OCR01134 - Sonic Adventure 2 'Knuckles' Unknown from M.C.'

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Blake]

HELL YEAH!

Man I heard this on VG Frequency, and the song kicked so much ass. I was wondering when this song would come onto OCR...and now its HERE!!Oh man, you guys gotta listen to this, because it owns you.

[GeckoYamori]

As much as I despised of the SA2 soundtrack, Knuckles' BGM always stood out from the other tracks. It was nothing awe-inspiring, but at least it had the FUNK. And this remix takes the best from Knux and makes it even better. It has pretty much everything I love in a funky track, from smooth Rhodes pianos to high-pitched vibrato synths. This is the same José from vgmusic.com, right?

Excellent work José, always a fan. Looking forward to any potential future releases.

[Al Capwn]

Not really feelin this one..i think it's tha horns

[zyko]

i gotta agree with al cpwn on this.
the horns rubbed me in a very wrong way.

jose definetly can spit, though. would have preferred more original lyrics but the whole thing was still delivered well and clearly. and the original segments were all legit.
the choruses are presented with a credible voice - this is hip hop done with a good sense of rhythm and touch.

the beat, though... i'm not sure if i like it. the "gangsta" synth is a neat touch but the whole track doesn't feel right. its like a tight emcee on a mediocore beat.
or maybe its just those horns.

either way, a definite keeper as there are not many tries at rap on the site (at least successful ones)

~weed

[Kamikaze Noodle]

Dude, this is absolutely awesome. A lot of elements going on at once, amazing rapping that fits in real well with the mix, and practically professional production. Damn fine work, I must say. :nicework:

By the way, nice Chun Li reference. =D

[bouncerboy15]

This is simply amazing. I liked the music from SA2 and this brings me back some good memories. Nice rap and words. Good beat. 10 thumbs up! :D

[Hadyn]

I hated the originals. I love this.

I mean, DAMN this is well made!

[Longinus]

This is unbelievably professional!

Loop, loop, loop....
:)

[Scuba]

Yes! This song is awesome, that's all there is too it.

[endblink]

Word.

More hip-hop/rap makes endblink happy. Ye.

Love that chick loop in the background.

[isoo]

never paid attention to the original that much, but for some reason I could imagine Knuckles cruisin' down the block in his low rider hollering at his hoes :P

Nice mix!

[Seith]

Excellent. This guy's voice is butta over the track. Smooth on the production tip as well. Great job, you done did it now.

[Tappy]

This is the best track to come from this site so far this year. For the love of God, José, please keep 'em coming.

[sgx]

either way, a definite keeper as there are not many tries at rap on the site (at least successful ones)

~weed

I get the feeling he's refering to 4F73R M3 right there.......... :lol:


Anywayz...this track is sweet. Once of my favs on the site now. Just slick all over. Great rapping.

[Shhteve]

Holy hell, this is probably the best Sonic Adventure 2 mix the site has.



First of all, this sounds AWFULLY professional, and done with quality MUCH higher than the Sonic Team could have ever mustered. I'm definitely impressed with how the original lyrics were handled, and how well the newly added lyrics fit with the rest of the musical piece too. I personally hated the original Knuckles tune. Even though it had the FUNK, it could have been done so much better. This remix right here supports my opinion. Really, really great shhtuff here! 8O

[Speedy]

Damn, this track is the best!! you did a great job Jose, this is better than the original, well put together. a very nice Hip/Hop beat to this track. 8)

[Genosync]

Heh. Nice work there, Jose. You've got yourself a winner.

Good interpretation of the elements in the original track, flowing rewritten lyrics that still stay true to the original theme of the songs. Maybe trying to work the part with "just believe in myself won't rely on others" into would have added to the quality of the mix. I don't know - I can just still hear it the whole entire time I listen to your mix. Like that insert of K-N-U-C-K... etc, it gave a good break to the general flow of the mix to change it up a bit and make it less repetitious.

Very high quality stuff. Keep the rap mixes coming, my friend. Or just SA Vocals for that matter - this is extremely well done, and one of the best things we've gotten on OCR the past year.

[KyleD513]

8) This mix reminds me of music videos from MTV. This is a good rap/funk mix a good song from that kickass game. I see a AMV with this!

[BlueEnvy]

There are very few good rap songs in my opinion. This is one of those good ones. Everything sounds very nice, and clean. The vocals are amazing, recorded perfectly. I dont know the original lyrics people have talked about but the lyrics here are cool. The only thing that bothers me is that cheesy brass loop that. I just dont like it. Aside from that everything else is wonderful. I look forward to future mixes-

~Blue

[fetusboy]

Here’s what Aaron Parsons has to say:

This is a slammin‘ good remix, JBR. Will Smith has taught you well. The vocals have been professionally done way better then any song I’ve ever produced in my life, even in DaCapo Studios when I once apprenticed there. I love what you did with Knuckles original vocals. You’ve added your own rappin’ style and fresh novel rhymes barely swearing while keeping’ it soft core for the kids. Sometimes in the original, the raps don’t even come close to rhyming, not even with imperfect rhymes. I also like the Jet Li or John Lee reference for the original “feet like fire” metaphor used in the original tune. The rapping is done way better than anything I’ve ever done, but I’m sure I’ll reach your skill level if I get more time to practice.

