Marciano is unstoppable right now. Mossberg Season is going to shit on everything when it drops. I mean really, the only three albums you need to be considering messing with this year are this, Killa Sha’s The Shepard and the P Brothers’The Gas (which will feature at least of one of the aforementioned MCs).
I mentioned this earlier, but after hearing the new LL Cool J mixtape I got to thinking that there seems to be a lot of ill will towards blogs by certain artists. Not sure if it’s gossip blogs, bootlegging blogs or just shit-talking blogs that have these dudes pissed, but I’ve interviewed both of ‘em and they never said anything about it, so I can’t help but wonder which spots are to blame. It’s kinda tough to fault J-Love’s reasoning on this one though - a lot of rap blogs are gay as fuck.
J-Love - ‘Blogs R 4 Homos’ (cut ‘n paste highlights from his new CD)
Continuing my talk with “Super Rapper” T La Rock, we discuss the origins of his name, working with Mantronik, bootleggers and unreleased recordings. T is currently developing a biopic called ‘The T La Rock Story’ with “a very powerful producer from Hollywood” named Bonnie Timmerman (who was the Casting Director on Man On Fire, Carlito’s Way and State of Grace to name a few) as well as working on new music.
What’s the story behind your name?
T La Rock: That’s the thing, I was asking my brother about that. I’ve been ‘T La Rock’ for so long that it escapes me. I try to think real hard, ‘What made me say La Rock?’ I was ‘T La Rock’ when there was only three MC’s that was with Flash, put it that way. [laughs] There was only two ‘La Rocks’. People ask me was I the first ‘La Rock’ and I say, ‘It’s a toss-up’, because there was one other ‘La Rock’ – and this is way before Scott La Rock, ‘cos you know Scott La Rock actually got his name from me. We knew each other – in other words, I knew Scott, I know Scott’s brother, I know Scott’s mother, I know Scott’s cousin – so I knew him. He just was hanging around me all the time and one day he just added the ‘La Rock’ and said, ‘You got a problem with that, do you?’ I said, ‘Nah! Ga’ head’. Not many people know about that.
Who was the other ‘La Rock’?
There was another one who was with Kool Herc, and his name was Coka La Rock. But the thing that was funny about it is his name was pronounced two different ways – ‘Coke La Rock’ and ‘Coka La Rock’. We didn’t know each other. The way I came up with the ‘La Rock’ had nothin’ to do with emceeing. That was from breakdancing…well, dancing, rather. We didn’t call it breakdancing back then. (more…)
T La Rock is so entrenched into the history of hip-hop that he actually attended Kool Herc’s first parties. After nine years of deejaying, breaking and emceeing locally in The Bronx, as well as introducing his brother Special K of the Treacherous Three to rap, T finally decided to take the next step and begin his recording career. The result was a song that would prove to be one of the most influential b-boy records of all time.
Robbie: When did you get the bug to have a piece of wax out there with your name on it?
T La Rock: Around 1983 is when I decided to go professional, when I hooked-up with Rick Rubin. My brother Special K was the one that actually introduced me to Rick. He was supposed to record a record with Rick Rubin but he couldn’t, because he was signed with Sugarhill Records and Treacherous Three. So my brother told me about this guy Rick Rubin, says he wants to put out a record, he wants to start-up a label, so I was like, ‘OK’. I met Rick Rubin, he was in NYU. He hadn’t gotten with Russell [Simmons] yet. When we first did ‘It’s Yours’, Def Jam wasn’t even a label yet. I think he was actually runnin’ ‘em out of his dorm room. It was ‘Def Jam Recordings’ – almost like a production company. It was still a record company but it wasn’t that official yet.
It was on Streetwise first, right?
That was later on. After we recorded it we hooked-up with Arthur Baker. I think we initially started-out with Streetwise to try to get distribution, and wind-up actually putting the record on there. Everybody gets confused and they say, ‘How come everybody keeps saying LL Cool J was the first record on Def Jam when I bought ‘It’s Yours’. That was on Def Jam!’ It’s just that Def Jam wasn’t a full label yet. If you have an original copy of ‘It’s Yours’, you will see ‘Def Jam Recordings’ on it.
Is it true that you had a falling-out with Def Jam and they tried to get LL to take your spot?
No. What happened was - here’s a record I made, ‘It’s Yours’…huge! One of the biggest records ever. I’m doing two or three shows a week, making anywhere from $800 to $1000 a show - which was a whole lotta money back then. I still kept my job working at the pharmacy when ‘It’s Yours’ was on the radio, getting’ airplay. Now after a while ‘It’s Yours’ finally dies down, I knew nothing about royalties or anything like that. I’m new to the music business. So everybody’s sayin’ to me, “Wow, T. I know you made a lot of money’ and I say ‘Yeah’. I’m thinking they’re talking about from the shows, but they were talking about from record sales! So I went to Streetwise and said, ‘I want a royalty statement’. They gave me a statement – you’re gonna love this – saying that we owed them money! [laughs] In other words, tryin’ to say the record didn’t make sell enough to recoup to make back the money! So that was like a complete, total turn-off, and I had gotten a little mad with Rick because at the beginning I never knew what deal went down. Keep in mind, this is my very first record deal. I knew nothing about the business. (more…)
If you’re not checking The Meaning of Dope you’re missing out on the best source of original rap footage out there right now. This in particular caught my attention - vintage footage of the ever-elusive Joe Fatal, who also appeared in Main Source’s “Just Hangin’ Out” and Kool G Rap’s “Erase Racism” videos.
