As was revealed in the “Life After Death: Making of A Classic” feature in XXL a while back, Biggie’s line “Yo son, I’m suprised you run with ’em, I think they got cum in ’em, ’cause they nothing but dicks” from “Kick In The Door” was directed at the tracks producer, DJ Premier. B.I.G. was…
Author: Robbie Ettelson
Tragedy – The Youngest In Charge
Queensbridge legend DJ Hot Day cut a couple of raw-as-fuck, park-jam style tracks with young MC Jade (aka Tragedy) back in the mid-80’s, offering us another look into the mind of the Intelligent Hoodlum when he was still a fresh-faced whipper snapper.
Words From The Super Kid
Back when Marley Marl was making records in his sister’s lounge room, slapping echo on everything to compensate for the fact that he didn’t have any reverb to play with, he cut some seriously raw, gritty tracks. 14 year old Percy (who was calling himself MC Jade at the time) used to bug Marl to…
Triple Kut – 80’s Headcracks
Duke Bootee put in some amazing work following his contributions to both parts of “The Message”, most notably his production and powerful Linn drum programming for a number of Beauty & The Beat (his own label) and Profile singles. Records from the Point Blank MCs, MC Crash, K-Rob, Z-3 MCs and the Duke himself all…
T La Rock Rockin The Rock
After getting screwed over by Def Jam, who attempted to replace him with young upstart LL Cool J, T La Rock bounced back with a new record and a new deal. “Breakdown” and “He’s Incredible” are featured on the recent CD release of Lyrical King, so I’ll instead focus on the third cut from the…
Hip-Hop Peace and Unity Fest 04 – Review
Capturing this second annual free concert held in Toronto, Hip-Hop Peace and Unity Fest ’04 makes for enjoyable viewing, thanks in no small part to the antics of the large crowd. The actual show is pretty decent as well, but the audience provide more than their fair share of memorable moments.
T La Rock Rolls The Dice
There’s no doubt that Mantronik‘s production work on many of T La Rock‘s records is part of their legendary status, but T and DJ Louie Lou still produced some great cuts together, one of which is the b-side to “This Beat Kicks” called “Scratch Monopoly”.
1986 Speaker Smashers – Rip The Cut
In many ways, hardcore rap peaked in 1986. Despite lacking the lyrically complexity of 1988’s finest and the depth of production found in 1994’s best releases, hip-hop records from ’86-’87 took the abrasive, hard rock aesthetic championed by Run-DMC and pushed it to it’s ear-splitting, speaker-melting limits.
Ced Gee Part 14 – The Final Chapter
Rounding off my Delta Force One Special, it’s only right that the full version of “Ego Trippin’ (MC’s Ultra)” gets some well-deserved shine. To put it bluntly, everything about this song defines the term “classic”. For starters, “Ego Trippin’” has the honor of being the first hip-hop track to flip Melvin Bliss‘ ill “Synthetic Substitution”…
Super-Rapper T La Rock, Undisputed MC
The Club Mix of T La Rock‘s “Breaking Bells” manages to improve on an already incredible track by adding a new verse from Terry and letting cut ‘n paste masters Omar Santana and Chep Nunez get busy with Mantronik and Louie-Lou’s killer beat foundation. This results in the final two minutes of the song consisting…
Ced Gee Special Parts 1 – 5
First, the good news: I’ve finally imported the first five Ced Gee posts from the old Bootleggin’ site. The bad news is that since I’m using up most of my storage space at the moment, all the audio has been downgraded to 64 kps. But considering that most websites/audio blogs (aka “pathetic attempts to win…
Black Market Militia – Album Review
Having never really bothered to listen to Wu-Tang associates such as Sunz of Man, Killarmy and Royal Fam, nor bothering with Killah Priest‘s cult favourite Heavy Mental, when I heard that Tragedy Khadafi and Killah Priest were forming the Black Market Milita with Hell Razah, Timbo King and William Cooper (who I’ve never heard of),…