As for the instrumentation, the beat is a normal kick with a pull-back snare. Good shuffle execution with a cool bongo beat in the back. The hi-hats aren’t the greatest things I’ve heard, but there’s some variation that can stand out once in a while. The bassline is exactly what I was thinking of before when I heard about this remix before listening to it. Great stuff. Even though there’s a bit of Wild Canyon sax and “Mariah Carrey“-ish synths there, the mix could use one or two more instruments besides the Rhodes, bass, and beat. Perhaps a guitar might solve this problem. But if you want to keep it minimalist, it’s all good. If the vocals are the main focus, keep it that way.

To conclude, the instrumentation sounds very mainstream-ish as it is a little too repetitive. It’s not a bad thing, most people won’t notice it too much. For the bits with syncopation, it‘s very noticeable. Really, a lot of people will agree with me on this. Even though you’ve taken many snippets from the original Knuckles rap themes, the lyrics are very basic, the novelty of your own style is there, they’re very easy to understand, and will appeal to all ages and people who either love or hate hip-hop or rap. You, Jose’ the Bronx Rican, are an example of what hip-hop should be in a corrupt culture, ma man. And because of that, this remix has been nominated the best rap remix on Overclocked for 2004.

Keep it real, brotha!

Double A Ron

Well that’s it! He’s summed up almost exactly what I was going to say. I hope to see more rap remixes on this site. There’s been one for each month so far.

[Khrystoph]

Word, this shit is tight, yo. Trust.

[zyko]

My gosh, the rap in this song alone is the best thing I’ve ever ever heard compared to “Nigaz for Life”, (I’m sorry, zyk. I had to put it out there like that. Please don‘t flame me).
Double A Ron


what does that mean?

[SelectaNovel]

Definitely the best Hiphop-Remix of a videogame score that I've heard as yet. Great organ, cool g-funk scratch, and a damn tight flow. Love it!

[DistantJ]

Being a fan of rap music myself I've found it kinda hard to enjoy this. The style and pace of the music is dated and the attempts at freestyle inbetween verses make me shudder a little at the kornyness. I hate to be grumpy, and I'm not saying the mix is particularly bad, but it's hard to see what everyone loves about it so much. The vocals are well done and I could imagine this guy up there rapping away with the professionals, but these are some hard lyrics to take seriously. The chanting of the zone names at the end is really pushing the cheese boundaries to the limit.

I had been expecting more of a modern rap approach to the song, with an Outkast-esque beat maybe, and some more aggresive sounding vocals, so this may have come across differently to my expectations after the download was done(Ruddy 56k). A nice attempt, and a good idea, but I really can't see what you all see in it.

[Shadow Theory]

I enjoyed it a lot, the lyrics in and of themselves are inherently corny I don't think any approach could entirely take that out. This is a lot smoother than the version in the game, and remixes usually give you a different flavor on a song rather than make you think "Wow this song is better than the one in the game" (unless it's a mix of a song from a game back in the cartridge days) but this one made me think that.

So good song, great work on otherwise inherently corny lyrics.

[DarknessTear]

Hate rap, but let's cut to the chase. This is very good sounding, especially for a remix involving vocals. Good job.

[Mysterious1ne]

I mainly have nothing to say... 8) that's how good this remix was. Well, to me at least. :D I can't help but be a little jealous though...I wanna get in on the whole 'lyrics for remixes thing' 8) . I'll warn everyone now though...I'm not you average run-of-the-mill rapper :? . I'll put it like this...mix Twista and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony together and you get me 8) . but that's not the point... :roll:

[Nario]

Dude. This song is so awesome! I thought that the original music was awesome to begin with, but you made up more! Congrats! I just LOVED the chorus! It is well arranged. Instead of just having that part in the song like the original, you made it as your chorus! Rock-on yo! "Echidna! That's what I'm representing!" That's too cool. To be honest with you, I did find something wrong with it. You forget the lyrics that sounded cheesy. Maybe you did this on purpose. I just thought it would have been way better with those playing at the same time. That's just my opinion. Not many people like those lyrics of the song anyways. :D Anyways, uber-schwaness! 94.7 out of 100 :D

- DJ15Nario

[José the Bronx Rican]

Note to self: that's enough lurking....

To answer Gecko, this is the José that hangs around at vgmusic.com (also a current moderator of the Visual Art board there), who really needs to get back to doing some MIDI's, but who's just starting out with something resembling a software studio, and is learning and trying to squeeze some quality music out of it. I'll get this out of the way, and offer a gigantic *salute* to Computer Music magazine, without which it might've taken me another several years and several thousand dollars.

