In terms of having some tough breaks in the rap game, Mikey D has weathered some rough times over the years. From Cool J allegedly biting his style in the old days to an ill-fated stint as Xtra-P’s replacement in Main Source and having his NMS belt stolen by Melle Mel, Mikey has endured as a street legend. Now that his vaulted solo album from 1989 has finally been released, it seemed like the perfect time to release this interview I did with him back in 2005.

Robbie: There’s been a lot of talk about Paul C recently, but a lot of people seem to forget that you were his main rapper. What was it like working together?

Mikey D: In the early days with Paul C, it was just crazy. When we met each other, we just clicked. He had a small studio in his garage in Rosedale, I was all the way on the other side of town doing my thing, and we had mutual friends – the Clientele Brothers – these guys that I used to rap with. They used to work with Paul first, and then they introduced us and we just clicked from there. What happened was, he got a position at 1212 Studio, in Jamaica, Queens. We had access to the studio, so anytime they didn’t have sessions, we would come up there late night. Me and Johnny Quest – two young, little dudes goin’ up there, doin’ our thing. It was crazy because Paul was spontaneous and freestyle, like as far as the beats. Like when a rapper can freestyle, that’s how Paul was with his beats, and that’s how I was with my rhymes. So anytime we connected in the studio it was just crazy, and it just so happened that we had our hands on a couple of independent labels that was interested in us, so we let them just bang our shit out.

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Here’s a welcome return from Keir Johnson, who’s been busy doing his thing in the skateboard game with his Catalyst Skateboards company and making videos:

Among the many striking artists that graced Bobbito’s Fondle ‘Em label were two alluring individuals known as Yeshua Da PoED & Siah. Yeshua, now known as Yesh, represented the production side of the group, his intricate work on the The Visulaz EP often overshadowed the lyrical content, not to mention chemistry, that the two MC’s possessed.

Courtesy of d-nice.com

Over the last few months I’ve noticed that former T La Rock beatbox and Nice & Smooth member Greg Nice has been getting kinda busy. Although he hasn’t put out a record in a minute, he’s guested on a few Beatnuts tracks as well as keeping busy lending his voice to car commercials and the like, but right now he seems to be everywhere – beatboxing for Rakim here, hype man for Sadat X there – not to mention a few shows with Smooth B.

Not content with these hypeman duties, he’s also been recording new joints. “Work It Out” is classic N-I-C-E, as featured on a recent J-Love CD, while he also teamed-up with Sadat X for a track off Black October. Not to mention he provides the chorus to Cormega and Lake’s “Don’t Start”. His mans Smooth B isn’t resting on his laurels either, as he did a single with DJ Premier last year. I’m not sure if they’ll be another Nice & Smooth album or if they’re going to stick to solo projects, but either way I’m glad to hear Greg doing his thing. Don’t sleep on his production skills either, he flipped the beats for his solo shot and the Sadat piece.

Here’s an email interview I just did with NYOIL, who’s “Y’All Should All Get Lynched” video is stirring-up some mixed feelings at the moment.

Robbie: I liked what you said on your MySpace blog about not showing your face and letting the music speak.

NYOIL: These days before you even get to hear the music, your bombarded by images. Dudes mean mugging the camera, women half dressed – they try to sell you the album before you even heard it. They (the powers that be) have it so down pat that nine times out of ten you do buy the album without hearing more than one song. I wanted to be able to just present my music, my lyrics, the production and the message. I want to be a “Car Stereo” artist. When you’re in the car and you put your CD’s in, only the stuff that you are really feeling is going to get any play time. So I want to be that sort of artist.

I feel that if I get caught up in who I am more so than what I am doing then I am going to diminish my ability to do all the things I would like to do. I really couldn’t have done a song like “Get Lynched” and try to be a public figure…it would be too contrived. But doing it as a faceless artist, in my opinion, allows it to represent an ideal – more than one person’s opinion.

Were you given a reason why your video for “Lynched” was removed from YouTube?

Not yet, not at all. I sent them an email asking why my video was removed whilst other videos considerably more offensive to blacks and others alike play all day everyday uncontested. I haven’t gotten a response. Considering they are making the sale to Google, I guess they didn’t want any trouble. Which is deep, why would a song like “Y’all should all get lynched” be more troublesome to YouTube than the thousands of videos of under-age black girls and white girls alike doing jigglit videos (videos where they are in essence shaking what they got for the camera)? Doesn’t that sort of imply child pornography? That doesn’t strike you as odd that of all the filth on that site one of the things that they are diligent about is a song that is in essence reminding the people of the sacrifices that were made and to live up to them? Because the shame you are bringing upon your people and ancestor’s deserves punishment of the highest order.

After getting over 5,000 views in one day, YouTube removed this “anti-cooning” video from Staten Island’s NYOIL. I guess Google are throwing their weight around over there already, huh? Sounds like the Black Bastards cover controversy all over again…
Dude’s not biting his tongue for no one by the looks of things, as the clip calls out a whole bunch of “sell-out” rappers.

Stay tuned for an interview with this young upstart shortly.
Here’s the interview I did with NYOIL.

NYOIL - “Y’All Should All Get Lynched” video:

Wrapping up my conversation with Kenny Parker, he shares some classic BDP stories, including the night that KRS debuted “The Bridge Is Over” at Union Square…. [Part 1 Part 2]

Robbie: So did Kris really become a “Born Again” Christian?

Kenny Parker: For lack of a better term, I’m gonna say “Yeah”. But he’s a little more deeper than that. The thing with Kris is he’s forever evolving. He reads a lot and he evolves a lot, and when you catch him at a particular time, where he’s at at that time is what he’s gonna say, and then another year or two from now he might move on to something else. And he might be “Well, this is me now. I’m this”, and then you might say “What happened to that from two years ago? Oh, you’re contradictory. You know what? Get outta here”. From Criminal Minded to By All Means Necessary, to me that was a completely different vibe for him, for the most part.

