Yo! International - UK

When the Saturday edition of Yo! MTV Raps used to air, when Fab 5 Freddy was the host, he toured a variety of locations to meet rappers, usually in their home town or on the location of a video shoot.  On one of those occassions, the MTV budget stretched a little further than usual and they paid for Freddy to grace the shores of the UK and present this edition of the series.

I would love to know the reasoning behind the selection of artists for this particular show.  MTV had shown the London Posse some love and previously played several of their videos, but to present Black Radcal Mk II to the international stage was a surprise to me.  I'm not saying they shouldn't have been there as they'd put out a lot of good material at the time, but in the early 90's there were so many excellent and successful artists in the UK, I just feel some others should also have been given a chance to shine and better represent the UK's hip hop diversity.  On the up side, it's was great to see MTV recognise some of the more underground groups.

Nevertheless, this little selection of interviews is still interesting and it's great that MTV took the time to explore hip hop beyond the US.

Sublime Wizardry

These guys just hit me up with a link to their latest video, and its made me realise that I've been sleeping on them for months!  They originally hit me up back in the summer (when I was in the midst of a big DIY project and this blog was being neglected a little), so I never got around to checking them out.  But thankfully they nudged me again, and I'm damn glad they did.

To put things in context, it's fairly rare that I heap praise onto current UK hip hop.  I accept that I've got a lot more fussy in my old age, but I'm not alone in saying that most groups these days just can't cut it.  So it's great to be able to say that Sublime Wizardry are dispelling these theories and presenting the listener with fresh new music that's been crafted using the old traditions.  This really is hip hop that's been made for the veteran's that have stayed true to the culture and will appreciate it's authenticity.  They even put their DJ to good use at the end of the track, a feature that is sadly lacking in much of today's music.  I'm now hoping I can catch these guys performing live somewhere in the not too distant future.

Check out the video below, and if you're feeling it then head over to their website where you can hear more of their material including tracks of their recently released Best of the Bunch EP, or you can cop this track from: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/can-she-be-heard-single/id733269157.

Rebel C & L.A. - Funky Music Is My Style

I heard this years ago but can't remember where and I had forgotten about it until I heard it again a couple of years ago, tracked one down for a very reasonable price and bought it. I really got in to UK hip hop fairly late due to the fact that I was a little prejudiced towards the British accent. Yes, I am British, English if you want, from the third best place in the world if you believe what you read in the paper but the accent still troubled me until Gunshot, Hijack, etc blasted on to the scene at 100mph and it was probably then that the interest / obsession really began. I had a few early electro 12"s like Hardrock Soul Movement, Mutant Rockers and so on but they were different. No lyrics. Still, let's not dwell on that now as this tune is a belter. You may have noticed that it's the B-side yest again that wins, hands down in my opinion. Good sample, boingy 808 bass, what more do you need? An interesting fact too is that it's on a US label which is unexplainable at this moment. The other side is decent also, JB sample, tough beats and worth anyone's money if you ask me but it's this one that I played the most. Disorda had one in a few weeks back which was the reminder I needed to go dig it out and do a fresh 320kbps rip for y'all. I didn't pay any where near that for mine, just in case you were wondering.

Download

Get The Lowdown

This is probably a bit niche, but if you’re somewhere around the age of 35-45 and grew up in the UK, then you’ll probably enjoy this old episode of the youth TV series The Lowdown that attempted to explain this new thing called hip hop to the uninitiated British youth. Originally shown in the late 80’s (89?), this episode isn’t going to teach you anything about UK hip hop history, but it does provide a window into the world that so many British kids grew up in.

Refresh your memory on some of those hideous outfits that your whole crew used to wear, the shabby social housing, the kid in your class who thought he could rap/beatbox/breakdance and didn’t want to be left out of the current craze etc.  It's cheesy, it might even make you cringe, but it's hilarious viewing.

Watch out for contributions from Ice-T, and an early appearance by MC Spee who later went on to have success with Dreadzone and the dance music scene. But my personal favourite is the discussion about the essential need to have a posse, it’s priceless and had me in stitches.

Better Late Than Never...

