Back in 2010 I received a recording of a TJ Swan demo recorded from Tim Westwood‘s show in 1988 titled “Mellow Love”, although someone claiming to be affiliated with Swan then contacted me and demand that I remove the track on the grounds that: “This was a practice session. Swan wrote and sang the song…
Category: In Search Of…
Missing In Action
The Return of T-Ray
Thanks to a tip from DJ 7L (who himself was tipped-off by DJ Eclipse), it seems that the mystery of T-Ray’s disappearance from the music game has been solved. Thankfully he wasn’t involved in a fatal knife fight with Joell Ortiz‘s manager Mike Heron following the interview I did with him, it seems that Todd…
Kool Keith Sort Of Explains What Happened To Godfather Don
Phillip ‘Dive Bar’ Mlynar caught-up with Kool Keith for the Village Voice back in June and asked after the whereabouts the ever-elusive Godfather Don: Earlier this summer, Kool Keith was standing up at a dive bar in Midtown Manhattan nursing a glass of chardonnay in his hand. I was there to interview Keith, which turned…
Does Rakim’s Break The Wrath In Half Exist?
As Rakim tells it in the above video with RA The Rugged Man (who looks ‘like a teenage girl on her first date’ according to the YouTube comments ), he agreed to remove his four lines aimed at Big Daddy Kane from the first version of ‘Let The Rhythm Hit ‘Em’ after Ant Live played…
J-1 From Hardknocks – The Unkut Interview
Hardknocks delivered something unique when they dropped the School of Hard Knocks album in 1992. It stood-out both musically and lyrically as a sophisticated blend of hardcore rhymes and groove-heavy beats that sounded nothing like any other record of the era. Then they promptly vanished…leaving a lot of unanswered questions for rap fanatics who knew…
The Search For The Most Unnecessary Remixes On A Twelve Inch
Hip-hop was the music of the twelve-inch single up until the ’87-’88, when the rap album became it’s own animal, as opposed to a collection of singles. But the Maxi-Single wasn’t going to just lie down and take that shit lightly, and it struck back like CAP-One, “the object is more…not the biggest or the…
Where Are They Now – By Request
You know what blogs can do that print magazines can’t? Help track down MIA rappers from the 80’s and 90’s. I finally got a lead on a group I’ve been trying to track down for years (I’ll wait until the interview is in the can before I say any more), but most rap fanatics can…
Where Are They Now – Hard Knocks
Naming yourselves Hardhead and Stoneface risks envoking the image of Bedrock, but these dudes weren’t on some Fruity Pebble bullshit. Their School of Hard Knocks album was tough to get for a long time, but those who managed to track it down were in for a treat, as this LP was well ahead of it’s…
Eric B. Returns
So I interviewed Eric B. a few weeks back and you know I just had to find out how accurate that (now removed) Wikipedia entry really was. In particular, the talk of this chain of restaurants. Robbie: Are you also involved in the restaurant business? Eric B: Yes. I got a bunch of ‘em. What…
The Rap Bandit – The Unkut Interview
NAME: The Rap Bandit. AFFILIATIONS: Grew up with The Source founder Jon Schecter in Philly. Part of the original Mind Squad at The Source magazine, where he also penned the ‘Media Watch’ section under the name Pistol Pete. Later moved the column to Vibe magazine. CLAIM TO FAME: Pioneered the art of making fun of…
The Other ‘Scenario’ Demo Surfaces
This is pretty epic…first of all Bol passed on this link to the audio of Q-Tip on Juan Epstein, which features Tip discussing the two demo versions and doing a hilarious impersonation of Busta: Q-Tip: “It was just too many people. I called niggas back, told niggas to come back the next day. Nobody came…
The Eric B. Mystery Deepens
Recently I highlighted a clearly embellished Wikipedia entry about Eric B. The thing is, I was pretty sure that at least some of it was based on reality (‘vehicular menagerie’ excepted). Part of that stemmed from Dr. Butcher‘s comments: Is Eric still involved in music? Eric is always involved with something! [chuckles] Eric is a…