This was a limited-edition vinyl release a month or so back, and now it’s appeared as a bonus cut on the new K-DefNight Shift LP in glorious CD quality. I’m guessing the parting shot at “all the sell-outs, all the people that wanna talk about flowers and meadows” is a PM Dawn diss. “Everybody that wanna front with their shirt off” is a bit more general though… Unless this was the same time that Young MC tried to comeback on some brolic shit?
This is almost enough to let me forget about 14 Shots To The Dome…
Back in 1994 K-Def was working on some beats out of the B Room in Marly Marl‘s House Of Hits when LL Cool J walked in on his session and said “let’s make some tracks together”. Uncle L had always wanted to rhyme on a track using the famous ESG breakbeat ‘UFO’, so he had Def lay it down with some scratches and then went to town with the mic. Both thought they had a sure fire hit on their hands but unfortunately it was never used. The DAT tape of the studio session was feared lost for several years before it eventually turned up stuck behind a radiator!
The Thug Matrix series were originally mixtape CD’s issued by Trag‘s 25 Ta Life label, which were later bootlegged and then re-issued through Fastlife…although 2005′s Thug Matrix seemed to be mostly new tracks, so it gets confusing. There’s no doubt, however, that Thug Matrix 3 is all newest/latest material, weighing in at a lean 32 minutes over ten tracks, it certainly doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Musically it’s a lot stronger than the last couple of CD’s The Foul Mahdi issued prior to his up north trip, and although Trag still retains many of his trademark catch-phrases he seems to have focused more on the political angle of his work and eased back on the gun talk, if that sort of thing matters to you.
In stark contrast to Prodigy, who saw seemed to have gotten lazier and more uninspired since his return (and has received far more media attention for everything except his music), Tragedy hasn’t missed a step and sounds more focused than he has in years. ‘Gorilla Warfare Status’ is a stand-out, featuring one of two posthumous appearances from Killa Sha, while Ayatollah supplies another quality backing for ‘Black Prince’ (which also shout-out’s Combat Jack) and Audible Doctor wins with ‘Outstanding’. Consider this a warm-up for the official LP, The Last Report, which I’m expecting to be a worthwhile addition to the legacy base don what I’ve heard here. Time will tell…
Trag is back with the lead single from the Thug Matrix 3 project. Cop the song at iTunes if you’re fucking with it. The official album titled Last Report will follow soon afterwards…
This came out a couple of weeks ago and seems to have been completely ignored…by the way, Riches, Royalty & Respect is out on 2xLP for those of you who still have those record playing devices. Directed by OdaGiant & Eddy Duran.
J-Love and Meyhem are both dropping albums over the coming weeks, so I thought I’d see what they have cooked-up for us on Egotistical Maniac and Self-Induced Illness. It’s worth noting that both records are double albums, which is always something I’m in two minds about. On the one hand, the amount of songs you’re getting is great value and it allows you the luxury of choosing the best songs to load onto your ipod or whatever, but the other side of that is there’s an art to creating to a cohesive album and do I really want to listen to 40+ tracks from anybody in a row? (more…)
Did you find yourself giggling like a schoolgirl who just shot her first can of 4-Loko when news broke this week of Nas’ tax problems? Find yourself Tweeting things like ‘#naslost’ at random? Then you may be one of the millions of rap fans who have developed a deep-seated condition known as Nas Envy. Let’s face it, life in the music game was never going to be easy for the ‘verbal sniper’ when he was proclaimed as the second coming of Rakim before his debut album had dropped. Even that far back, some people considered Illmatic to be not as dope as it could have been, despite almost universal praise from the critics. It seemed that many rap fanatics were waiting for Nas to fail or take a step wrong. Were we not willing to accept that any rapper could be that great? When he returned to the scene with It Was Written, it was painfully obvious that Nas had taken the modest sales of his first born project to heart, and as a result he recruited Poke and Tone to add a little gloss to his tales from the project window and rap over an old Whodini song. (more…)
The homie Dallas Penn laced me with this vintage flick of Drewski aka Dr. Butcher chilling out the front of his crib in Corona, Queens with Todd James, courtesy of Aman-Ra‘s archives, which inspired me to go back through the Unkut vaults to recall six of my favorite LL Cool J stories from my extensive interviews with Dr. Butcher:
1. “I came up as a rapper actually. Me and LL, all of us were in a group together. G Rap knew me as a rapper, we were just tight friends ‘cos we were like the two best rappers, and we always just hung out together in the neighborhood. I was Drewski or something like that. I had a few names back in 1987. But it was fun. Extravagant Three was myself, LL and another guy named Royal Rich, who’s brother was a guy named Professor KB. Professor KB was actually Paul C’s partner, and that’s how I met the producer Paul C. After LL got his deal, me and Rich stayed together as a group, and Paul C. used to do a lot of beats for us, along with his brother KB. When Paul C. would work out of 1212 Studio’s he would call us at night and we would always go to the studio and record songs late at night, so that was kinda fun too. Mikey D’s the one who introduced me to Rich and LL. (more…)
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.