Now, some more insight on this mix than I could spare in my email to pretzel...
The general idea was, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, to come up with something sounding basically like the stuff many onliners absolutely hate about hip-hop on the radio - something funky, maybe bob your head a little to, but very cliched. The lyrics were re-written and recorded to that end, especially the vocal overdubbing, the way the chorus was laid out, and little touches such as the shouts to different "neighborhoods" (in-game zones), the "KN-UC-KL-ES" done in the style of Fabolous, and for Wu-Tang fans, a shout to "TIKAL" (the echidna ancestor's name, but also the phonetic nickname of Method Man [Tical]). The not-so-easy part was to make the track sound that way, but with recognizable elements of the original songs (the Rhodes, synth and sax); some parts were more successful than others.

What was most important to me, however, was that the quality of the mix was reasonably professional-sounding to enough of you listeners. I'm still starting out, and this mix took me over a year of on-and-off effort, as I spent more time gathering sounds, samples, Soundfonts and VSTi's and effects than I did actually making music. Considering this was 85% arranged and mixed in FL Studio (vocals included, which is not kosher in a system running Win98 on a 400Mhz Celeron), I'm gratified the response is encouraging. Please keep the mix comments coming, good or bad! I especially appreciate that some of you were feeling the "funk," because I like funk more than anything, and I was hoping to have some of you feel it.

Double_A_Ron's "minimalist" comments I found most interesting. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist sometimes, and even after I finish any project, be it music or a drawing or something else, I constantly have a feeling it needs a little something more, followed by another feeling of, "cut it out! That's quite enough; you don't want overkill." It's a struggle once in a while to find a perfect balance between "incomplete" and "too complete." I guess I might hang around the "Work In Progress" board periodically, although I have a hang-up about sharing unfinished work.

Shouts to everyone who replied, and who will reply.
I'm eager to start another one; I'm not doing rap mixes regularly (I don't even really write verses, although I've been a fan of hip-hop from the very beginning, and I like to think I'd be decent)... might be jazz, soul, might be techno. I even have a salsa/merengue idea in my head; I'm into everything. But I do know (hope, at least) it'll be funky...

Thanks for pseudo-listening....

BIG P.S.: For anyone interested, here is a link to the instrumental....

(EDIT: The Bronx Rican website is finally rolling as of July 30, 2005, and the following link is 100% working)
http://bronxrican.com/music/Sonic Adventure 2 - Knuckles' Unknown from MC - instrumental.mp3

and the complete lyrics:

KNUCKLES' UNKNOWN FROM M.C.

Yeah... y'all know me... the fighting freak Knuckles... still fearless... still got no weak spots...
back once again after the Master Emerald... fools still after my jewels... I stay on point e'ry day,
from da Island... gotta protect this place... do it for my race... I'm just gon' creep... stay knuckled
up in the deep cut... and whoever want it, bring it... I don't care, we can do this.

VERSE 1
I'm comin' through, rougher than the rest of them, brother, I'm the best of them, tougher than my breth-ren
N----- call me Knuckles, cause when I swing knees buckle, nuttin' but trouble when I'm flexin my muscles, yo
I'm hard as nails, it ain't hard to tell, that's word to Tails, break 'em all off, solid or frail
Unlike the rest, independent ever since my first breath, first to test, feel the right then my words left
It's the new porcupine on da block wit the buff chest, straight out da wilderness with the ruggedness
Knock knock it's Knux y'all, the blow thrower, independent flow-er, magic Emerald holder
Prone ta give you the cold shoulder, and my spikes go through boulders, that's why I always stay a loner
Born with no help, so I'm just out for delf, get it on by myself, adversaries get shelved

CHORUS
(Echidoena!) That's what I'm representin', never seen a mic hog spit like a menace
It's goin' down (Why?)... the Master Emerald's gone, somebody gon' get theirs quick my word's bond
(Echidoena!) Fightin' my foes all the time, but I gotta do it, they always stayin' outta line
Guaranteed I'ma find my gems and emeralds, they don't call me Knuckles for nuttin', I can't lose!

VERSE 2
Yeah, the KN-UC-KL-ES was... born to live my life on Angel Island cuz...
My duty's to protect the M.E. diamond, thugz... holdin' it down cause I'm searchin' for shinin'
But every time I'm lookin for sun I can't find it... Is this the way? Is this the path that I chose? Damn
Why am I livin' like my heart just froze, and, all that I see is a storm of gemstones, man
I like to dig holes searchin' for pure gold, large pots of treasure always make me feel better
If I need to fight anybody for whatever, I clench my fists tight, then we can go head-up
Though I don't wanna hurt none, I'll leave ya head shattered, been lonely all my life... doesn't matter
I'm here for da mission and whoever wanna bring it, n----- call me stubborn, but still I'ma live it
Do anything to collect the Master Emerald, climb mountains, glide thru valleys, run down every road
Wild and hungry, ain't nuttin funny, my philosophy's my knuckles, my feel kick like Chun-Li

