What you need to look out for here is how Blacula was chopped for "Higher Level." A beat only one of the greatest ears for samples could have caught. After that, check the gem by Myndcrukz featuring Twizz on the rhymes. Great,warm sample taken from the Bennie Maupin track. Bennie Maupin was a part of Herbie Hancock's famous "The Headhunters" band, known for their own brand of Funk Jazz. We finish this comp/mix out with a great end piece including Faze-O's "Riding High" on heroin highway. I always thought that EPMD's sampling of it was way ahead of it's time, and it's been used many times since.But my other favorite usage, that also works well here, is OC's outro,"Sabotage" from his incredible debut album Word ... Life.
The southwest states are probably way below the rap radar for most people. Places likes Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver are distant outposts from the vantage point of meccas like New York or the Bay Area. Do not be fooled because none of your favorite rappers hail from the desert however. Like other urban environments all across the country, southwest cities have an abundance of local hip hop.
A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturday." This is when the Native Tongues were "Doin' THEIR Own Dang".
KGB - Bless Ya Life
Shabazz The Disciple - Death Be The Penalty (CDS)
Dark Skinned Assassin - Lock Shit Down
Ruthless Bastards - Murder We Wrote
La The Darkman - I Want It All/As the World Turns
my favorite things
In 1995, J-Live released his first 12" "Longevity/Braggin' Writes" on Raw Shack Productions. The b-side, Braggin' Writes, was featured in many mixtapes, including New York Reality Check 101 which was mixed by DJ Premier. In 1996, he would release his second 12" "Can I Get It?/Hush The Crowd". The highlight of that 12", was the Domecraker Remix of Braggin' Writes that was produced by DJ Spinna. J-Live would also be featured in the Nov. 95 issue of The Source in the Unsigned Hype section. In 2003, J-Live released an EP called "Always Has Been" that contained all the tracks from his early 12"s + an unreleased track that didn't make "The Best Part".
Rap is acutely sensitive to borders and constraints. The claustrophobic streets, the stifling parameters of stereotype, and the glass ceiling of the music industry are exhaustively depicted in terms ranging from humorous to harrowing. Cynics may write off these lamentations as navel gazing flights of fancy or even melodramatic musings that arise out of a stubborn and outdated persecution complex; it is difficult for me to refute such claims entirely. Clearly, a part of rap's recurring crossover appeal is linked to the strategic magnification of localized individual turmoil. How else could a crew from a desolate nine story housing project on the friggin' north shore of Staten Island convincingly and repeatedly declare itself the voice of the global ghetto struggle?
Misguided attempts to trade one's youthful bohemianism for the rah rah du jour are quickly discarded by an insulted core audience, which is why every damned one of us prefer Low End Theory to the UMCs trying to Onyx it up on Unleashed. Hell, we even prefer it to De La Soul is Dead; innovation and departure just feel better when the artist doesn't ask that you join a cult or subscribe to a silly binary reversal. To be a hip hop junkie is to be forever skeptical - the music can cost as little as zero dollars to create and its deeply embedded codes call for the ritual slaughter of any style too stale. And yet the perpetuity of the conditions that allowed the music to flourish - from the inner-city angst of Melle Mel's "The Message" to the inner-ring suburban ennui defied by L.O.N.S. on "International Zone Coaster" - call for a frequent revisitation of themes and imagery.
How then can rappers critique the status quo, maintain artistic integrity, annunciate a future worth striving for, and flirt with the periphery of the public's tolerance for next-ness? Is this balancing act plausible or even desirable? If rappers are realistically constrained by genre, song structure, language, or sales anyway, is there a space for subversion, or even room to articulate the next version of freedom or mobility? Without coming across like a paid lecturer or a sweaty preacher or a snake oil salesman or an unkempt hippie? Has a rapper ever managed to truly break the rules without quickly reassembling them, and come off nice?
The questions I am posing are probably as insular as any rapper's lyrical voyage through the multiverse. For the sixty or so who care about the answers - exhale as soon as possible. A genre so consumed with being fresh won't tolerate these debates much longer even if YouTube guarantees this music the high-tech mausoleum it deserves. The beat goes on. And yet I can't keep my mind off Ultramagnetic MCs and their song "Two Brothers With Checks." I'm not going to bother with a line for line breakdown. Kool Keith already handles this quite skillfully on his own; peep the DivShare widget at the top of this post to hear him dissect his own madness to hilarious effect on Stretch and Bobbito's immortal show.
I will tell you this though - "Two Brothers With Checks" is worth your time. There's something going on there. A movement. Between towns and cities, between label contracts, in and out of whatever enclosures might be suffocating this incredible song made by some extraordinary artists. Ced Gee is Chuck D. on acid, wielding a style too unbearable for this world and yet sounding surprisingly comfortable over this beat. Coasting from El Segundo to Pakistan, a world of wonder and prestige unfolding at every turn. Kool Keith is much the same and yet even more bugged out, making moves on the strength of arcane baseball references. Not too different from the Popular Science reading, Sp-12 tweaking, loop and neologism inventing, Bronx-bred subway(tube?) riding goofballs that Brian Coleman depicts in Rakim Told Me. Just moved on from All City to worldwide, and not giving a fuck.
The flyest and least celebrated to ever circumnavigate in a non-pink Cadillac, a movement without a hypebeast to revive and kill it. Mobile and unheralded and probably not paid in full. But throwing it down, presumably in the wrong era for the right reasons. Can you dig it now? -- Thun
Here's a great mix by T.R.O.Y. Member serch4beatz. This mix contains rare underground joints. It's his best mix so far. Don't Sleep
Enjoy this dope mixtape by Switzerland's own Tom & Marc. The mixtape is one full track and it's a must have!
While details are still being confirmed, several sources told AllHipHop.com that the rapper died early this morning.
“He’s no longer with us,” said a tearful friend, who shall remain anonymous. “We are in the process of putting together a benefit concert, hopefully at Saint Andrews to raise money for a funeral,” the source told AllHipHop.com.
MC Breed, born Eric Breed, was a 15-year-veteran who was born in Flint Michigan.
He worked with a number of rappers, including Too $hort and Tupac Shakur.
On September 5, Breed was admitted to an Atlanta area hospital and placed on life support, after he collapsed when his kidneys failed, during a game of pickup basketball.
His condition began to improve and he was taken off of life support a few days later.
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Now go dig up your Breed and DFC tapes and let 'em bang this weekend!
R.I.P. Breed
I'm sure everybody has seen this classic freestyle session at least once. The freestyle was cut into two parts. The first part had Rakim, Krs One, Erick Sermon, Chubb Rock, and MC Serch. After the commercial, they came back with Redman, Method Man, Large Pro, Special Ed, and Craig Mack. You can also see Rampage the Last Boy Scout in the crowd; I don't know why he didn't appear on the freestyle. Dj Skribble was on the turntables. They rhymed over the instrumentals of It's My Thing, Mad Izm, and Real Hip Hop(Pete Rock Remix). I've always loved it when Erick Sermon is rapping and the beat switches to "Real Hip Hop".
