End of Arsenio

For those that don't remember it, here is a clip from the last Arsenio Hall show which received a major hip hop send off from some of the biggest names in the game at the time.  Let's not forget that Arsenio Hall gave a lot of air time to rap music when many major television networks were not interested.

The line up includes, Yo Yo, MC Lyte, Naughty by Nature, A Tribe Called Quest, Fu Schnickens, CL Smooth, Guru, Das EFX, GZA, Method Man and Ghostface Killah, KRS-1 and Mad Lion.

Month in Review

 

September has been a good month.  Maybe not for everyone, but for those of us who crave old school and golden era nostalgia, it's been a bumper month.  What's been most surprising though, is that much of this little collection is kind of new, despite being old (bear with me and you'll see what I mean).  Ah heck, to save me explaining it, just peep the first item and you'll see where I was going. 

 

Be sure to follow the jump link as there are mixtapes, break beats, new music and much more for your eyes and ears.  I told ya, it's been a monster month.

 

Bizarre Tribe

 

No, I've not found a previously undiscovered group of cannibals deep in the Amazon rain forest!  But if you haven't heard this mix yet then you must have been deep in the Amazon yourself.  Amerigo Gazaway (who previously fused Fela Kuti and De La Soul to critical acclaim) has been hard at work again, this time reinterpreting the music created by A Tribe Called Quest.  Using the original soul, funk and jazz samples, Gazaway recreates the instrumentals from some of ATCQ's classics, and then drops vocals from the Pharcyde over the top.

Special EFX - VHS Style

In 1992, Das EFX dropped a home video called Straight From Da Sewer to accompany and promote their debut album Dead Serious.  It seems like not many people know about this video, so I thought I'd share it with you.

I distinctly remember when Das EFX first dropped, in fact I distinctly remember the period just before they dropped as I first heard They Want EFX on Tim Westwood’s show (in his more credible days on the Capital Rap Show!) and I was blown away by it. He premiered it along with House of Pain’s Jump Around so you can imagine what a treasured tape that was for several months to come.

I recall hounding my local record store to get me the 12” for They Want EFX and the very helpful DJ behind the counter repeatedly telling me that he’d never heard of Das EFX and neither had the supplier. About 3 months later I was greeted by that same DJ proudly holding a copy of the 12” and now he was bugging out at its originality. That was the problem with Westwood back then, he premiered things months before they were released and as a DJ wanting to play it on my show, it was so frustrating not being able to obtain a copy.

Anyhow, enough of my recollections. The point I’m making here is that it was fairly rare something so distinct, or original, was released. There were plenty of great tunes, but not that many that would break the mould. Das EFX broke that mould.

Even though they’d used the same break as Lord Finesse had used several several years previous, and not done much to switch it up, it sounded perfect for their crazy style and it still sounded fresh.

On too many occasions I’ve heard people recall Das EFX as the diggity-iggity group and speak of them as though they were a short lived novelty act, but this is completely unjust.