CHORUS

VERSE 3
I was born like this, scared of no one, fear nuttin', straight thuggin', I'm out fo da ones and bling huntin'
Diamonds and gems, yo we can battle to da end, but beware of my namesake, the knuckles dat I send
'Cause when they penetrate, death is certain, it's pure hurtin', they're hard as steel, footwork is blazin', for you it's curtains
Never see me run from, never see me surrender, lay you out then fly away like there's no other contender
Render opponents tender, career ender, run up in one-round wonders, end up switching their gender
Put up your dukes, these mooks wanna blow up like nukes, nuthin' but flukes, I send all ya kooks cryin' to Ma Dukes
'Cause I'm Unknown from M.E., but not from G.E.N.E.... S.I.S. cause ain't no shame in my G.A.M.E.
Peace to 32X and the clique called Chaotix, peace from the Island and to Bronx Rican for da remix...

CHORUS

Don't let it hit ya, move... shouts to Green Hill, Labyrinth, Hill Top, Ice Cap, Marble Garden,
Speed Highway, Red Mountain, Lost World, Mission Street, Wild Canyon, Pumpkin Hill,
Death Chamber... shout out to the old earth... TIKAL!

[Genosync]

Just to emphasize what I said before, good stuff.

Submit something else. ^^; This is extremely high quality stuff, and to get praise from so many people like this right after the amazing Squaresoft Variation or whatever he called it, is something else. I listen to your piece more, however - you captured the flow of the original perfectly, what the song was meant to embody - improved upon it, made it better, which is the job of the remixer. Excellent work, recieves "Always In Playlist" status from me. ^^;

[po!]

gotta give Jose mad props on this...

the instrumentation and production is all very smooth. the whole vibe i get reminds me of the feel of the game (even tho i only played it twice at best buy)

vocal production is great, mixes will with the rest of the track... smoooth. the rapping is well done too.. good clarity. and i like your voice

gooood stuff

[Christopher Blue]

José the Bronx Rican, are you the same as Jose Acosta?

[kablammyman]

8O 8O 8O
EXCELLENT MIX! Wow, this is the only rap re-mix i have heard (i would LOVE more) and this does not fail! This dude can flow and the beat is tite! I hope he continues to do more remixes like this! 8)

[José the Bronx Rican]

José the Bronx Rican, are you the same as Jose Acosta?

Not even close.
If there weren't other Joses contributing Mixes, I would've just called myself José here and leave it at that. I'm not into nicknames, so my screennames are generally pretty boring. "Bronx Rican" is acceptable to me because it's a fair description, it's not very common, and it makes a good sort-of brand name: I registered it as a ".com" domain for my homepage, which still shows nearly nothing (this summer, God willing). At any rate, my first name carries an accent mark (props to this forum for allowing it in screennames), so I suppose that's one way of telling us apart. And I've been contributing MIDIs to vgmusic.com for years (SOR, Sonic, others).

[Falcovsleon20]

Jose the Bronx Rican just took my favorite theme songs from both SA1 and SA2 and really remixed them in an enjoyable flava. (I can't believe I just said that word.) Anyways, moving on, I don't listen to much rap and it was a bit hard to get the jist of the lyrics so I hope someone gets those up and running soon. Overall 9/10.

[José the Bronx Rican]

...it was a bit hard to get the jist of the lyrics so I hope someone gets those up and running soon.

Page 2.

[DarkMatter_the_Enchida]

I love the music in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, but Knuckles' theme was something I never really cared for. It might be because I hate rap, but this remix is a very unique and talented way of taking that old, cheesy "unlike Sonic I don't chuckle" theme and making pretty enjoyable and definatly worth a download.

And this is coming from someone who doesn't like rap. ^_^

[tfate]

i'm pretty late in this reply thread but i want to say this mix really shocked me. i love the lyrics in this mix that you re-wrote, though i didnt bother to also listen to the vocal that much. its understandable this must have been really time consuming. its also understandable about your "general idea" of how many onliners listen to the fake rap/hip-hop tracks on the net. i liked what you did here with the knuckles themes. very casual and clean. great work. (^_^)

[Julio Jose]

Ok i dont like rap at all. Sorry if it sounds concieted, but I just dont. Not thug rap at least. But this, this my friends is awesome. Such a cool funk-i-fied song. Holy crap, its just really something new. The techno fiend that i am, i need to listen to other stuff sometimes, and holy crap this is the other stuff.
_______________
that piano sample, "bright piano" on reson, and that small synth is awesome. sounds like a sample, may be mistaken. The trumpet is also well timed, and used in the right amounts. awesome track.

[fisherman]

God... simply amazing. Very professional-sounding indeed! I felt the funk.

If this had been an original, some guy rapping about the ghetto or guns or bitches or blunts or money... I would have despised it. But he's rapping about Knuckles Just the fact that this was done excites me. There was nothing fake-sounding about this at all... completely true-to-form and not a hint of campiness.