Thanks to some helpful fool who left a comment on an old post, pointing readers to their bullshit website that contained malware, I've been struggling to access my own blog for more than a week.  It's all sorted now though, and unless you were curious enough to look at some spurious old comment that didn't make any sense you wouldn't have been affected (or maybe that should read infected!).

So apologies for the delay in posting this, but better late than never.

Big Daddy Kane - Uncut

The latest interviewee on The Combat Jack Show, is Juice Crew legend Big Daddy Kane.

King Asiatic Nobody's Equal. It's not every day we get to sit with a legend. Kane goes deep with his history, what he thinks about Mr. Cee, how he produced the majority of 'Long Live The Kane' with no credits, how Doug E Fresh taught him how to rock the crowd, how some cats from The Juice Crew wasn't fuxin with him, how he really wanted to battle KRS-One, what Madonna smells like, how he shopped a young Jay Z with no success, why he started wearing purple silks and such... This one is a marathon, but with Kane, there's no half steppin'.

An essential and intriguing listen for any Kane or Juice Crew fan.

What Time Is It?

Well according to Marco Polo and Organized Konfusion it's 3 O'Clock.  This dope new tune from Monch and Po features on the Port Authority 2: Directors Cut album from Marco Polo.



And since I originally wrote this post, a video has now dropped for this track too.  It's not that exciting and Mr Monch's coat is somewhat questionable, but some peeps prefer to have a visual with their audio.

Light Years

DJ Skizz hooks up Roc Marciano, A.G. and O.C for this rugged banger.  It's nice to see DITC emcees collaborating, but even nicer to see Roc Marci doing something different.  I'm not a fan of his uber laid back doze rap, but he kills it on this track.

Street Photographer Documents Early Hip Hop Culture

Charlie Ahearn (the director of the hip hop classic Wild Style) has made a new film called Jamel Shabazz: Street Photographer.  Shabazz was already well respected following his 2002 book Back in the Days which contained a catalogue of photos straight from the streets of NY city at the time that hip hop was evolving.  This film appears to take the book a stage further and adds more narrative to the history that Shabazz captures, and also contains contributions from graf legend Chino BYI who has a great personal connection the photos.  Prepare for a trip down memory lane, the fashions, the art, the attitude, the swag of early b-boys, this has the lot.

And lastly....

There seems to be a new documentary on UK hip hop surfacing every few months recently, and now we have one dedicated to The Twilight Firm.  They were two producers from London that made their mark in the late 80's and early 90's.  

I'm going to reserve judgement on this one.  The topic seems too narrow to warrant a whole documentary, but that hasn't stopped Kamanchi Sly, Rodney P and other notable UK hip hop veterans adding their commentary.

There Be Pirates!

This is only a 10 minute mini documentary, but it begins to spotlight the importance of UK pirate radio in the early 80’s and how it brought black music to the masses. Anyone who grew up in a major city during these times is likely to know the importance of pirate radio. It was the only way most of us could hear hip hop music in its early days and right up until the shift towards internet radio, it remained a key method of keeping up to date with the true underground scene. 

As someone who was raised listening to these stations, and was then later a part of them, it would be great for me to see something like this expanded into a full length documentary. These early innovators who set up the masts, funded the equipment and took the risks are as critical to our hip hop history as the original DJ’s and emcees. For the UK, pirate radio was the equivalent of a Bronx DJ throwing a party in their local parks.

28 Days Later

There may only be 28 days in Feb (excluding leap years of course!), but the internet has been a busy place.  Here the latest crop of stuff that grabbed my attention over the last 4 weeks.  Follow the jump link after the first item for much more.

The People's Champ

R.A. The Rugged Man has begun promoting his new album (due April 30th) with this blistering track which sets expectations pretty high.  Despite his own Demigodz album about to drop, Apathy still finds time to get on the production boards and conjure up this perfect backdrop for R.A.'s tongue tying, verb flipping style.  

Its been 9 years since R.A.'s last official release, so he's had plenty of time to work on this long overdue (and long promised) follow up.  Let's hope this is a sign of things to come.

