Here I was, this whole time thinking that I needed to get this Marley Marl remix of the ode to Dapper Dan’s favourite pugilist, when the real knock-out was Teddy Riley’s dub work on the flip. Ted was in the midst of his proto-New Jack Swing era, delivering dancefloor-ready rap jams for Moe Dee, the…
Back in the early days of Twitter, I complained about how DEZ interrupted KASE2 from rapping so that he could recite a bit of ‘The Message’ in Style Wars. The Drama King was frankly appalled that anyone would bring that up thirty years later, which is valid, but how do we know what kind of…
Considering the tragic circumstances surrounding the end of GURU’s life, it’s not surprising that this project has taken nine years to arrive. As opposed to the ghoulish cash-in of Born Again and seemingly infinite posthumous Tupac albums, One of the Best Yet delivers a heart-felt farewell to the beloved MC Keith E.E. from members of…
Spoonie Gee isn’t talked about enough in terms of the greatest rappers ever. The popular dialogue will sometimes include Caz, Mel or Moe Dee as the token old schooler, but I still put Spoonie in my personal top ten to this day. Just taking a look at some of his achievements should really set the…
Rap old timers are having a bumper month if you’re idea of fun is listening to eighties and nineties favorites have another stab at making records, with the release of Positive K and Greg Nice’s Gr8te Mindz and a new Group Home LP titled Forever. The realist in me is none too keen in hearing…
Despite immediately dismissing this album when it was first announced on account of Havoc’s history of uninspired solo work, upon further inspection it turns out that Alan The Chemist has once again been able to bring out the best of the situation, as he’s previously done for Curren$y, Boldy James and Action Bronson. Hav put…
Having previously covered his early childhood on Son of Yvonne, Ace continues to reminisce about both the good and bad ol’ days of life in Brooklyn while attending high school via a long bus ride. Unlike the fictionalized scenarios he acted out on Disposable Arts and A Long Hot Summer, here we find Ace recalling…
The sad truth is that there are legions of unpaid interns working for ‘culture’ websites whose prime objective is to scour the lyrics of Drake/Kanye/Jay-Z for anything even vaguely resembling a subliminal diss. While a lot of late eighties rap could be relied on for rival MCs to straight-up call out the competition by name,…
When I first went to high school, I remember I’d memorized the entire intro to Rhyme Pays and would recite it to pretty girls for reasons which now escape me. Let’s just say it was a simpler time. Ice-T‘s first four albums combined humor, slick talk and social commentary in a way which set him…
Grand Good came through in the clutch with this one – twenty minutes of the Ultra crew rapping on the radio. Wonder whatever happened to that Ced-Gee compilation that was meant to drop on Next Plateau?
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…
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…