[Julio Jose]

i truly hate this. Everynight around midnight, i find myself on OCR listening to this track again. It is really annoying. this track is so masterful. I am a techno feind and im a closed minded bum. Im not open to new ideas. Some hip hop is good, yes but a very minute percent. This song wrenched into my brain. Such a good song, so many catchy parts to it. The trumpet is amazing. Sigh... this song is amazing. The mcing isnt bad at all. Like someone said above, if the lyrics were about bling bling, drugs bitches and cash, i would have trashed it. The 'subtle' if you may, lyrics perfectly fit this songs smooth and funkafied approach. Loving this song, auto mix cd.

^ as you can see above this song is so good, it makes my thoughts and ideas scattered.... BLAST IT

[fetusboy]

Being a fan of rap music myself I've found it kinda hard to enjoy this. The style and pace of the music is dated and the attempts at freestyle inbetween verses make me shudder a little at the kornyness.

Well he's keepin' it true to the original mix. There's nothing wrong with that. Although he could have used some vocabulary above the grade 9 level to give the lyrics less cheese.

I hate to be grumpy, and I'm not saying the mix is particularly bad, but it's hard to see what everyone loves about it so much. The vocals are well done and I could imagine this guy up there rapping away with the professionals, but these are some hard lyrics to take seriously. The chanting of the zone names at the end is really pushing the cheese boundaries to the limit.

I strongly agree. "Tikal, ha hah ha! Yeah" That was uncalled for. It annoyed me like the plague. Once you get to the end of the last hook chant, shut the song off right away. On top of that, fade out would be the worst approach to end the song.

The reason everyone loves it is because it's Knuckles. The roughness of rap suites his character as a fighter and protector of Angel Island. On top of that, it's not too hardcore gangsta, nor is it so kiddy-ish. It's the average rap song that's good enough for the entire family.

I had been expecting more of a modern rap approach to the song, with an Outkast-esque beat maybe, and some more aggresive sounding vocals, so this may have come across differently to my expectations after the download was done(Ruddy 56k). A nice attempt, and a good idea, but I really can't see what you all see in it.

G-funk will never be outdated. Dr. Dre thought G-funk gangsta rap was dead in 95. Well guess what happened? Now it's glorified. The bassline is definately modern.

I disagree with you regarding the vocal opinion, Sambo. Aggressive sounding vocals would have kept this song from hittin' OCR. Not everyone loves that kind of crap. Let the man tone it down if he wants.

[Cherrie]

Holy sweet merciful crap this is awesome. 8O

First and foremost, you made Wild Canyon the chorus. Wild Canyon is my favorite Knuckles tune EVER. That makes me so happy.

In fact this entire song makes me giggle with glee. The reworked lyrics, the chorus (^_____^), the shout outs to random Sonic stages, and all of the little references and details make this a real treat to listen to. Creative, groovy, fun, and all around top tier.

[Stratagemini]

Let this be known first: I generally hate rap music.
That said, this remix is different. I actually enjoyed this rap remix. Now admittedly the only other Rap Remix I've ever heard is the Asterix remix that was put on OC Relatively recently, but I must say, this is the best rap remix I've ever heard.

The lyrics were original and amusig, and the music was entertaining independent of the lyrics. overal, out of 25, I'd give this a 19.

[Vash the Stampede]

You know, I always HATED the lyrical songs on the Dreamcast Sonic Adventure games, but this is really cool! Great work man, you made something beautiful out of something originally horrid!!

[Lomion]

I remember when I initially listened to this mix I was kinda disappointed that it didn't sound very much like "Unknown from M.E.". Probably someone wants to shoot me now or something but I basically liked the whole pack of the "Sonic Adventure" character themes. Must be some sort of strange addiction for everything that combines video games and music lyrics. Guess I'm still a child there. ;) Anyway, my disappointment soon faded into pure amazement. I just dig this. This is the sort of songs which will really get me into trouble some day. There are days where I barely can resist to start freestyling at my co-workers in the stairwell about "what I'm representing". So the question is, what do we represent? I'd say we represent a lifestyle in which the dream of saving "the flower from evil deterioration" holds a strong position. Um.. to explain that: We're gamers and we like thinking about fighting evil and saving the world.

Enough rant already. I don't know shit about hip hop. But José really gots the flow. Great lyrics - I'd say the cornyness is almost obligatoric in a song about Knuckles. I mean, hello? We're talking about a fighting hog here! He's unlikely to be dealing with social problems in modern society. OK, of course there could be less corny vocals. I'd say they're already cognizable less corny than the originals. But if you want to - in a way - stay true to something like the SA themes, you'll have to come up with something really ingenious if you want to get 'intelligent' lyrics.

Great stuff. Hope to hear more from you soon man!
What happened to DJ Crono anyway?