Akapel

A couple of months back, I was digging around in a forum when I came upon a request list from one of the admins. Most of the requests were for records that are difficult to come by, but one of them stood out to me as it’s a virtually unknown gem from 1992 that I didn’t think many people knew about. Since seeing that request list, my fellow blogger Moyinka included exactly the same 12” on his wish list, so given the current demand, I decided to rip it and upload it so that you can all appreciate it too.

However, since I made that decision, I've had unplanned encounters with two of the main contributors to this collaborative project, so I'm able to shed some light on the people behind this EP and make links back to artists that you probably already know about.

This 12” is most commonly listed under the name Akapel. But you’ll have to bear with me on this one, because there's more to Akapel than first meets the eye and as I've already said, there are several other contributors to this 12”. First off, the single is split into two sides, one is titled Akapel, the other is credited as DJ Use. Let me start with the DJ Use side first.

There are 4 tracks on the DJ Use side, and 3 of them are credited as being produced by Dominic Owen and Paul S. However this isn’t quite right, as Paul S only produced two tracks. I recently spoke with Paul S about this 12” and he confirmed that he was only involved with tracks 2 and 4. For those who don’t know, I should mention that Paul S is better known as being one half of the dope production duo, the P Brothers along with DJ Ivory.  For P Brothers fans, this is probably the earliest example of work from either of them.  

The other producer at work here is Dominic Owen (formerly known as DJ Quick), who like Paul S, is a well known and respected producer hailing from Nottingham (UK), but is now doing much greater things across the pond (more on that later). So the DJ Use side is an all Nottingham affair, and DJ Use is another aka for Dominic Owen aka DJ Quick.

The flip side is the main event and holds the single that will catch your attention. The main track is called Pick It Up and as you may have guessed from its title, it uses a familiar Black Sheep sample to very good effect.  
The emcee on this track is Akapel, but this is the only single he released under this name.  Previously he was known as Fizal Eff (more on that later).  This cut is also produced by Dominic Owen
The 2nd track is Stick Your Big Dinky In, which is more of a chugger than the jazzy main track, but it allows Fizal Eff to show a different style and drop some knowledge.   Its produced by DJ Bizzness, but what's most interesting is that he also drops some lyrics.  I never knew this until Dominic Owen told me!  Another piece of trivia I recently found out about DJ Bizzness (first hand) is that he can still bust some decent b-boy moves.

DJ Quick & Fizal Eff in 1988

Photo provided by Dominic Owen

Some of you may remember Fizal’s name from his time as a b-boy with the London breaking crew the Zulu Rockers.  I'm sure I don't have to introduce DJ Bizzness, if you don't know who DJ Bizzness is then shame on you!  So Stick Your Big Dinky In is an all London affair.

But there is a greater connection between the two sides of this single. Dominic Owen and Fizal Eff had worked closely together previously.  In late 1988 they created Sing-A-Song records and released material together. You may remember that about 2 years ago I did a couple of articles on Sing-A-Song records, so if you want to know more then check them out as they include some of the history of the label, links to the artists music and a review from an early Hip Hop Connection magazine.

So that’s most of the history behind the people who made this single. But what about the music? Well, the main track is a typical early 90’s tune with an up tempo beat, and a jazzy hook coupled with that infectious Black Sheep sample I mentioned. Most tracks like this tend to sound quite dated nowadays and lack their original appeal, but for me, this one stands the test of time much better than most. I still love it as much today as I did 20 years ago and I would recommend you take a listen.  I'm sure you will see why this single is being sought after by collectors and those in the know.

The B side of the 12” is a collection of different breakbeats/instrumentals. The first actually reminds me more of early 90's dance music (a genre that Dominic has also ventured into) and may not appeal to many of you, but the other tracks are great breaks, and track 4 sounds like classic Ultramagnetic MC's pitched up a little.  Typical of what influenced Dominic in his early days and later became the P Brothers Heavy Bronx style. 

Speaking of the P Brothers, Paul S told me that this 12" sells for a pretty penny these days, and a quick internet search confirmed that.  It's currently on Amazon US for $113. 

