Liquid Liquid - Cavern [1983]

The only music video commissioned by 99 Records, "Cavern" was originally released on their 1983 Optimo 12". It was covered the same year by Melle Mel and deceitfully credited as a Grandmaster & Melle Mel production and released on Sugarhill Records. Grandmaster Flash had actually already left the Gang by the time this was recorded, and had nothing to do with the production of the record whatsoever. Liquid Liquid's original version chanted "slip in and out of phenomenon" and the lifted vocal melody was rewritten as the more widely recognizable lyric: "something like a phenomenon". The song was originally set to be written about the cocaine-addicted lifestyles that many led at the time, but was changed by Sugar Hill Records to promote an anti-drug message. "White Lines (Don't Do It)" by Grandmaster & Melle Mel even included lyrics that told of the story of stainless steel car company DMC's CEO John DeLorean's bust involving the smuggling of large quantities of cocaine through the gas tanks of his cars. The lyric hinted at the group's discontent with DeLorean's release on bail after being busted with a couple dozen kilos of coke. Here is Liquid Liquid's original.