Saigon, "Get Busy"

Things are finally looking up for Saigon. A few years ago, the hard-knock NYC rapper looked like he was about to become a big star. After a string of very strong mixtapes, he signed with Atlantic Records through producer Just Blaze’s Fort Knocks Entertainment, and, in 2005, landed a recurring role on HBO’s “Entourage,” while readying his first album, The Greatest Story Never Told.
Unfortunately, that title took on unintended irony when, due to a variety of problems — mostly, probably, the demise of the major-label system — the project was delayed and delayed and then shelved. Saigon wrote a famous post bemoaning the record industry on his Myspace page under the heading “I Quit.”

Come February, all these years later, his album is finally going to come out, thanks to a partnership between Fort Knocks and the independent Suburban Noize Records. As a warm up, he has a new EP, Yardfather’s Prologue, which includes the above “Get Busy,” an excellent example of storytelling rap set to a beat made from the sounds of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. video game.

The beat is ingenious. But it’s not at all the first time Super Mario has been so flipped. Producer DJ Rob, for one, used it for Cocoa Brovaz 1999 underground classic, “Super Brooklyn.”

And here’s Nintendo’s original, in action, which makes me wish that Saigon’s video was not shot in black and white. All those great pixely colors!