Having cut his teeth working with the Diggin’ In The Crates crew at the beginning of his career, Milano Constantine went on to sign a deal with Warner Bros. but was let go before the project was released. Thanks to a handful of independent singles, four mixtapes and notable guest spots with The Beatnuts and the P Brothers, Milano has continued to rep that classic Uptown style with his witty wordplay and vocabulary spill. Following an extended leave of absence, ‘Lano is set to return the rap game with three new projects. He took a little time out to speak about how he came up, working with Big Pun, Showbiz and T-Ray and how the late Party Arty taught him his most valuable lesson as an MC.

Robbie: What are you working on at the moment?

Milano Constantine: I’ve got the Alfa Romeo mixtape. It’s a vintage feel, I’ve got some unreleased, uncut raw stuff from the lab on there, and some new stuff that I’ve been working on. I had to take time off, but I feel very blessed, and now is time for me to go back into it with full force. Now I’m just feeling more comfortable with everything, you can’t put forth any good material if you have to get your life situated, everything has to go in line correctly. This is a great time in my life, I just had a daughter. My mother is in good health – she was really sick. You’ve gotta take care of your family first and music will come secondary. I wanted to reach out to y’all guys for always keeping that platform for me. God bless you guys always keeping me alive. I thank you guys for that.
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New Drum Free Rap which ironically uses a loop from former Genesis drummer Phil Collins. I see what you did there, Vado!

Attack of the old moufs as the the great man Kool Moe Dee has his story told in full in this Unsung episode.

Some poor sap makes the mistake of heckling Grandmaster Caz and yelling out “I’ll give you a dime if you get off the stage!” The result? A verbal ass-whuppin.

When I caught Black Rob on a patchy phone line this evening, he was in the studio recording new material for Life Story 2, and as a result was only able to spare ten minutes. Nevertheless, I was able to fill in a couple of the blanks in regards to his history in the rap game and future plans.

Robbie: How old were you when you started rhyming?

Black Rob: About eleven? Twelve? Around that time. What inspired me was what was going on around me – the music! When I heard that, I wanted to be in.

Did you have a group back then or were you always a soloist?

I was in a rap group when I was like 22, 23. We was called Schizophrenics. It was me, my man Alto and my man Godzilla.
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Here’s an old Black Rob burner that’s been liberated from the archives.

Best track off Vado‘s Slime Flu 3 tape. It’s be nice if he would throw a few more of these type of songs on his shit for variety.

You can stream or download the whole mixtape below:
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Any rapper, athlete or hustler worth his salt in the 80′s owned at least one Dapper Dan outfit. Everyone one Mike Tyson to Rakim to Ultramagnetic were getting decked-out in sweatsuits made from cut-up Gucci handbags and whatnot. For those who wanted to go the extra mile, you could get your ride customized with wheel covers and even the roof of your jeep!

Here’s how Chucky Smash from The Legion remembers it:
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