[Biggestsonicfan]

This is good. I will give it that, but not much more. The beats were good. The ending was quite weak, and I found a few flaws:
1. "Gotta protect this place; Do it for my race." According to SA1, Knuckles lives alone on the Floating Island. Also, according to SA1, all others of his race were wiped out by Chaos. So, he really is doing it for himself, isn't he?
2. "It's the new porcupine on the block;" AHEM! It says EVERYWHERE in the manual and character select that Knuckles is an ECHIDNA!!!
3. "Magic emerald holder." It woulda worked if he said "Master emerald holder." Since all of the chaos emeralds are also magical. And don't give me this "Knuckles has the chaos emeralds in Triple Trouble/S3/S&K." Because this is supposed to be a mixture of SA1&2, no other games.
4. "All that I see is a storm of gem stones." Jeeze, the artist of this wants to give off the image that Knuckles is greedy for the emeralds. In fact, in both SA1 and SA2, he could care less about the chaos emeralds. He makes him sound like a male version of Rouge!
5. "If I need to fight; anybody for whatever; I clench my fists tight; and we can go hedda(sic)"
Hmmm, Knuckles really doesn't seem to fight Dr. Eggman whenever Eggman tells him Sonic did something, however, I can see where this can be argued.
6."My philiosophy is my knuckles; my feet kick like Chun Lee."
Wow! Where in the world did that come from? Knuckles may kick, but I would say his power is in his upper body. And I tend to see that most of these rhymes are just thrown in there because it sorta makes sence. I am hearing him go from topic to topic very rapidly, and it hurts to follow.
6. "[something] but not from G E N N E; S I S [uh...not sure about this next part] cause there ain't no shavin my G A M E; Peace to the 32X and the click called Chaotix;"
OKAY!?!?! What is this crap? How many games and credits are we mentioning here?

It is strongly encouraged that you limit material being ReMixed to a single game for each submission. Your ReMix will only be titled or "assigned" a single game in our database, regardless of how many games' music it contains, though we can mention in our write-up what other titles were covered. However, it is strongly advised due to the nature of the way mixes are evaluated that you maintain focus and continuity in your arrangement, which is much easier when you are dealing with songs from a single game's soundtrack. Please keep this in mind - part of the focus of this site is to highlight and pay homage to the work of game composers, not cram as many of their songs as possible into a five-minute arrangement.
Yeesh.

Overall, a 3/5. At least it is the BEST rap I have ever heard, and was a plesent melody to listen to, regardless if you concentrated on what he was saying or not. The transitions between descriptions was smooth, but irratic.

This is my oppinion, have a super SONIC day,
Biggestsonicfan

[Mouseboy]

This is good. I will give it that, but not much more. The beats were good. The ending was quite weak, and I found a few flaws:
1. "Gotta protect this place; Do it for my race." According to SA1, Knuckles lives alone on the Floating Island. Also, according to SA1, all others of his race were wiped out by Chaos. So, he really is doing it for himself, isn't he?
2. "It's the new porcupine on the block;" AHEM! It says EVERYWHERE in the manual and character select that Knuckles is an ECHIDNA!!!
3. "Magic emerald holder." It woulda worked if he said "Master emerald holder." Since all of the chaos emeralds are also magical. And don't give me this "Knuckles has the chaos emeralds in Triple Trouble/S3/S&K." Because this is supposed to be a mixture of SA1&2, no other games.
4. "All that I see is a storm of gem stones." Jeeze, the artist of this wants to give off the image that Knuckles is greedy for the emeralds. In fact, in both SA1 and SA2, he could care less about the chaos emeralds. He makes him sound like a male version of Rouge!
5. "If I need to fight; anybody for whatever; I clench my fists tight; and we can go hedda(sic)"
Hmmm, Knuckles really doesn't seem to fight Dr. Eggman whenever Eggman tells him Sonic did something, however, I can see where this can be argued.
6."My philiosophy is my knuckles; my feet kick like Chun Lee."
Wow! Where in the world did that come from? Knuckles may kick, but I would say his power is in his upper body. And I tend to see that most of these rhymes are just thrown in there because it sorta makes sence. I am hearing him go from topic to topic very rapidly, and it hurts to follow.
6. "[something] but not from G E N N E; S I S [uh...not sure about this next part] cause there ain't no shavin my G A M E; Peace to the 32X and the click called Chaotix;"
OKAY!?!?! What is this crap? How many games and credits are we mentioning here?

It is strongly encouraged that you limit material being ReMixed to a single game for each submission. Your ReMix will only be titled or "assigned" a single game in our database, regardless of how many games' music it contains, though we can mention in our write-up what other titles were covered. However, it is strongly advised due to the nature of the way mixes are evaluated that you maintain focus and continuity in your arrangement, which is much easier when you are dealing with songs from a single game's soundtrack. Please keep this in mind - part of the focus of this site is to highlight and pay homage to the work of game composers, not cram as many of their songs as possible into a five-minute arrangement.
Yeesh.

