Click on the pics for a full-size version. This brings back some memories… these charts went in! Chuck D‘s ‘Crazy Alternative Top Hip-Hop 15’ is a winner, as are the contributions from Harry Allen, J. The Sultan and Funken-Klein (R.I.P.). Considering how young I was when this issue dropped, there were a lot of records…
Category: Great Moments In Rap
Vintage Tape of KRS-One & Scott La Rock Discussing The Bridge Is Over
Original Concept‘s Doctor Dre used to have a radio show called The Operating Room back in the days, and he just happened to get BDP into the studio just as the Bridge Wars started popping-off. There is no other way to describe these recordings other than effin’ awesome. The late, great DJ Scott La Rock…
Is Marley Marl The Most Important Producer In The History Of Hip-Hop?
Once upon a time, around 1985 at Unique recording studio in New York city, Marley Marl accidentally sampled a snare drum. It was a mistake, initially, as he’d instructed the engineer to grab a vocal snippet for the Captain Rock song he was remixing at the time. When he played the sound on the keyboard…
The Long, Drawn-Out Death of Fat Beats…
Dallas Penn contributes this drop in the first of a series of guest spots while his site is on hiatus: Fat Beats was like your older uncle who you didn’t visit as often so that when you got the news of his death it was from the other folks who still brought him his wine…
Fat Beats Memories: Marco Polo
Yesterday saw the announcement that the brick and mortar stores of Fat Beats would be closing their doors in New York and LA after sixteen years: Fat Beats will celebrate the legacies of the stores, which are scheduled to close in early September (New York: September 4th, Los Angeles: September 18th) by throwing a series…
Lord Finesse Selling His SP-1200
Looking for a classic sampler responsible for making some timeless rap classics? It could all be yours: Lord Finesse’s SP-1200 ebay auction Since the username saint163 had zero feedback, it seemed worthy of investigation to see if this was legit. Here was the response: That’s the codename alias in DITC.. saint or seldomseen.. 163.. is…
Six Vintage D.I.T.C. Photos
Just got put on to some timeless gems over at Lord Finesse‘s Facebook gallery, featuring a teenage Fat Joe, Big L, DJ Premier, GURU and more. “Whole lotta memories…” (c) Iz The Wiz.
Dres Attempts To Remember The Scenario Session
A Dres-free picture from the session… Here’s another piece to the ‘Scenario’ demo, taken from an interview that Phillip ‘Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa’ Mlynar did last week: Here’s the the non-speaking half-Puerto Rican brother from New York on a session that apparently they were all too high and drunk to remember properly: Dres:…
The Birth Of The Queensbridge Rhyme Style
If you caught the Special Edition of Marley Marl‘s In Control Vol. 1 then you would have caught the commentary from the man himself introducing each track. According to Marley, Tragedy’s second verse on ‘Live Motivator’ was the official birth of the QB style: Marley Marl – ‘Live Motivator Intro’
10 Things I Discovered From The Book ‘Def Jam, Inc.’
Somehow or other, I recently found myself at the local library, where I stumbled across a book titled Def Jam, Inc. The author, Stacy Guerseva, did a great job of recalling the history from the early days of the label based in Rick Rubin‘s dorm through to the powerhouse that it would eventually become. Of…
Roc Marciano – Marcberg Album Review
This is Critical Beatdown for 2010. While it doesn’t exactly share any similarities in terms of the beat science presented, Marcberg is a game-changer. Much like the impact of Ultramagnetic MC’s long-awaited debut, you’ve never really heard an album like this before. No guest producers, over-used hooks or any type of traditional song-structure for that…
Ironlak Presents: Counter Strike – The Unkut Dot Com Mixtape
Design: The Home Office If you’d told me that I’d be dropping a tape with DJ Doo Wop that featured exclusive tracks from some of New York’s finest back when I started Unkut Dot Com six years ago, I would have told you to stop smoking that shit. I’ve been through some ups and downs…