Just got off the phone with Fuc That (who used to be in a crew called Street Smartz in the 90s) and he was telling me about his new shit. Considering he was only 17 when he dropped the classic “Ain’t No Burna”, he’s hardly over the hill these days. Look out for his Half Man/Half Beast mixtape on Stand Out Music.
No doubt you’ve been following Prodigy ’s antics in recent times. In between his usual antics, “Field Marshal P” has gone and followed-up the surprisingly enjoyable Return Of The Mac with H.N.I.C. 2, which I assumed was gonna be a pile of steaming horse shit. Turns out it’s one of the most entertaining records I’ve heard in a long time. Let me break it down:
1. The Cover - Not only do we get a bunch of Streetwear P’s posing in various garish outfits, but he’s added little hand-drawn syringes, pills, bottles of booze and even dice!
2. The Booklet - Lyric Book P kindly included his complete lyrics for your reading pleasure: “Yo P I can rhyme/ 50 Cent did it, I can do this shit too/ But you not 50, he a individual”. Say word.
3. He calls himself “a handsome shooter” and describes himself as “the skateboarder, surfboarded, snowboarder”. Surfboard P is gnarly, broseph!
4. Claims that he was in the car when his pops robbed a jewelery store when he was eight years old. It’s unclear whether or not he was driving the getaway car himself.
5. Includes a bonus “Spanish” version of “A.B.C.” which is just certain lines translated and spoken by some robot voice.
6. The Beats - Alchemist and Sid Roames deliver some seriously dope music, which reminds me of a 70’s horror flick (in a good way).
7. Responds to lyrical shots from Nas and Jay with: “You thought something sweet? Believe Jay if you want/Ga head beleive Nas or whoever you choose/You come on over here and you gonna see the truth”. That’ll learn ‘em, right?
8. Halfway through “Young Veterans” it sounds like he’s rapping underwater. That’d be another first for this trailblazer.
9. Includes a prison yard photo of his pops, which is so ignorant that it it wins.
10. Despite the fact that Illuminati P can barely string two words together and hardly even bothers to actually rhyme during many verses, this shit is nuttier than anything Ol’ Dirty ever did. Straightjacket P for the win!
New Marcy from the latest J-Love CD. I need to type up that interview I did with J, who disses the fuck outta “all you bitch-ass bloggers” all over this new joint.
During the prime years of the mighty Rap-A-Lot label, there were no less than five songs released that related to school. Was this part of some sort of community service agreement? It could be argued that the Geto Boy’s song was nothing to do with school, but it includes Willie D’s teacher Miss Elaine, so that’s close enough. It’s fair to say there are some mixed messages here - to hear Raheem and 2 Low (who was still in school when he made this) tell it, the school yard is nothing but good times and sex rhymes. But then Willie D admits that ‘School is a drag, and sometimes you’re teacher gets mad’, while he had previously ‘beat his teacher down with a gun’ on that Geto Boys shit. Big Mike and 3-2 of the Convicts cut straight to the chase and let us know what they think about getting a worthless ‘edumication’.
Even though Rap-A-Lot Records is closely associated with Houston’s 5th Ward, most of the groups on the early roster were originally from New Jersey or New York, which resulted in some interesting blends of styles. The Def IV’s Nice & Hard album is a perfect example, as it introduced an upbeat, sample-heavy sound that was light-years ahead of the usual Texas slow-flow of the era. DJ Vicious Lee breaks down his time with the crew and his later work with the Geto Boys and Gangster N-I-P.
Robbie: I had the Def IV record back in the day and then I found the CD the other day and it had two extra songs.
DJ Vicious Lee: Oh OK, so you had the wax version and then you got the CD? “Buggin’ Out Time” was a Lonnie Mack DJ record. The CD’s been in my car ever since I had it. Cee lives in Manhatten - The Prince EZ Cee, now he’s DJ Peter Parker. Him and Wiz live together. Now Wiz produced the music to “Get Busy”.
The credits said “Produced by Doug King and James Smith”, and then co-produced by you guys, but I know that the credits on records are not always a true representation of what happened.
Exactly. My name is nowhere on Geto Boys We Can’t Be Stopped album. They got me good on that one.
So what was your involvement with that?
I did the entire pre-production, in the beginning.
That was a great album.
Yeah. That was the first one that Rap-A-Lot had go platinum. The first platinum album they ever put out. (more…)
