Some demo action to soundtrack your Saturday night. Intelligent Hoodlum – ‘No Justice, No Peace [Pete Rock Mix]‘ As heard on WBLS’ In Control and Tim Westwood’s Capitol Rap show before the Intelligent Hoodlum album was released. The album version, credited to Marley Marl, features a snippet of the same horn and sharper drums. Not…
Ronan was kind enough to invite me back to the show this week to celebrate the works of O.C. for two hours. Apparently the Jewelz album was released this week back in 1997, which is a happy coincidence I guess? Stream: Hippopotamus Rex (106.7 PBS-FM) – 18 August 2025: A Salute to O.C. Download: Hippopotamus…
Take 6’s silky smooth harmonies set off the opening scene in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing as ‘Don’t Shoot Me’ played behind Señor Love Daddy’s morning wake-up routine1, but thanks to the work of The 45 King, they also become part of an essential hip-hop breakbeat. ‘Spread Love’ was a popular a cappella single…
Taken from an episode of Kool DJ Red Alert’s KISS-FM show from 1988. Not sure if this is a radio blend with a 45 King instrumental or something he cooked-up for Red exclusively – either way, it’s a good time. Is this a lost 45 King remix or am I bugging? It sounds like one…
Cheers to Ronan for inviting me to play some music on his long-running rap radio show 1, Hippopotamus Rex, this past Monday. Just for kicks, I burnt some of my home-made remixes onto a CD and grabbed some white label records to play. We also talked about stout! Download: Hippopotamus Rex, Monday 14th July 2025…
The origins of the first white label hip-hop remix can be traced back to a long forgotten film titled Running Scared, which starred Gregory Hines (who, amongst his credits as a top-shelf tap dancer and actor, dropped a solo album in 1986 with assists from Luther Vandross) and Billy Crystal (his first co-starring role in…
Salutes to Richie1250 for spreading the good word of the Conservative Rap Coalition and playing some of my CRC remixes on his long-running PBS-FM radio show last Friday, you can catch the audio here: A handful of copies of the first Summer of Stout 7″ are still available from Big Cartel and Bandcamp.
“You’re three feet and sinking/The tribes are lost and everyone’s breath stinkin’” – Kool Keith on Ultramagnetic MCs ‘Pluckin’ Cards’, 1992. As pointed out in Angus Batey’s revisit of Funk Your Head Up in 2012, Keith continued the Ultramag party line – first witnessed on Tim Dog’s ‘I Ain’t Takin’ No Shorts’ – that the…
Now that we’re halfway through 2025 and I’m still standing firm on my refusal to start a podcast or any other form of multi-media ‘content creation’, but I still wanted to try something new (no, not effin’ IPA). Rather than actually push myself to learn something new – because who has time for that crap,…
While reading Decoded, I was often thinking, ‘Hold-up a minute – if Jay-Z doesn’t even write down his rhymes on paper, how has he got time to write a cot damn BOOK?’ Then on page 309, after it’s all said and done, he reveals the plot twist – ‘First and foremost I’d like to acknowledge…
Join us for the Conservative Rap Coalition’s first ever movie night over a few cans of stout, as we enjoy Big Daddy Kane’s 1990 VHS release Chocolate City in all of its 480P glory, with special live commentary from the peanut gallery.
So I needed a change of pace after the book and went back to making rap music, something I hadn’t done since the late nineties. Luckily Stan Ipcus and Genovese (hailing from White Plains and Yonkers, respectively) were down to let me make my own versions of their recent stuff so I wasn’t stuck doing…