Captain Rapp – Bad Times (I Can't Stand It)

Electro Boogie gem that worked its way into the House zeitgeist. Raw and legit - when you really had to want to make a record. Not just poop stuff out of your computer or phone. Absolute classic that will never get tired. REAL and proper dance music that will live on and on....

I love this song who is the girl singing ?

Performed and arranged by Rich Cason, if we could only ask him which one came first: The Year 2001 Boogie version or the Captain Rapp ‎– Bad Times version which are actually nearly the same tracks. Maybe someone knows, which one is the original first composition?!

Has Played At The Hacienda, Manchester, Back In The Late 1980s By Park And Pickering And Co, Played Along Side The Like Of Shannon - Let The Music Play Two Great Electro Tracks Crossing Over Into The Acid House / Rave Scene

Timeless electro-boogie monster, for me the West Coast jam that stands on a totally different level above the rest of the LA electrofunk jams of the 80s. I have 5 copies of the several editions of this 12inch and I don't (and won't!) sell a single one! FAN-TA-STIC!!

The chorus that grew to be used in so many house beats. Vintage oldschool Electro Hip Hop. Weres my lino and Tacchini top if it still fits me lol.

This copy is different from the other repress as labels have different type face and info

Jam and Lewis cut their teeth on the underrated greats of post-disco R&B and boogie funk, with a stint doing songwriting for L.A. artists like Klymaxx and Dynasty rounding out their early portfolio in 1982. But it’s their strange brush with early L.A. rap history that stands out as a fascinating outlier in their time out West. Larry Earl Glenn recorded ‘Bad Times (I Can’t Stand It)’ under the alias Captain Rapp, following up on the recent success of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s ‘The Message’ the previous year with a more explicitly West Coast take on political rap that addressed L.A. gang culture along with its state-of-the-world despair.

And while Jam and Lewis pulled arrangement and performing duties rather than songwriting or all-out production, there’s a glimpse into an alternate world where they leaned further into electro and old-school hip-hop to get in with the Uncle Jamm’s Army set and snatch Arthur Baker’s crown. True to Jam and Lewis’s tendency to find connections between their Midwestern roots and their Angeleno adoption, ‘Bad Times’ also found a following away from the coast – like a lot of dance-informed R&B of the time, it became a regional cult hit in Detroit

An amazing 1983 12" out of L.A. ~ Early socially conscious rap, along the lines of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message", but even more powerful and much rawer. Speaks on issues we all still face in the world: gang banging, murder, inner city poverty, the emerging AIDS epidemic, and much more. These issues are not exploited or glamorized for commercial appeal (like too much of what passes for hip hop nowadays) and he never takes a moralistic stand on it. He has a very God-like quality to his verses. Many lines border on the prophetic: "Weather plays havoc on the eastern states, floods, hurricanes, and you can't escape".... "doctors afraid to treat the victims of aids"... even speaks on the Pope's push for solidarity against the US invasion of El Salvador...

All this set against a killer early Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis electro flavored track, with a beautiful hook. Sounds very modern minus the long instrumental breaks in between verses!

This song would be a perfect 10 out of 10 to me but i have to drop it 1 point because the gated reverb effect on the vocals is way too thick, although it blends well with the production overall, it makes it difficult to catch the rapid fire rhymes.

I don't know, sometimes when i hear some of these old school raps I almost feel like these guys were from the future. Amazing.