Holding it down for angry loners & the unemployable
Somehow I completely missed this amazing original mix of LL’s ‘Illegal Search’ until I picked up the 12″ of ‘Jingling Baby’ last year. For starters, it reminds me of Little Shawn’s ‘Hickey’s On My Chest’, which was released three years later with Howie Tee’s take on the same James Brown loop and still rocks on…
Not sure why the Stereo MC’s labeled this remix as Part II, other than that they thought they might sell a few extra copies via if the punter’s thought it was a brand new song from Brother J and co? They also recorded some nice remixes for the Jungle Brothers and Latifah under their Ultimatum…
The late Black Rob was always great, but around the time that he released his second album, The Black Rob Report, he really hit his stride and recorded two tracks that I still listen every chance I get. ‘Jeans and Sneakers’ was originally an unholy alliance between a heavily-edited promo rap for Biggie’s planned Brooklyn…
Smurf across the surf with this Netherlands-only instrumental mix, featuring what sounds like tiny versions of Donald D and Brother B, because that was how everyone was rolling in 1983.
That faithful winter of 1997, when Queensbridge went nuts finding haunting vocal samples from jazz greats like Nina Simone to rap over, gave us the CRC anthems ‘Alluminatti’ (or ‘Norematti’ if you’re Team NORE instead of Iman THUG) and ‘True Confessions’ via local beat merchant G-Money. This powerful sound eventually bled into Pete Rock’s consciousness…
An alternative version of the Diamond D track from the One Tough Cop soundtrack, a film starring Stephan Baldwin and Chris Penn which no one I know has seen or even heard of. Zev’s verse would resurface when his MF Doom transformation was complete, but interesting to hear an early take here.
DJ 7L sez: This mix is an audio celebration of the work Cey Adams has done as a designer and artist. As head creative director at Def Jam in the 90’s Cey created some of the most iconic album covers and logos. In My Lifetime is source material from albums he has worked on, everything…
Something was lost when ‘Hundred Dollar Bill’ was re-recorded as ‘Ijustwannachill’ for The LP. This first take is a little bit faster than the album version (enough to shave half a minute off the run time), which seems to spark-up the artist formerly known as Paul Juice to rap with a little more vigor. This…
I’ll let T-Ray and this On The Go magazine review sum this one up… T-Ray sez: I’ll tell you something I did for G Rap back in the day – I think Stretch Armstrong actually bootlegged it – it later got called ‘Hey Mr. Mr.’, but it was originally called ‘Don’t Interrupt Me When I’m…
Allow me to introduce a rag-tag bunch of rappers delivering parodies of well-known rap songs, piss-takes of ‘gangster’ rap and even taking the mickey out of their own image. 01. J.O.B. – Prince Paul The only P.S.K. remake worth it’s salt. 02. U Mean I’m Not – Black Sheep Sounds like Dres is having a…
Before Akinyele made a name for himself on ‘Live At The BBQ’ and the incredible Vagina Diner album, he was down with a dude named Amazin’. The duo apparently went by the name of – you guessed it – Akinyele and Amazin’, as Joe Fatal explained to me back in 2007: ‘Akinyele had a group…
Here’s an interesting snapshot of how some rap fanatics reacted to the first Nas album (myself included) – it delivered nine amazing rap songs, featuring state-of-the-art rhymes over the some of the finest producers to ever do it. And yet…it just didn’t deliver the knock-out blow that Criminal Minded, It Takes A Nation Of Millions…