Yomo & Maulkie :: Are U Xperienced?

If you’ve never heard of Yomo & Maulkie I don’t blame you. Even in the 25+ years of this site’s existence this Los Angeles rap duo has only been mentioned ONCE in a review by Matt Jost. So who the hell are they? I’m glad you asked. Yomo (Yomo Smith) and Maulkie (Mark Eric Green) were a pair of young men on the outer periphery of N.W.A thanks to their friendship with Eric “Eazy-E” Wright. After providing additional vocals on The D.O.C.’s landmark album “No One Can Do It Better” the two parlayed that friendship into a deal with Ruthless Records and released “Are U Xperienced?” in 1991. The third and most successful single was a strident political anthem called “Glory.”

Although their rhetoric was lock-and-step with the likes of Paris and Public Enemy, the duo never achieved either the critical acclaim or commercial success of either. In fact they never even achieved the infamy that Oscar Jackson Jr. did for an album his own record label wouldn’t release. Their unapologetic verses about burning the American flag and dissing the hypocrisy of “Uncle Sam and his Uncle Tom crew” should have drawn conservative ire, but controversy did NOT follow them. The song hit No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Singles, which I’m confidently willing to assert is solely because Ruthless Records was pushing their newest act. Without that push their momentum vanished.

This is one of those rare cases where I think a rap group might have been too late to be as good as they were. 2-3 years earlier the beats and rhymes of “Are U Xperienced?” and singles like “Mama Don’t” would have hit differently. The group would have been widely praised for their powerful narratives about the ills they experienced growing up — parental abuse, police harassment, and pervasive poverty. By 1991 the market was crowded with similar themes and topics, and standing out was that much harder, but that didn’t stop Eazy-E from supporting them. He made a cameo in the video for “No More ?’s” style song “Mockingbird” and DJ Yella produced the track.

What bothers me most about “Are U Xperienced?” going under the radar for so long is that I would have LOVED songs like “Mockingbird” as a young man. It was a hand fitting perfectly into a glove and the fit was anti-R&B, anti-pop and 100% pro-rap. Over the years my views and opinions on non-rap music have changed considerably, in no small part due to gleaning an understanding that so many classic rap songs wouldn’t exist without the R&B, pop and funk records they sampled from. It’s hard to hate what’s so integral to what you love, y’know? Look — over 300 songs have sampled Syl Johnson’s “Different Strokes” including Yomo & Maulkie’s “Society’s Relentless.” Yomo & Maulkie may have been mad at the commercial state of R&B in 1991 but they weren’t mad at that classic track.

I’m also willing to assert that marketing did this group a huge disservice. The album’s name and cover both inspire comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, and neither of those things is in keeping with songs like “The A Train.” Even when they claim to be headed “to the soul psychedelic side” it’s only a momentary mention within the greater theme of being taken on an unwelcome trip to hell — the hell of being a black man in a racist AmeriKKKa. If there’s any theme you could glean from the song it’s that you can’t escape from your problems by getting high. “Open up your dilated eyes” indeed.

The irony of this album is that the biggest single to come from it wasn’t even theirs. Huh? Yeah. “For the Love of Money” was recycled by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Eazy-E to become the similarly titled “Foe Tha Love of $.” It’s not subtle at all. Other than having the rappers from Ohio replace the rappers from California, it’s the same song. Same production. Same background vocals. Same tempo. They just swapped out one group of emcees for another.

That might leave you to question just how much Eric Wright really loved Yomo & Maulkie. It’s in keeping with a label named Ruthless, but it’s still a slap in the face to blatantly recycle their song into a new one by virtually the same name. If the label owned the master tapes though there’s nothing the duo could have done about it, and it might even be fair to say they don’t care. Eazy-E’s dead and Yomo & Maulkie only made one album before fading into the sunset so if they had a beef with Wright it’s never going to be resolved anyway. If anything they might actually be happy the rap legend got one more rap verse in by reusing their song before his premature death. “Are U Xperienced?” also died prematurely. Sure Ruthless marketed it and promoted it a little bit but they gave a B- push to an A+ album.