OST OCD: Colors

If you’ll do me the favor of thinking back a couple of weeks, you’ll recollect I posted up a remixed cover version of Ice-T’s classic “Colors.” At that time I mentioned I would consider a post of the original if I still had the soundtrack. Well, friends, guess what?

This is actually sort of a relevant time to post from this soundtrack, with the death last week of Dennis Hopper. Hopper, in case you’ve forgotten, directed the 1988 flick, which starred Robert Duvall and Sean Penn.

Your basic plot summary, from IMDB:

Colors stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD’s gang crime division. Duvall had hoped to spend more time with his family, but he's pulled back into active service because of a step-up in gang activity. He makes no secret of his contempt for his novice partner Penn, but eventually comes to rely on the younger man as a valuable street contact. The central crisis is the battle for supremacy between the Crips and the Bloods, with every effort to call a truce stymied by the gang members themselves and by undue police intervention.

The soundtrack itself did pretty well, chart-wise. It went as high as number 31 on the Billboard charts, and helped launch the career of the future Detective “Fin” Tutuola. Before Colors, Ice-T was doing OK, releasing 12-inch singles and the moderately successful Rhyme Pays. But it would be “Colors” that put Ice-T on the map as a “gangsta rapper” as well as a commentator on that lifestyle. From that point, Ice’s lyrics would become sharper and more incisive, putting him in the role as “OG” of west coast rap.

Along with “Colors,” I’ve also got for you the classic Cold Cut remix of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,” another old-school, not-to-be-missed hip hop track.

Colors.mp3
Paid in Full - 7 Minutes of Madness (The Cold Cut remix).mp3

Labels: hip-hop, movies, soundtracks

posted by aikin @ 9:35 PM