I'd like to say a big thank you to both Paul S and Dominic Owen for taking the time to fill in some gaps in my knowledge around this release, I'm sure some of the hip hop historians among you will appreciate the extra detail.
I'd also recommend you check out Dominic Owen's website.  Like many producers, he's not a household name, but he's worked with some major artists and I think you'll raise an eyebrow when you see some of the artists he's produced for (Raekwon, Das EFX, Rakim, Chubb Rock, Special Ed, and a Notorious B.I.G. classic to name a few).  There are some great stories and history to be found over there, so check it out.

And one last thing, the record label is Phlange Records (another of Dominic's labels).  For the uninitiated, this is old, and now seldom used, English terminology for a woman.  Usually used in a derogatory way, e.g. "I need to get some phlange tonight".  It made me smile when I saw it again as I don't think I've heard anyone use that word since about the time this record came out.  

Download the full 12" (7 tracks) in 320kbps MP3 format (52mb). 

https://hotfile.com/dl/174318444/6204ada/Akapel.rar.html

The Brotherhood - Descendants Of The Holocaust (Remix)

OK, so, I'll hold up my hand and admit that The Brotherhood kinda passed me by when I was a young 'un. In fact it was 1996 before I even knew they existed thanks to MTV screening the video promo to 'One Shot' - still my personal fave - on the UK rap show that aired after Yo's demise which I can't remember the name of. I think I must have not exactly rejected hip hop by then but I was still hanging on to the old school electro years as hip hop was beginning to become boring to me and not like it used to be so I may have stuck my head in the sand. Luckily for me I didn't bury it too far as I watched all the music shows on cable telly in the hope something decent would come around and of course it did. I bought the double vinyl LP, 'Elementalz' from the Virgin megastore a few days later and I still have it today. And that's all I had by them for many years until the internet revolution opened a whole world of 'digging' and my collection grew and I was surprised to find this 'britcore' style tune about 5 years ago. The UK style was unique back then as not everybody wanted to don MC Hammer trousers and dance like you were running on the spot to heavy hip hop beats that were aimed at b boys and b girls who still wanted to be just that. Elementalz is a step away from this record, maybe more than one as it has the head nodding almost Pete Rock-esque production style  but I guess at some stage you have to catch your breath from the old school, hardcore, fuck you music that was the signature UK style in the late eighties.

Download

Crazy K.I.D.

 

I wanted to do this post a few weeks ago, but due to my NAS drive dying on me and a lack of time to fix it, it’s taken me much longer than I would have liked. The saga with my NAS drive was the main issue, because the rare footage I’m going to share below was residing on that drive, and doesn’t exist anywhere else. I’ve therefore had to rip it apart and retrieve the data, but hopefully you’ll appreciate the work involved (for the techies out there, why is there not a simple way to copy data from an XFS formatted drive to NTFS or FAT32?).

Earlier this month, I heard the tragic news that Lloyd McDevitt (AKA Crazy K.I.D.) had been found dead. He had been missing for more than a month. Although the causes of his death have not been made public, it was not suspicious. This is another tragic loss of young life and another fallen hip hop comrade.

K.I.D. was a UK legend. In the 80’s he was a key member of the world renowned Rock City Crew and recognised as one of the UK’s finest b-boys. In the 90’s he became one of the most talented, yet underrated, emcees the UK has ever had, and was sometimes referred to as a British Rakim. His most successful track is his collaboration with DJ Mink and Carruthers on the underground hit Hey, Hey, Can You Relate. I’ve previously stated that this is one of my all time favourite tracks, and more than 20 years on it stands the test of time. K.I.D. was ahead of his time and it’s a great shame he never blew up like he deserved to. There is rumoured to be an unreleased LP in existence, but whether this will ever see the light of day remains to be seen.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I had some rare footage of K.I.D. I call it ‘footage’ rather than a video because it’s important to keep this in perspective. In the early 90’s K.I.D. released an EP called Killin' MC's that was only available as a demo cassette. This is before he signed with Kold Sweat Records. The footage below is raw and unedited and was shot for a video to promote the Killin' MC's EP.  To my knowledge the video was never completed. So the sound isn’t perfect and it’s by no means a final product. However, I feel this clip shows K.I.D. flowing at his finest, taking his rap shit serious but also shows his fun loving side at the end.

