Dilated Peoples - Worst Comes to Worst

"My lyrics take care of me, they therapy, get shit off my chest"

Album: Expansion Team [2nd album]
Recorded: Manhattan, New York
Genre: Hip Hop, West Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: October 23rd 2001
Single Release: September 11th 2001 [lead single] [select stores]
Length: 3.36
Producer: The Alchemist
Cuts: DJ Babu [age 27]
Vocalist: Evidence [age 24], Iriscience [age 29]
Label: Capitol Records

Music Video


Live in 2004

Charts, Streams & Sales

UK (singles): 29
Spotify: Over 66 million
YouTube Music: Over 59 million

Credits

Sample: William Bell - I Forgot to Be Your Lover (1968). Other artists to sample this track include Fashawn, Raekwon, Brand Nubian and Ludacris.

Details

• On September 11th 2001 one of the best hip hop songs of all time was released. And then the planes flew into the World Trade Center. No one really remembers that Worst Come to Worst came out on that fateful day. People had other things to think about. The internet barely has mention of it, although billboard.com still remembers. The music video was filmed one week before the attack, on the 4th of September, and features Iriscience rapping right outside the towers. Most outlets removed the footage after the attacks.
  
  It did come out though and the record was surely hurt by the collective outpouring of grief that rightfully followed the atrocity of that day. People weren't thinking about music, least of all a feel good hip hop party anthem and it's testament to how good a song it really is that it gained so much traction in a cultural climate it was so unsuited for. Luckily for Dilated their album featured some songs, such as 'War', that were perfect for the world post 9/11.
  
  
  
• "We just did it honestly," the hip-hop trio's Rakaa (a.k.a. Iriscience) said of the album. "Songs like 'War' and 'Self Defense,' the spirit of them were in our hearts. Sometimes we're in control of the brush and sometimes we're just conducting. We're like a vessel receiving divine intervention, channeling energies we don't even understand." (Rakaa talking to MTV in October 2001)
  
  
• The title and refrain 'when worst comes to worst my people come first' was originally said by Mobb Deep's Havoc on 'Survival of the Fittest' in 1995.
  
• Gang Starr's Guru shows up to do some adlibs. DJ Premier can be seen in the music video as can Planet Asia and Hieroglyphics as well as others.
  
• This is an early track from hip hop super-producer the Alchemist. Alchemist and Dilated emcee Evidence were childhood friends.
• The track is about having a good time and staying loyal to your friends because, even if everything comes tumbling down, you can always rely on your homies to pick you back up.
  

Artwork