What do you get when you combine The Alan Parsons Project, Carl Sagan and the son of Engineer All-Star Marley Marl? The As Above, So Below tape, that’s what.

Download or stream.

The Live Guy With Glasses does his thing over a beat from Audible Doctor at the Mass Appeal CMJ event, who has a new instrumental LP dropping at the end of the month.

Remember, before Unkut was jocking Roc Marcy, we were Stanning for the Kool Genius of Rap….

*fixed*

I Dot U Dot for all you bloodclot…

Grand Daddy I.U. - ‘Gossip’ Freestyle

Footage of the session at Eclipse‘s show that I posted a minute ago.

Some vintage Nas rhymes while Kid Capri spins some classic beats, taken from the Nas Is Coming promo that was out before It Was Written. Thanks to crate digga for reminding me about this one.

Nas feat. Kid Capri – Source Freestyle

After catching the ears of a lot of people from their work on Prodigy‘s H.N.I.C.2, the production team of Joey Chavez and Bravo went on to oversee and release several impressive projects on their own Dirt Class Records label, including Product of The 80′s and The Project Kid. I caught-up with them recently yo discuss the lost art of the A&R, studio sessions and the classic bongs vs. blunts debate.

Robbie: So you guys have produced as a duo since around 2004?

Bravo: That sounds about right. We’re been making beats together since ’92-’93, but we didn’t really form Sid Roams until 2004-5. We’d been doing stuff together and then for a long time we were doing beats on our own, with Joey on the west coast and me in New York.

Joey: Both Bravo and I started off working on the first [unreleased] Dilated record in ’95-’96…

Bravo: We all grew-up on the west coast – me, Joey and Ev – we were all in the same neighborhood in Venice. Joey and Ev went to junior high-school together and then we all went to high school together and we all started making beats and Ev was rhyming. We had been in QDIII’s studio, which was next-door to Ev’s house and he had a monster studio. It was like walking into a spaceship! Lights everywhere, it was like being on Star Trek or something. We met Al[chemist] through Ev. He was also a rapper at that time, back when we were kids, but as things progressed Al really took the helm with the beats. By the time we all got out to New York, Al had a good jump on that whole Queensbridge scene, so we passed him a beat CD around 2003-2004 and he played all that stuff for Infamous Mobb. That’s how ‘Who We Ride For’ actually happened. They thought it was a beat that he made and they just flipped on it and recorded it. He played us the little demo and it sounded crazy, so we all met up and started building.
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Some of Queens’ finest underground getting it in on Industry Shakedown Radio. Thanks to Solace from Timeless Truth.

Say word.

Freestyle Friday on Thursday? How’s that for future shock…
Banco “getting it in”, as they say in the classics.
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Large Paul’s lab.

Good to see that Large has stayed busy the last couple of years, contributing his unmistakable sound to a varied range of rap dudes…¹

Reks - ‘Stages’

Earatik Statik - ‘No Problems’ [Xtra P Remix]

Krumb Snatcha – ‘Mind Power’

Styles P – ‘The Struggle’

Boot Camp Click - ‘Worldwide’

1. 1. (c) Fizzy Womack.[back]

All you need to know is…Kane kilt it.

Tragedy, Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie - In Control Freestyle

Kool G Rap & Craig G - Radio Freestyle

Kool G Rap - Stretch Armstrong Freestyle

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.
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To my mind, there are two incarnations OC – the humble vocabulary-spill expert who used to roll with Organized Konfusion and gave us Word…Life, and the flashy, show-off O who simplified his advanced vocal techniques so as not to scare off the broads at the bar. Confused?

Compare this:

Large Professor and OC - Live on The Stretch Armstrong Show, Nov ’93 [Freestyle Frenzy Vol. 1, Dolo, 1994]

to this:
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