But it was all hits, so people were just like “It’s all good”. Kris being contradictory – I think some people say that like it’s cool to boot A-Rod, like after a while you just say it and you just do it. But if you really look at it…to me, you know what’s contradictory? When you come out hardcore with a hoody on, and on your next album you have a suit on and you’re smoking a cigar. [laughs] To me, that’s contradictory. I can name a whole bunch of rappers that was crazy hardcore in ‘93, ‘94, and then by ‘96 they was “Dons” and they had jewelry on. But they get a pass for that, ‘cause I guess no one looks at it like that. Even Tupac – to me, Tupac is the most contradictory artist of all time, because he was a lot of different things! He really was a revolutionary, a thug, a ladies man – he was all of those things. So he made all of those records. At one moment he’ll say “Keep Your Head Up” and the next moment he’s like “Fuck bitches! Get Money!”. He’s all over the place, but he gets a pass. Most people get a pass but KRS-One – that’s his curse. He is “Stop The Violence” and that’s it. (more…)

It seems as though there’s been another “coincidence” concerning Just Blaze flipping the same loop after someone else, much like the when he did that “P.S.A.” beat for Jay-Z a few months after Black Moon released their “Stay Real” single¹. This time he’s used “Shaft In Africa” in a similar manner to the track that K-Def sold Diddy back in November of last year (the instrumental was also featured on K-Def’s website around the same time). Issues of originality aside, I’m interested to hear which track everyone prefers.²

Diddy - “We Gon’ Make It”

Jay-Z - “Show Me What You Got”

Update! Diddy-free version of the K-Def beat:

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Update #2: Since there’s been some mention of the El Da Sensai version of this break from the start of the year, produced by Money Mercilesz, I thought I’d put it up here to compare. You’ll have to put up with the annoying “press advance” drops on it though, that’s all I’ve got. I also threw in the track K-Def did for the same album (The Unusual) since the beat is nice as hell.

El Da Sensai - “Up In Da Spot”

El Da Sensai - “Rock It Out”

1. 1. Although it’s worth noting that Buckwild was the first to use it as a skit on OC’s first LP. [back]
2. 2. Puff’s lyrics were supplied by The Game on this occassion. [back]

Sure, I was going to review this weeks ago but I wanted to wait until I could rock it in the whip to get a true appreciation. The verdict? Not great, but not a complete waste of time either. Although it lacks that finished touch due to it being a rushed product as a result of Sadat’s impending incarceration, I’d still rather hear this than most of the other albums that I’ve had to endure lately. (more…)

What the fuck? Is this the work of some irate fan of the Blastmaster who took a dim view to Kool Kim’s declaration on these very pages that “hip-hop sucks” because of KRS? Apparently not, as Slerg explains:

I don’t know how that happened, but somebody messed up with the DATs at the pressing plant, and somehow, someway the Kool Kim labels end up on this KRS One test press.

For the full story and audio of this record, head over to B-Side Wins Again.

In other news, my week as “Guest Blogger” has come to a close. I can honestly say that I have a new appreciation for the general level of intelligence of everyone who comments at Unkut.com after reading some of the bizarre rants left in response to my articles. Here’s the full set of posts I contributed:

Rap’s Gulliest Prison Songs

New York’s Still Winning

The Last Taboo For White Rappers

The Clean-Up Man

Now all I’ve gotta do is find the time to finish transcribing the Kenny Parker interview this weekend….

Following on from Part 1, Kenny discusses the aftermath of the PM Dawn beatdown….

Kenny Parker: So the next day, Jive Records calls up and they’re like “The press wants to talk to you, Kris. Come down to Jive”. When we got there, the mood was really somber. Everybody was upset, and I remember seeing Busta Rhymes – I guess he was there with Tribe [Called Quest], I dunno what reason Busta had to be at Jive that day, but he was there – and he was like, “Yo, you are the greatest!” He was hugging Kris, and he was shaking him so hard he was crying! Busta was crying tears, and he was hugging Kris and he was shaking him so hard that they knocked over a computer off of somebody’s desk and break it on the ground! [I burst out laughing] At this point they had done “Scenario”, so I guess Jive didn’t really care, but they broke a computer that day. [chuckles] It was just the illest thing, ‘cause it looked like a classic video: sucker MC’s rhymin’, super MC comes along and knocks him off and starts rhymin’. It looked like that.

Jive was like “every press in the country and overseas wants to know what happened”. It was MTV, it was all Europe press, every magazine…everybody was like “What happened? Why did you do this?” And I think that’s where the problem started. When Kris said “PM Dawn tried to diss me so I went up there and showed ‘em who the Teacher is”, that’s when all the backlash started. And let me say for the record – the backlash was enormously negative for him. ENORMOUS! You know how people say “All publicity is good publicity”? I’m gonna say “No” to that. I think Kris would’ve been better off saying, “Yo, I was just there and it was wack, and I was drunk and we just went up there and I just wanted to livin’ up the party!” He might’ve been better-off saying that then “PM Dawn tried to diss me so that’s why I went up there”. Because then it became: “Hold up, you’re the guy who made ‘Stop The Violence’. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a fraud!” And from that point on, people started saying “Kris is a hypocrite. Says one thing and does another”. (more…)

Part 2 of the Kenny Parker interview will be up soon, but in the meantime you can read my first guest shot as XXLMag.com’s Blogger of the Week>

Rap’s Gulliest Prison Song’s