Following the death of Joey Robinson Jnr. this week, I take a look at how his family’s legacy of great music and bad business. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Sugar Hill Records – The Hit Factory That Robbed Everybody Blind
Category: The 80’s Files
Ced-Gee Details His Work On Criminal Minded
Stumbled onto this piece of gold the other night thanks to TR Love – Angus Batey’s interview with Kool Keith and Ced-Gee for the liner notes of the Roadrunner edition of Critical Beatdown! Of particular interest was Ced’s breaking down his involvement with Criminal Minded: Ced-Gee: Me and Scott [La Rock] grew up together. I…
Download: A Salute To Noise
There was a brilliant period in hip-hop and electro records where the engineers seemed determined to warp and distort the original track to near unrecognizable forms, splattering echo and gated snares on the walls of some long-forgotten underground cavern. Let’s call it the Spelunker Period. The labels often provided not so subtle clues about what…
Eight Amusing Sugar Hill Records’ Performances
If in need of mild amusement, please proceed with caution as we look back at this selection of ten dollar videos and hooky live performances.
Breakbeat Lou – The Unkut Interview
Here’s the full version of my Breakbeat Lou interview, some of which was used in my Ultimate Breaks and Beats: An Oral History feature. Robbie: How did you meet Lenny Roberts? Breakbeat Lou: Lenny I’d met at Saul’s Record Pool, back in the early 80’s. There was a feedback committee meeting that we had and…
Download: A Salute To The Sugar Hill Band
For a jam-packed four year stretch, The Sugar Hill Band was the most powerful force in recorded rap, providing the beats for The Furious Five, Funky 4+1, Treacherous Three, Crash Crew, Spoonie Gee, The Sequence and more. With it’s core membership consisting of guitarist Skip McDonald, bassist Doug Wimbish, drummer Keith LeBlanc, percussionist Ed ‘Duke…
Stetsasonic – Just Say Stet [Demo version]
Scan courtesy of Press Rewind I didn’t get hip to Stetsasonic‘s brand of BK brilliance until I heard KRS-One shout them out and tracked down their In Full Gear album, but On Fire is worth your time for the classic ‘Go Stetsa’ and ‘My Rhyme.’ Here’s the stripped down demo version of their debut single,…
Def IV – Sample Pioneers?
The Def IV Nice & Hard album was always something I went back to when it was released in 1988. As the fourth album released on the Rap-A-Lot label, this group of New York transplants, which consisted of two brothers – Vicious Lee and Jon B – beat maker and DJ Lonnie Mac and vocalist…
Akshun aka Scarface – Another Head Put To Rest [1989]
What with Brad Jordan releasing his biography, Diary of a Madman recently (which he discusses with ego trip’s Gabriel Alvarez here), it seemed like a good time to take another listen his first single, released on Lil’ Troy‘s Short Stop Records back when he was still calling himself DJ Akshun. The a-side would later be…
Aaron Fuchs [Tuff City] – The Unkut Interview, Part Two
Concluding my discussion with Tuff City Records founder Aaron Fuchs, he talks about working with The 45 King, Lakim Shabazz and the Flavor Unit, the ‘Crack It Up’ single, the Ultramagnetic compilations and the highlights of his discography. Robbie: The 45 King had a big impact on the Tuff City discography. How did that relationship…
Aaron Fuchs [Tuff City] – The Unkut Interview, Part One
Aaron Fuchs‘ Tuff City label was the David to Def Jam‘s Goliath in the early 80’s. The label would go on to deliver important records from the Cold Crush Brothers, Spoonie Gee, The 45 King and Lakim Shabazz, to name but a few. Aaron talked extensively about how to keep your head above water in…
Cosmic Force – Cosmic Punk Jam [unreleased 1981 acetate]
Unlike Cold Crush Brother‘s ‘Punk Rock Rap,’ this vaulted Cosmic Force entry into the ‘punk rap’ canon is redeemed by a lack of fake cockney accents, the always reliable vocoder and the fact that it interpolates Michael McDonalds’ ‘I Keep Forgetting‘ 13 years before Dr. Dre’s stepbrother Warren G enlisted Nate Dogg to give it…