The Amy Winehouse battle rap album that never was
Amy Winehouse is a British icon whose life was sadly cut short due substance abuse, mental illness and addiction. The singer is known for carrying elements of many genres within her music, from soul to jazz to R&B, making a name for herself with hits such as ‘Rehab’, ‘Back to Black’, ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ and ‘You Know I’m No Good’.
Had she been alive a little longer, we might have even got an entire rap album. In a clip from the 2015 documentary Amy, a drunken voicemail from Amy Winehouse to producer Salaam Remi revealed she had been rapping in the style of Wu-Tang Clan and had intentions to record a battle rap album.
“Hello, doll, it’s Amy,” she said. “Salaam, yeah, I keep coming out with all battle raps, and it’s pouring out of me, like Wu-Tang stuff. But really neat, very beautifully alliterated little battle raps. So, next time you wanna come for me and have a battle rap-off, I’m gonna kill you because I’m a samurai.”
She added, “Before you ask yourself, ‘Is she drunk? Is she high? Has she been out? What’s she been doing?’ Yeah, I’m fucked up. I’m fucked up in the head. But I keep coming out with all this stuff all the time. All these lyrics, I don’t know why. But I realise it’s for the next album. So come on, sensei. Let’s do this. Love you, bye.”
Lupe Fiasco’s most recent album, Samurai, was actually inspired by this recording, from the title down to the battle rap theme.
“A loving and living portrait to and of one of my favourite artists, Amy Winehouse,” he said about the project. “I’ve done many portraits of people I admire over the years. Some public and some private. This one took on a life of its own and became an album.
“The story on this album, she becomes a battle rapper going around battling muthafuckas. It’s a full story, so the whole album’s a story … Each scene in the story has its own song. Just so [N-words] ain’t confused.”
According to Rolling Stone, Amy Winehouse had even discussed forming a jazz/Hip Hop supergroup with Mos Def, Questlove and Raphael Saadiq prior to her death. She also had a close friendship with Nas through mutual collaborator Remi, teaming on posthumous tracks ‘Cherry Wine’ and ‘Like Smoke’.
Nas told NME, “Part of me didn’t want to do [‘Cherry Wine’]. Amy and I share a birthday, so she was my sister. And she was just so much fun to be around. She would say things about well-known people in the industry that she didn’t like, and it would just crack me up… We were all hoping she would pull through and come back.”
Early in life, Amy Winehouse was actually in a rap group called Sweet ‘n’ Sour. She was part of the group alongside friend Juliette Ashby, whose stepfather recognised their talents and took them to the studio to record a number of songs called ‘Glam Chicks’, ‘Spinderella’ and ‘Boys… Who Needs Them’. Unfortunately, they never recorded an album.