Overall, a 3/5. At least it is the BEST rap I have ever heard, and was a plesent melody to listen to, regardless if you concentrated on what he was saying or not. The transitions between descriptions was smooth, but irratic.

This is my oppinion, have a super SONIC day,
Biggestsonicfan

Have you ever even heard the originals? Number 1 is in SA2's Wild Canyon. 2 is from his SA1 theme, as is 3. 4, SA2. 5 is an altered version of part of the SA2 one. 6, too; the original also has him mentioning his feet. Your second 6 (I assume you meant 7) is original, and if you dislike it okay. Me, I enjoyed this song as a Knuckles fan, even though rap is one of my least favorite music genres.

[Blue_Drac]

Other than the part about "Feet kicking like Chun Lee" this rap flows from point to point with no break. I like it, and is easily the best game mix Rap that I've heard.

[General ELL]

Excelent!!! I didnt liked the original tune, but this one is awesome, congratulations bronx rican.

[Sonic18]

I think this is a bad remix of the orginial. I give the guy props for making it but in my mind it does not compare to the orginial. I am also not saying this becasue i am a sonic fan. I have many remixes of the sonic songs which I like and many from this site. Other then that on to why I hate it. First this song sounds boring, it puts me to sleep and I lost intrest in it very fast. Second it sounds monotone which is why it puts me to sleep and it doesnt sound that intresting. This song just doesnt make me feel alive like the orginal does. The orginal sounds more up beat and alive. I am not alone with my view point. Since i got in an argument with my roomate over this song i sent out both versions of the song to people and 90% of them like the orginial much better then the remix. I am just voicing my opinion of this song.

[fetusboy]

I think this is a bad remix of the orginial. I give the guy props for making it but in my mind it does not compare to the orginial. I am also not saying this becasue i am a sonic fan. I have many remixes of the sonic songs which I like and many from this site. Other then that on to why I hate it. First this song sounds boring, it puts me to sleep and I lost intrest in it very fast. Second it sounds monotone which is why it puts me to sleep and it doesnt sound that intresting. This song just doesnt make me feel alive like the orginal does. The orginal sounds more up beat and alive. I am not alone with my view point. Since i got in an argument with my roomate over this song i sent out both versions of the song to people and 90% of them like the orginial much better then the remix. I am just voicing my opinion of this song.

Well, yeah, true Jose's voice is a little too soft sounding as a rapper, but instrumentally, the mix's very moviing even though it's slightly repetitive.

I don't know what to say regarding your opinion, but from what I can see, mainstream rap is not the primary genre that you listen to daily. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[A-RoN]

fetus, can you please edit your post? I've got a new account now.

I still stand my ground when I say this is the OC Rap Remix of the Year. Niggaz was decent (except for the profane language), but this song beats everything here. Perfect execution, flow is tight, and the east coast beatz are exactly as they should be. I'm also a huge fan of John Reuben's Primo/Wu Tang-type sound from Are We There Yet, so the bassline totally hooked me in.

You are the man, Mr. Rican. I'll colab with you any day for you next rap remix.

[RandomFerret]

Hey, you changed it! I d/led this one as soon as it was posted, and it's been on my mp3 player pretty regularly since. I came back to the OC entry just now while recommending it to a few friends.

This and Little Mac's Confession are probably the only vocal mixes on this whole site that manage to keep the cheese reigned in while still being relavent to the game(although the inherant cheese in metal and old school rhymes probably helps).

And since I missed it the first time... could you put that instrumental track back up?

Maybe send it to my gmail?

[José the Bronx Rican]

...gmail?

Done. When I get my homepage running (seriously), the instrumental will be available to others again.

Double A, I just might take you up on that in future. 8)

Now, I've just noticed lyrics are available on the remix pages; how and who can I talk to to get mine put up?

[CC Ricers]

This remix is pure class. It's one of the few 'bling-bling' raps that I approve of. :P

Can't wait to hear what you have in store next.

[hmbtnguy]

I absolutely love this remix! Infact I liked it so much, that I registered to this forum just to praise your work. The quality rivals that of the original, the music is perfect, and represents Knuckles. The remix is a masterpiece, and I can't wait for other songs you have cooking. If you aren't that busy do you think you could send me the instrumental version of the song? Thanks in advance.

[Nineko]

first of all:

1) I hate every rap/black/hiphop and so on kind of song
2) I do not own SA1 or SA2 and I never listened to the original

but...

that's GREAT! I love so much listening to this song... Josè you did a wonderful job.
I cannot evalutate how much you improoved from the original because I never listened to it... but I can say that my overall rank is 28.5/30
great job - sure :D

[John]

I registered just so I could review this ReMix.

Lyric-based mixes have a tendency to make me cringe, and I'd have never dl'ed this if it weren't my goal to listen to every mp3 on the site, but this one really took me by surprise. The flow is almost perfect and the lyrics are clever. The ability to write rhymes that so heavily reference to the source material but keep from becoming cheesy is too rare.

