On paper, this is a bad idea. Legendary Lyricist Percee-P heading out West to get his Madvillain on? At the same time, it’s moronic to dismiss the first real album from the guy who gave us “Lung Collapsing Lyrics” and stole the show on “Yes You May”, so I attempted to shrug-off any preconceived ideas…
Author: Robbie Ettelson
The 45 King – The Unkut Interview
As one of the most influential beat-makers of the late 80’s, The 45 King brought horns up front like no one had thought to do before him, setting the stage for Pete Rock to flip them for his own signature style during his ’93-’94 takeover. But where he really made his mark was on full-length…
The Underdog’s Manifesto – Book Review
In a bizarre twist of fate, I was recently sent a couple of books to check out from an indy publisher, and the first one I tackled appeared to be one of those corny “rap business guides” at first glance, but actually turned out to have a major connection to my on-going series looking at…
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em – Marco Polo Interview
Even though he hasn’t gotten wasted in over ten years, I get the impression that Marco Polo used to get tore-up with the best of ‘em, so I’m willing to give him a pass from my standard “Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink” policy. Fueled by a constant intake of caffeine and loosies, MP has…
Run-DMC? Not so much.
There’s no denying the importance of the Kings from Queens in the development of this here rap shit, but truth be told, when I first started copping TDK D-90 dubs of Kool & Deadly and Criminal Minded that whole shout-rap style was sounding real primitive. Not only that, but the fact that headbangers were sporting…
Check The Technique – Book Review
Considering my obsession with rap trivia, it’s amazing that I never got around to grabbing a copy of Rakim Told Me, but since Brian Coleman just threw me a copy of his expanded edition, I’ve finally been able to absorb this shit. Anything involving Schoolly-D is essential as far as I’m concerned, and best believe…
KRS-One – The Unkut Interview
One of the all-time highlights in my Unkut Dot Com experience would have to be speaking to DJ Kenny Parker last year, and when I recently had the chance to speak to his younger brother Kris a week or so ago, it was on like Donkey Kong. The problem was, unlike the three hours I…
Deep Crates 2 Review
I’ve got to give it up to Beatdawg for tracking down some of the more obscure producers on this follow-up to his documentary from a few years back. Any flick that gives King of Chill, Easy LG and DJ Doc airtime alongside the traditional big names is doing something right. Having only seen a shitty…
Hydra Special – Mike Heron Interview
A little while after I posted an article on Hydra Entertainment on this site, I received an email from Mike Heron, who as it turns out started the label with Jerry Famolari in 1997. Their debut release, “Screwed Up/They Wanna Know Why” was also the first of many dope records from Queens super-group Screwball, in…
Unkut meets Wikipedia
I found this fairly amusing – it seems that my half-baked theories regarding Jeru The Damaja‘s relationship with Biggie have been “immortalized” in the Jeru Wikipedia entry. Here’s the original article and the resulting “fall-out”.
25 Desert Island Discs
Hawking back to the shitty radio trend of announcers asking their guests to name the music they’d want to have on hand should they happen to be marooned somewhere with a portable stereo and a power supply. Straight Bangin’ put out the call, and although I initially just dug up my list from last year,…
Hydra Special – Jerry Famolari Interview
The next couple of weeks here at Unkut Dot Com are dedicated to the mighty Hydra Entertainment label, the Queens-based indy that brought us Screwball, Godfather Don and Gab Gotcha – street-loved underground records that delivered everything that Rawkus wanted to be but never really achieved (but more on that later). To set it off,…