I have more of this footage, and in time I may edit it down and share it with you, but for now, this is how I remember K.I.D., he was killin emcees. 

After the video, I’ve added some links to some of my fellow bloggers tributes to K.I.D. In their posts, you can download most of his back catalogue and hear for yourself what a talented emcee he was.

Lloyd McDevitt (K.I.D.) 1969-2012 - Rest in peace

 



 

http://tothebreakofdawn.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/kid-raw-flavours-volume-1.html

http://stylewarriorzrevenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/in-memory-of-kid.html

And some of his early work under the name 2wice The Trouble can be found here http://fearofawackplanetblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/sing-song.html

A Life of Rhyme

Some of our readers based in the UK may have seen the excellent Channel 4 documentary Life of Rhyme that was originally shown last summer.  For anyone who missed it, it can now be seen on YouTube and is certainly worth watching. 

I recently shared with you a copy of Ice-T's documentary Something from Nothing: The Art of Rhyme.  Although this film went some way to exploring the art form, it failed to properly recognise many aspects of American rhyme styles (dirty south, mid west, bay area etc), and it completely overlooked the rest of the world.
The UK scene has long been established and constantly at the forefront of hip hop outside of the US.  It's created many interesting sub genres and for decades it's continuously carved it's own sound (well OK, there was a period where some people sounded like the yanks!).  This documentary helps to show a different perspective.

Hosted and narrated by UK emcee Akala, he explores rhyme and the evolution into emceeing through various forms of poetry and rhyming.  There are numerous well known artists (Wiley, Blak Twang, Giggs, Rodney P,  Wretch 32, Sway and many others) spitting 16 bar acapella's to demonstrate their own styles or discussing what emceeing means to them and their approach to it.

Watch out for a rare and informative interview with the highly under rated Lowkey, and then possibly skip forward a couple of minutes when the grime section kicks in, lol.

There's been very little (if anything) in recent years to document the UK rap scene and showcase it on mainstream TV.  This documentary made a pretty good job of pulling together the key players and enrolling an intellectual and respected rapper to pull it all together (instead of a random black celebrity).  Well done Channel 4.

Unfortunately Channel 4 don't want me to embed the video here, so you'll have to head over to YouTube using the link below to watch the film.  It's last approx. 45 mins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bjCXi13W8&feature=player_embedded

More Knowledge

I recently shared an old recording of what I believed was the UK Rappin' Championships and asked if any of you knew anything more about it. Well, thankfully someone came forward who knew quite a lot about this event and has provided a considerable update. So here’s a follow up post to share this information with you, along with some video footage of the event!
But before I start, I want to say a big thanks to Shan Dookna for taking the time to help out and share his extensive knowledge.

The event name is still unconfirmed, but I think I’m safe to assume that it probably wasn’t officially called the UK Rappin’ Championships, which would also explain why the all knowing internet didn’t return anything when I started digging.

The competition was actually held as part of the DMC DJ Mixing Championships, and in 1988 these were held at the Hippodrome in London. However, another trawl of the web still doesn’t provide much fruit, the main focus is purely, and understandably, on the DJing. This leads me to believe that this freestyle competition was mainly a warm up show before the main DJ event.

Shan tells me that the judging panel included members of the Cookie Crew and Mike Allen. In my original post I pointed out that the audio cuts off before the winner is announced, but I can now confirm that the winner was in fact Fresh J, who was apparently from Huddersfield. The final battle between Fresh J and MC Brooklyn is actually on YouTube and can be seen here:



One of the female emcees on the recording went by the name of Jazzi P. Shan tells me that this is the same Jazzi P that later went on to work with hip house producer Les Adams. She had a couple of commercially successful singles, as a soloist under her Jazzi P name, but also as the vocalist for Adams’ group L.A. Mix, who had a reasonable hit with the track Get Loose on which Jazzi fires some rapid rhymes. But like what happened to many artists who jumped on the hip house bandwagon, it didn’t take them very far.

Do you know anything about this?

