As promised, here’s the first part of the Eighties Edition. This period is a little trickier, as for much of it rap was still a ‘singles’ medium, so many artists never even got to release albums at all, which opens the playing field pretty wide. To keep it manageable, I’ve stuck to crews and soloists…
[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.unkut.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CRC-Rapper-Report-Card.pdf”] Link to full size version After last week’s Jadakiss impromptu grading as a rapper, I got to thinking about how other rappers might fare if I scored them using Kool Moe Dee‘s patented Rapper Report Card system. For the purposes of this test, I simply plucked a name out of mid-air and scored…
Anyone want to hear a twenty track album with six random rappers crammed onto every song? Nah, didn’t think so. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Why producer albums are almost never worthwhile
AZ is a great rapper who also made his mark as a Conservative Rap Coalition style icon thanks to his affinity for sweater vests, polos and sensible shirts. While he had to work a little harder than most to escape Nas’ shadow (I’ve deliberately excluded anything involving him here), when he has the right beat…
While I was trolling Jadakiss apologists today for calling his new album Top Five Dead or Alive, lamenting his complete inability to ever make an official album with more than three good songs, a thought struck me – maybe you don’t actually need a certified classic album to be considered one of the best of…
By popular demand – and because there were so many tracks that I had to leave off the first volume – here’s part two of the nineties edition of Non-Album B-Sides. Thanks to everyone who suggested some of the stuff that I forgot about the first time around, and I hope you appreciate that I’ve…
The rap 7″ scene is outta control and I’m calling shenanigans. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Little records? Big deal!
After reading through the responses to the ‘Death of the b-side’ article, it was clear to me that the streets were fiending for a ZR&T collection of b-sides. There turned out to be so many great songs to choose from that I’ve had to split it up by the decade to fit everything on. Expect…
After eleven years, my dream of one day interviewing Godfather Don has finally been put to rest. Having previously tried to get Hydra Records honcho Jerry Famolari to connect me with this reclusive character in the late 00’s and then being contacted by a member of Don’s band several years later – who offered to…
As part of some cruel joke, my editor at Acclaim thought it would be amusing to force me to listen to Snoop Doggy Dogg’s second album, which was released nineteen years ago today. No Country For Old (Rap) Men: Looking back at Snoop’s sophomore struggle
This is a slightly different approach to the usual ‘A Salute To…’ series, in that it’s a collection of face-offs of two tracks that flip a well-worn loop in a fresh new way, plus a couple of bonus instrumentals that rework classic breaks. It’s worth noting that Diamond D beat Salaam Remi to the punch…
I did some work with DJ Pizzo this year over at Cuepoint, but previous to that I’d been a loyal customer of the main mail-order hip-hop stores, one of which was HipHopSite, which was founded by Pizzo and Warren Peace in 1996. He explained how the wild west that was the early internet allowed their…