The only problem, which is common in a lot of rap, is that the intro and outro seem to drag a little bit compared to the fast-paced middle/heart of the piece.

This is definitely one of the very top ReMixes on the site.

[Skyz]

You got it forreal Jose. We all know Knuckles is the man. That's why his theme is hip-hop, cuz he's the shit and so is the song. Good job man. You can spit for real.

[Salluz]

:D :D

Ay,this is DA' MIX!!!

I do think the percussion could've
been less repititous,but this kills
most OCR tracks,because of the groove.

In fact,I wanted to remix the same song,
but at first,it was too complicated,but now
that I have remixes waitin' to get in at some
point,and I've become better at music,it won't
be so hard.I'll make the attempt,and I know what
Knux song I'll remix...

[SilentKnight]

maybe it's just me, but i tend to demand punchlines in every rap song that i listen to.

i think your mic presence and recording could use some improvement as I had to kinda listen closely to actually understand what you were saying.

the beat is semi-catchy, though to an extent a little repetitive.

you had punchlines, just not very strong ones (or not the ones im looking for). maybe im just being picky or whatever but i felt that you could've put some more effort into crafting your punchlines. your lyrics dont lack creativity, it just sounds to me that there was a lot of untapped potential in terms of lyrical content.

from the looks of things id say your flow is a little off at some parts, kinda like you rushed the last few syllables of a line.

overall, not bad, and good work

[Dionyseus]

I hate rap though there are a few exceptions (particularly Wyclef's 'Gone Till November') , but I must say that this is definitely the best rap remix I've heard yet from OCR. The voice sounds professional, and definitely reminded me of Sonic Adventure 2.

I just finished giving out the scores for the 7th field (there's a total of 17 fields, each field has about 20 5/5 star songs) of my OCR 00001 - 01250 Tournament, and this one made the cut into my list of Elite OCR (top 5 of each field make the cut), with a score of 94.8/100, so once again congrats for this fine remix.

[The Orichalcon]

Just heard this on shuffle for the first time. Not a fan of rap, but this was gooooooood. Nice work.

[Goten X]

Well done. I smiled through this whole review, and this is definitely one of my favorite remixes. Only because Knuckles is so badass. ^_^

|GX

[Bummerdude]

Holy deep gutwrenching barbequechicken woofer sandwich, THIS IS SUPERB. Rap and Hiphop isn't something that I like to listen to, due to the content in the lyrics mostly I guess. However, this may be rap but this ain't the same kind of rap I'm familiar of.

This is a specialized, improviced, solid, funky, spunky, agressive, depressive, cheerful and rapping masterpiece customized for the sole purpose to give knuckles a kickass theme. The overall content in the lyrics was both witty but mostly very skillfully written. This might bethe only time that i don't really bother much about the music, the human voice is the star instrument in this creation, and it's so awesome i'm gunna git this right now.

This is gold. With emeralds embraced in it. :D

[TheWestWind]

When I saw this ReMix I thought it would be interesting to say the least. Like how could you do a song like Knuckle's theme?

Well you did it amazingly~ I love how you brought in lyrics from so many of his level themes and his SA1 theme. I normally can't put up with rap/hip-hop that well, but I love listening to this song.

And if it makes any difference, I got my friend, who refuses to listen to any OC ReMixes, to listen and say this song 'isn't bad'. Yeah, he says he likes all original tracks better and no ReMix is original. I get in an argument with him over it like once a week.. >>

[Liontamer]

Back in 2004 when I first heard this, DarkeSword passed me the track to play on VG Frequency because it extremely impressed djpretzel and the judges panel, and I was the radio host connected with most of the OCR staff back when I was still on the outside. And it's still the only track I ever encored on the same show; I just liked it that much, and so did the listeners.

Since I'm now gotten to meet and hang with José, I hope he doesn't take it the wrong way as me now being demystified or anything like that. But at the time, José came off to me like a somewhat mythical figure, because IMO this track was just light years ahead of anything else on OC ReMix.

I'm a real sucker for the details of this track. The production was crisp, I loved the fusion of lyrics and arrangement ideas from both versions of "Unknown from M.E.", Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, the original portions of the lyrics that were relevant to the character lyrics, as well as the seamless usage of sampled sounds from the Sonic series on the Sega Genesis. All that, and it was a hip-hop mix, something that OCR had nothing remotely like at the time.

A lot of great ideas came together here. At a site where the artists pride themselves on creating the unique, this one's always going to be one of the pieces that simply stands out from the rest as one of the most unique of the unique.

[Salluz]

This happens to be one of my faves. I'll spit the details later, but yeah, just saying so after four years.

[OA]

Ridiculously good. OCR's hip hop pinnacle, IMO.

A must-listen.

[Bendario]

Wow, man. I'm normally wary of remixes with lyrics, but DAMN this is good. The wordplay is perfect and the melody itself is done right in every way. A++. Love all the references, by the way.