It’s Friday, so here’s the video for “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock?)” by Fu-Schnickens and Shaq

There was a brief period in the early nineties when some really amazing things were happening in the world of hip hop. But if you’re like me, then you were a little too into grunge to really invest yourself in it beyond the occasional Black Sheep track on AM radio or at a school dance.

Thankfully, it’s never too late to go digging through the archives. And I’d highly recommend it, at the risk of sounding old, because you’re going to hear a serious amount of skill in some of those old tracks.

Fu-Schnickens are sadly regarded as a blip on the hip hop radar these days, but back in the day they made a genuine dent. Watch the video for “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock?),” their most successful track, and you’ll get a real sense of the hip hop standard during the early nineties.

If Fu-Schnickens are doomed to be one of those hip hop acts that nobody’s heard of – except for all your favourite hip hop acts, of course – then I think it’s safe to say that’s more than good enough. And hell, they’ve got the skills to back it up.

And then there’s Shaquille O’Neal, whose involvement in this track deserves to be recognized as a sign of the times. If you’re my age, then you’re old enough to a remember a time when it was all too natural for African-American rappers and athletes alike to branch out into breakfast cereals, Saturday morning cartoons, and other brands of utterly commercial nonsense. And as a young white kid from the suburbs at the time, I was squarely in the centre of the target market, so a part of me feels like it’s more appropriate to apologize than judge.

Remember Bo Jackson? Looking back, it’s amazing that he never cut a record – although I doubt his career and his lucrative Nike contract left him the time.

So what about Shaq? This wasn’t remotely his only foray into hip hop; he released five studio albums, and although the first arguably went platinum because of the state of the industry at the time – much like Vanilla Ice had just done with To the Extreme – he’s since been praised by critics for slowly but surely progressing as a rapper.

And you know what? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that even in the early days, if this track was any indication, he didn’t do a bad job. He may not be dominating here like he did on the court, but he’s holding his own. We can all agree that Kazaam wasn’t really a good idea, but this track counts as a capable performance on Shaq’s part. Hell, compared to the sort of shit that celebrities of his ilk were expected to do at the time, Shaq practically deserves a Nobel Prize for his guest appearance on this track.

By the way, speaking of Black Sheep, did you happen to catch this during the last presidential election in the States? Because it’s actually surprisingly pretty great.

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