I’m not mad at these dudes for doing some weird shit. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Future and Fetty Wap Deserve Their Own Genre
Category: Features
In-depth coverage
Ayatollah – The Unkut Interview
Queens-born producer Ayatollah has laced tracks for everyone from Tragedy to Screwball to Mos Def to Cormega. We caught-up last week to discuss his early days on the come-up, auditioning beat tapes at Rawkus Records and a random Happy Days connection. His latest project, Box Cutter Brothers 3, is out now with Drasar Monumental. Robbie:…
Afrika Islam – The Unkut Interview
Rising up through the ranks from the ‘Son of Bambattaa’ to the DJ at The Roxy and launching the Zulu Beat radio show on WHBI, Afrika Islam went on to release the very first cut and paste record, help found the Rhyme Syndicate and produce the majority of Ice-T’s first four albums after moving to…
Download: A Salute To Eric ‘Vietnam’ Sadler
Eric ‘Vietnam’ Sadler was the Bomb Squad‘s secret weapon. It was his programming expertise that kept their ‘wall of noise’ production style in the pocket, assigned to translate Hank Shocklee and Chuck D‘s musical chaos into sharply welder tools of war. You can pick the tracks which have Eric’s heavy fingerprints in the way that…
No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Lies That Old Rap Fans Tell You
A lot of the best rap music was made in the eighties and nineties, but some folks just get away with those rose-tinted Cazals. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Lies That Old Rap Fans Tell You
Donald D – The Unkut Interview
Microphone King Donald D has had a long and varied career, spanning back to the park jam era, onto the downtown club scene, radio and then records, both as a member of The B-Boys and as a soloist with the Rhyme Syndicate. Now residing in Italy, Donald took some time out to detail some of…
Great Consecutive Albums Runs
I was musing about the fact that EPMD had an amazing run of three four cutting-edge albums before they parted ways the first time, which is almost unprecedented. However, as Old Man Rap Twitter pointed out, there are a few other contenders: Run-DMC – Set the pace on their first three LP’s, although Tougher Than…
The Zulu Beat Radio Show: An Oral History
Afrika Islam: I was a member of the Zulu King b-boys, under Afrika Bambaataa. That’s how I came into the culture, from the floor up. I went out to battle other b-boy crews across the city, representing the Zulu Nation. From there, my second step was becoming a Zulu Nation DJ – the first line…
Download: A Salute To Old School Throwbacks
There’s nothing like pretending to rap like it’s 1985 (or better yet, 1977) well after the fact, or recruiting some veteran MC’s to kick some old styles. While some of these attempts have fallen flat (Ugly Duckling and People Under The Stairs being two examples that spring to mind), others have made an entire career…
No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Search For Fake Hip-Hop
This makes Star Trek II: The Search For Spock look like a walk in the park. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Search For Fake Hip-Hop
No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Too Smooth, Too Soon
Big Daddy Kane is one of the best to ever do it, and can still tear a stage up to this day. So why did his solo recording career end in the ninwties? No Country For (Old) Rap Men: Too Smooth, Too Soon
Biters In the City [of Shaolin]
Cole James Cash was cleaning up his mom’s basement last week and found this old record which features not one but two rhymes which are ripped off word-for-word from other rappers. Apparently Lo Down had some connection with the Wu-Tang, with Islord from Killarmy contributing the final verse which is actually the Raekown’s rap from…