Whilst digging in my (digital) crates looking for something a little different to share with you, I stumbled across an mp3 rip that intrigued me. The file name simply said ‘UK Rappin Championships 1988’. I’ve had this for quite a while, so I can’t remember where, or who, I got it from. “Not a problem” I thought, I’ll just do a quick Google search to find out more.

But this is one of those items where the all knowing internet surprisingly returns zilch!!! I’ve got cassette rips that I consider more obscure or rarer than this, but most of them have turned up on blogs or YouTube. Yet this is a national championship akin to other competitions like the DMC, so it seems strange that it’s undocumented. I tried several popular search engines and numerous variations of search text, but the only thing I can find is an entry on Last.fm that has no description. This has just made me all the more curious. This is a part of UK hip hop history that is clearly undocumented, so if you know anything about it, however trivial, then please leave a comment below and let’s see if we can build a better picture of this event.  On the plus side, it does mean that this is probably an exclusive to FoaWP!

If you listen to the embedded music player below, you can hear that it sounds like an officially organised event and one of the first emcees to appear is an MC Einstein. I can only assume that this is the same Einstein that was signed to Music of Life records in 1988. Other named emcees are MC Brooklyn, Jazzy P and Miss Delight, but I think there are other uncredited emcees.

From what I can make out, the format was to line up a number of emcees and let them take turns, as opposed to the now traditional battle style of head to head dissing. However, there are still some nice little battles within this format (listen at around 6:15 for a good example of this). The host also makes a reference to ‘last year’ so this wasn’t the first or only event of its kind.

Whilst the judges are deliberating who the winner is, an unknown beatboxer entertains the audience which includes a nice little tribute to the kids TV programme Rainbow. The biggest travesty though is that whoever edited this from its original cassette omitted to include the announcing of the winner, duh!

The whole affair has been edited down to just less than 25 minutes. As you would expect with a recording of this age, it’s got the atmospheric cassette hiss in the background, but this doesn’t detract from the lyrics, if anything it’s a timely reminded of what we used to endure without really noticing it.

So, can you remember this event? Do you know where it was, who hosted it, or any of the contenders? Let’s hope someone can shed some light on it.  Leave a comment below if you have any info.

Update - Some of the questions here have now been answered.  Check out the update here.

Mike Check



Alternatively, download the mp3: https://hotfile.com/dl/156219942/d041742/UK_rappin_championships_1988.mp3.html

Bomb The Bass - Megablast (Original Rap Version)

After many attempts at locating this particular version I finally had the good fortune of stumbling across it and I do mean stumbling. The recent bombardment of mix tapes with unknown or 'random' rap cuts have made me in to a bit of a wreck trying to track down certain records that I never knew existed, which admittedly is a lot easier nowadays what with the internet and all, but also actually owning quite a few that were featured is a surprise and also makes me glad I don't have to shell out silly money to get them. I'm referring in particular to the excellent 'Crown Jewels' series of mixes by King Aroe and the Sound Makers, volume 2 containing this excellent version of a reasonably popular record from the late eighties. It came free with a copy of the Record Mirror and on the back of the sleeve states, 'unavailable elsewhere' although I was told just yesterday by an online acquaintance that this was on the LP which made me feel slightly miffed but I only paid 99p so who could grumble at that? There's loads of these on discogs and they're all incredibly cheap, some starting at 75p and I only went for the 99p one because of the very reasonable p&p the seller was asking for. There's 3 other tracks on it too, all pretty ordinary and not worthy of a mention here but I ripped the whole thing anyway for the completists among us. All hail Michael Viner and his Incredible Bongo Band.

Download

Rapping graffiti characters!

It's been a while since we heard anything from DJ Format, but he's back, and if this teaser video is anything to go by the album looks like it should be a corker.  Due out on 27th Feb, the album features contributions from Edan, Mr Lif, Phill Most Chill, Sureshot La Rock and more.

I'm loving the artistic creation in this video and the representation of the wider elements of hip hop culture.  The video was created using animated graffiti art by and filmed by Jeff Metal.  Innovative videos aren't new to DJ Format.  If you're not familiar with his earlier material then I strongly recommend you check out Vicious Battle Raps feat Abdominal from his 2003 album Music for the Mature B-boy.  It's a clever single-take video that adjusts to cater for Abdominal's variable speed of rhyming, and is laced with crazy background cameo's to compliment his playful rhymes.
It's good to see DJ Format back, and representing good UK hip hop. 

