!”
Each intricate metered set of rhymes sounded like something ripped from a comic strip panel. They were packed with eye-wink references, nods to nostalgia and full stories in just two lines. He left you woozy nodding to his words instead of the beat.
His later releases never recaptured that magic (save, perhaps, his song-stealing verse on “Special Delivery” where he played Biggie’s to G.Dep’s Craig Mack), but the original Bad Boy’s legacy is secure. His early success set the course for Bad Boy Records eponymous run of hits and traces of his style can be found in the Lil Yachty’s and A$AP Ferg’s of today.
He won’t be around next year, but his flava will always remain brand new.