This is prime mixtape exclusive shit right here. I’m assuming that Erick Sermon had put away a few stiff drinks before recording this, as he actually raps with some moxy, pep and conviction here, as opposed to the lackadaisical delivery on his first two solo LPs. Taken from DJ EV and Stretch Armstrong’s Back To…
Category: Steady Bootleggin’
Holding it down for angry loners & the unemployable
Download: A Salute To DJ Clark Kent Productions
From deejaying for Dana Dane to founding the Supermen crew, hosting the NMS DJ and MC battles to producing basically anyone who’s so much as glanced at the Brooklyn Bridge, DJ Clark Kent has been deep in the music game for as long as I can remember. Here are twenty tracks that he produced or…
Keith LeBlanc Tells The Story Behind ‘No Sell Out’
Keith LeBlanc died this week, leaving behind an extensive catalogue of music as a member of the Sugar Hill house band, Tackhead and Litle Axe. I interviewed Keith in 2015 for the Past The Margin book, so I thought I’d share this excerpt where he discused the making of his ‘No Sell Out’ single on…
CRC Early Chicago Rap Mix
Here’s 47 minutes of old Chicago rap records. Track listing to follow soon. Download: CRC Early Chicago Rap Mix
The Townhouse Three feat. Chucky D and Butch Cassidy – N41
When The Bomb Squad’s Keith Shocklee told me about this song in 2008, I was thinking I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell to ever hear it. Luckily, Long Island resident Lloyd Means has taken the time to upload his extensive collection of Spectrum City / The Mr. Bill Show recordings from WBAU, featuring…
Ultramagnetic MC’s – Ain’t It Good To You [Remix]
Bootlegged in 2013 from an acetate that Red Alert sold on ebay…or just taped off of someone’s Walkman. New music, new raps and an incredible new chorus. Can we blame Eddie O’Loughlin for ditching this in favour of the hip-house remix of ‘Travelling At The Speed of Thought’? This was on my Destroying All Germs…
Godfather Don – The Unkut Interview
It took me exactly twenty years to get Godfather Don on the phone, which makes sense now that I know that by the time I started this site he had already changed his focus to playing jazz. This being my first phone interview since the ill-fated Just-Ice session in 2016, I had no idea how…
Street Smartz feat. O.C. and Pharoahe Monch – Metal Thangz [Unreleased Remix]
Nine years later I finally found this, as it was included on this 2019 compilation of O.C. demos, radio spots and remixes. grass was onto something, this is far and away the best version of this song. This also inspired me to go back to that radio session he did over an early incarnation of…
Captain G. Whiz – It’s Hyped
I’m not sure if Tuff City Records plan on releasing a follow-up to the 33 1/3 Anniversary Box Set, but not long after the 1986 cut-off date of that collection is when things really got interesting, as the drum machine and repeated cartoon sample hooks gave way to the intricate drum chops and horn stabs…
Main Source – Fakin’ The Funk [unreleased version]
Nine years after I made a bootleg of all of the tracks/demos recorded for the never-completed second Main Source album with Large Professor, it’s now available on record, tape, CD and Spotify. Unsurprisingly, this all of the same material presented with varying levels of sound quality, with some phone interview snippets sprinkled in between. Nice…
CRC M.O.P. Mix
Fun fact I discovered recently – M.O.P.’s ‘Victim of the Ghetto’, first heard on the Marxman Cinema compilation, was originally slated as the final song on First Family 4 Life. After I included it on this week’s mix, it’s pretty clear that the song itself fell victim to the same fate as Da Lench Mob’s…
Select Records Mix
Here’s an hour of Select Records stuff that I rate, focusing on some of the less well-known releases as well as a few old favourites. Some great edit and dub versions in here, because as someone who focused my meagre funds on buying albums as a youf, I still marvel every time I find an…