Have you got your Xmas rap?

Despite the popular belief of some that Christmas is actually a religious festival, most people seem to view it as a time for going overboard, displaying distasteful decorations, and making everything cheesy. 

Well, hip hop has sometimes gone along with this theme and there are plenty of Christmas rap songs to prove it.  But this one has got to be one of the best as it went the whole hog and even had Jingle Bells sung for the chorus.

If I recall it correctly, this was released around 1987.  The track is Chillin' With Santa by Derek B (R.I.P.)

Merry Christmas to all of our readers, see you in the New Year.

Mike Check & Randy Mack.

D-Nice TV

This is one channel on YouTube that you've got to check out.  It's hosted by D-Nice (from Boogie Down Productions) who is now a photographer and film maker as well as a DJ. 

D-Nice has come correct with a great little series of short documentaries with old skool artists, such as Big Daddy Kane, Buckshot, Sadat X, Masta Ace, Dana Dane, Kwame, Lords of the Underground and many more.  But what makes these videos different is that each interview starts with the artist recalling a classic, well known and well recited  rhyme from their back catalogue which they then break down and explain. 
Each lyric is carefully chosen to give the viewer an insightful, and generally unheard, history lesson from their early days of Hip Hop.  You'll find Monie Love talking about Kane hitting on her, Ace talking about how he was never meant to be on The Symphony and Sadat breaks down his classic verse from Punks Jump Up.  I'll let you discover the rest.... although I've embeded a small selection below :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/dnicetv

It's also worth taking a look at his website too.  He's got some brilliant photos of some of Hip Hop's greatest artists (old and new) that have been taken in modern times, but done in a contempory style and much removed from the usual publicity shots we're used to seeing.  It's great to see D-Nice is still a player in the game with a positive contribution, peace to D-Nice.

http://d-nice.com/

Rare Demon Boyz Video

In case anyone hasn't come across Style Warrior, he runs a nice little site selling extremely limited runs of t-shirts featuring UK artists of the golden era.  If you haven't checked him out, I recommend that you do.

He also shares some interesting videos and this particular clip is no exception.  According to his website, it's an exclusive and unreleased video from the Demon Boyz for the track No Hocus Pocus.  Check out his site for more details on how this video came about: http://stylewarrioruk.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/demon-boyz-no-hocus-pocus-video-exclusive/

3:6 Philly - Funky Alcohol

I couldn't find this video on YouTube, so I decided to rip it from my own collection and share it with you.  Released in 1992 on the Zoom record label (who also signed Red Ninja), this funky little number followed up their edgyier debut Those Flags Offend Me.

The B side to this was The World Still Turns, and if anyone is interested in either of these 12"s then leave a comment and I'll get them uploaded.

If you like this video, the download link is at the bottom of this post.



Download Link (Hotfile - 80mb)
http://hotfile.com/dl/88989067/ce8e8b8/3.6_Philly_-_Funky_Alcohol.avi.html

Sing-A-Song - Part II

Whilst downloading the Nottingham's Finest mix from Dominic Owen's website (see post below), I noticed that he'd got scans from an old copy of Hip Hop Connection magazine.  HHC was pioneering, it was operating before other magazines like The Source and in it's early days it was an incredible publication, let's face it there was no other publication representing us UK B-Boys.  How things have change at HHC since the late 80's....

Anyway, I have this issue somewhere, along with a couple of other classic issues, and I was well chuffed to see it again.  This particular issue meant a lot to me as it reviewed the Sing-A-Song artists, some of whom I knew personally at that time.  It's a trip down memory lane seeing youthful photo's of them again. 

Many of you will better know The Rapper Groove under his later pseudonym Blue Eyes or you will probably have attended one of his legendary events, the most notable being Fresh 97 and 98.

To all of you old skool UK Hip Hop fans, enjoy a flashback to how HHC once was.