From the H.N.I.C. 2 Collectors Edition (which includes a Bandana P…um…bandana!) which features six extra tracks, commentary on every cut and a video for every song. I might actually buy this. (more…)
It’s not so much that everyone outside of New York can’t rap, but they just seem to lack that certain spark that residents of Queens, The Bronx and Brooklyn seem to bring to the table (don’t sleep on Long Island either). Fuck it, throw Philly and Boston in there as well. Sure, you can argue that Little Brother or Blu or whoever is nice, and I’m not saying they don’t do their thing, but it’s very rare that anyone outside of the Rotten Apple gets the hair on the back of my neck standing up or inspires me to break a car window at random. Only a very select few outside of the Triborough have ever reached that point of supremacy - Scarface, Ice Cube and Schoolly D spring to mind. (more…)
Here we go again. After XXLmag.com removed almost every trace of the Ron Mexico Vs. Trick Trick incident from the site (except this), they saw fit to censor Byron Crawford’s latest drop, in what can only be on the advice from some ‘legal eagle’. As per usual, Google cache has come to the rescue…
If you’re not a fan of the Audio 2, kill yourself. Milk D and Giz were making classic ignorant records like ‘Get Your Mother Off Crack’ from the get go, not to mention Milk’s amazing solo EP, which contained the window-shattering ‘Spam’ with Adrock from the Beasties. Here’s some of their finest moments on video…if only they’d shot a clip to ‘Worse Than A Gremlin’.
Stress went deeper than just the musical side of hip-hop and covered topics that others were afraid to touch, in addition to some creative coups such as the flexi-single of Blackstarr’s debut single and the Bobby Digital comic/CD combo. Founder and graffiti veteran KET breaks down the history of the mag and discusses his struggle against the City of New York after they tried to lock him up for ten years on vandalism charges.
Robbie: What was your main motivation to put Stress together?
KET: The hip-hop magazines that existed at the time didn’t represent hip-hop culture. I felt that they were basically ‘rap’ magazines and they were written from the perspective of outsiders, and there wasn’t anybody doing it that came from within the culture itself. So when I kinda discovered this I decided to do it myself.
Stress was a lot more community-minded and covered political issues that The Source and RapPages didn’t really bother to deal with.
Right. I see hip-hop like that; I don’t see hip-hop just as an industry. I felt that magazines like The Source and RapPages really just covered the ‘industry’ of rap. It came from a very elitist place, like if you’re from a major label you get covered, but if you are dealing with police brutality? ‘We don’t really want to talk about that’, or if you’re a famous graffiti writer or B-Boy you don’t really have any place. We were coming from a place where hip-hop is a culture started in the streets by people of color, and we wanted to represent the things that hip-hop culture experiences and deals with. And we deal with things like police brutality and incarceration and love and marginalization and whatever the case might be. We wanted to paint the bigger picture and communicate more things to our audience. We felt – as young men and women doing the magazine – that we had an important tool of communication and we felt very responsible in the type of media that we put out. We wanted to be able to educate and inform, and do it in a way that was positive and uplifting. To do that I think it takes more than just talking about you’re favorite rapper and a record review. (more…)
I dropped a one of $am’s joints a while back, he’s another winner from this South Bronx MC who you might have caught on the last track on that P Bros album.
With a voice that bares an uncanny resemblance to a young KRS-One, this Natural Elements MC showcases advanced ‘vocabulary spill’ over a chaotic backing track. This is the kind of record Company Flow wished they’d made.
The crew that brought you the amazing Lord Finesse demo’s EP present Sport “G” & MastermindLet The Rhythm Roll EP. Six unreleased tracks recorded between 1985 and 1988 from the guys you might remember from their two Paul C. produced singles…
Sport “G” & MastermindLet The Rhythm Roll snippets.
It’s no secret that print magazines are on the back foot against the massive amount of free contact out here on the internets, but is there a good reason for this trend beyond everyone wanting to save $6 a month? Let’s break it down:
Portability
It’s kinda hard to read blogs on the can, unless you want to risk dropping your iPhone into the john.
Winner: Magazines.
Affordability
Free = the price is right. Although when you add up the cost of your laptop and internet connection, it’s a tough call.
Ah, the 90’s. It was really the best of times and the worst of times for rap. For every Stunts, Blunts and Hip-Hop you had ten shitty Naughty By Nature knock-offs. Then there was the much touted indy/underground explosion that saw thirty to forty new 12″ singles dropping every week. I actually knew a kid who spent every cent he had copping everything that Beat Street and Mr. Bongo stocked as it dropped, so I’d go and fill-up a 90 minute TDK every couple of weeks with those shits and cop the best of the bunch myself. The thing is, there’d usually only be one or two tracks on every tape that were actually worth owning - a fact that many indy fans seem to forget when they reminisce over that era. Regardless, the good stuff was effin’ great, so I thought I’d dig into the shelves at Unkut Dot Com HQ and throw you some of my sure shots from the time. (more…)
