Following a bitter legal dispute with Cold Chillin’ Records around 1989, Marley Marl broke out, taking Craig G and Tragedy (the two youngest members of the Juice Crew) with him. The resulting projects were good, if a little uneven. Craig’s The Kingpin was a mixture of the good (“Dopest Duo”), the bad (“Love Thang”) and…
Author: Robbie Ettelson
Theodore Bootleg Bonus
Ghostface & Trife Da God – 718:Stapleton to Somalia [advance] Thanks to Gully for this one…it has voice-overs though. Get it while it lasts.
SBX! Holding Down Tradition – DVD Review
Ever wondered what AG kept in his fridge? “If you didn’t know before then ya know now….” Any DVD which includes grainy camcorder footage of the legendary Lord Finesse vs Percee-P face-off achieves instant “must own” status in my book. The main feature, however, plays second fiddle to this timeless slice of Pelon rap history,…
Biggie Smalls & Jeru The Damaja – Friend or Foe?
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…
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”…