Songs Rhino loves, #94: Pete Rock & CL Smooth - “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”

An enduring masterpiece.

There are only two rap songs – “I Am I Be” by De La Soul, which I’ll write about when the song finally appears on streaming services in early March, and the most widely known version of “Light Sleeper” by Saafir – that routinely challenge this one for the title of my very favourite song in the entire history of the artform and culture to which I’ve devoted 23 years of my life and counting. It’s an absolutely rapturously beautiful account by Corey Brent “CL Smooth” Penn of just why and how much he loves the various members of his family, with a heaping helping of gratitude to each of them for helping mold him into the person he has become, and the beat is definitely my favourite rap beat ever, with the possible exception of the beat A-Plus of Souls of Mischief made for that group’s signature song, “‘93 ‘Til Infinity”. Pete Rock, whose voice can be heard mumbling things throughout (his voice is deeper than CL’s, so it should be easy to recognize), is one of my favourite producers in the entire history of rap, second only to DJ Premier, and this beat, which is built on a sample of the song “Today” by Tom Scott, is widely considered to be his very greatest masterpiece, and for good reason. This song is so wonderful that it’s been lighting up my life since I was 12 years old, and my elder brother, who is one of this newsletter’s most prominent readers, loves it as much as I do; he has spoken to me of how good he is made to feel when he listens to it, and I have fond memories of dancing to it in his company. It’s really and truly lovely, and both Pete Rock and CL Smooth continue to make quality rap music in the year 2023, although their artistic journeys have been quite different. Pete Rock is still making good beats for variety of rappers, some good (Ghostface, Method Man, Redman, Pharoahe Monch, Styles P, Vast Aire) and some bad (Apathy, Smoke DZA) and some in the middle (Smif-N-Wessun, Rick Ross, Red Café); CL Smooth, for his part, was never as acclaimed as Pete Rock has always been, but I happen to believe he’s one of the best rappers ever, with a sinuous flow, a very compelling voice, and a perpetually underrated sharpness as a writer. It’s almost inevitable that multiple songs from the two excellent albums the bear made together, which are called Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992) and The Main Ingredient (1994), will appear in this column at some future date, And so will various other songs with which one or both of them have been involved. In the meantime, please enjoy this achingly tender and deeply emotionally potent and profoundly moving rap song.