Red Hot & Movin'

When this blog was set up it was always my intention to share much of my video collection as I have a lot of stuff that doesn't currently appear on YouTube etc.  I've had some limited success doing this over the years, but recently I've found some time to rip some of my old tapes and upload the clips to the YouTube channel.  And with my new PC being delivered soon, hopefully there'll be more of these rarities to come in the near future.

In early 1992, a group of mostly British hip hop acts came together to perform for one cause, to raise awareness of AIDS.  This resulted in a concert which was filmed and shown on Channel 4.

It features many of the biggest names in British hip hop at that time, Hijack, Caveman, Cookie Crew and the Rebel MC alongside the headliner, Master Ace (yep, before he switched up his name spelling).  The live performances are interspersed by interviews with the artists.  Given that 20+ years have passed, these are as entertaining as the performances.  Hearing K-Sly telling people to wear a condom is somewhat odd, although highly commendable.  Also featured are 11:59, Tenor Fly, Barrington Levy, Ragga Twins, Nefateri and Apache Indian.

Hijack - Live at Montreux

One of my friends has been trying to get his hands on the full video footage of this concert for some years now, but without success.  It's definitely out there, but only clips of it ever seem to emerge.

But today Janka-Man over at the 1994HipHop blog has shared this 320kbps tape rip of the whole concert. You probably won't see this again, so if you're interested then head over and grab it before the links die.

http://www.1994hiphop.net/hijack-live-at-montreux-1990-320-kbs/#comment-3006

There used to be a website that was dedicated to Hijack and held many video clips including some of this concert.  They were low quality uploads (probably uploaded via a dial-up connection), but a quick google search hasn't helped me to find it.  Mind you, its 2013 and using the search terms 'Hijack' and 'Terrorist Group' provides countless pages of other material, no doubt knocking what I'm looking for back onto page 243 of the search listing.  If anyone knows the site I'm thinking of, please drop the address into the comments section, cheers.

That's Slammin'

I've recently started getting on top of ripping some of the many old videos I have and getting them up on the YouTube channel, but there's still a long way to go!  One of the rarities I was going to rip was the 4 part collection of Slammin' Rap Video Magazine, but YouTube user MusicMan1470 has just saved me a job and ripped the first 3 editions.

These VHS videos are extremely hard to come by and I've never seen them on the web until now, so don't sleep on them.  Originally released in 1990 and 1991, each video was around an hour long and filled with numerous short interviews, videos and clips from the biggest artists at the time.  The first edition was hosted by Alex Winter (the dude who played Bill in the Bill & Ted movies) which was an odd choice, but one that thankfully didn't last into the subsequent editions.

At times it tried to be cutting edge and jump on the latest big signing (like Tarrie B, Smooth Ice), only to find that by the time the video was released, they weren't as big as their labels expected or hoped they'd be, or by including artists on the edge of the genre like Daddy Freddy or the Urban Dance Squad.  But at the same time there was also many little gems to be found, like an interview with a very young Dave Mays and Jon Shecter (co-founders of The Source magazine), a rare Schoolly D interview, MC Ren with CPO etc etc.

I've uploaded the video covers for each volume to show the featured artist on each (click on the image for full size version), but each volume is worth skipping through for some full on early 90's nostalgia.  I've also uploaded the cover for volume 4 and if a few people leave comments requesting it then it might just motivate me to get it uploaded sooner rather than later :)  It'd also be good to have all 4 volumes on YouTube.

Volume 1:

Volume 2:

Volume 3:

Volume 4:

Fresh Footage?

This is a great bit of nostalgia that has turned up on YouTube, 20 minutes of good quality footage from UK Fresh 86 [Update - it may not be UK Fresh, see the comments Section.  If you can shed any light on it then please leave a comment].  It's taken from a TV show broadcast at the time and it occasionally cuts to hosts Andy Kershaw and Janice Long interviewing the organiser (and Street Sounds founder), Morgan Khan.  Andy and Janice were both BBC radio DJ’s so I’d hazard a guess this was shown on BBC2.

The footage includes performances from DJ Cheese (the world DMC champion in 1986) alongside Word of Mouth, as well as Mantronik performing with both T La Rock and then MC Tee and then lastly some footage of Faze One.  Some of the best highlights come from Morgan Khan with his misguided analysis of hip hop no longer being political, claims that Faze One would sell lots of records in America and his casual gum chewing that made me want to knock it right out of his mouth!

Settled Differences?

After many years of separation and consistent comments from both artists that a reunion wasn't ever likely to happen, I was pleasantly surprised to see this video clip of 3rd  Bass surface this week. 

Last week they performed at SRB's in Brooklyn NY along with their DJ, Daddy Rich.  Besides the usual addition of a little middle age spread (it gets to all of us eventually), the only noticable difference was Pete Nice's use of an umbrella instead of a walking stick.  It's not quite as stylish and looks a bit daft when your indoors :)
It'd be interesting to see whether this reunion progesses into anything more, maybe a tour, new material etc.  In the meantime, enjoy two of hip hop's most loveable charaters tear through most of their hits.

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

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.

Enter The Battle

For all of our UK readers, you need to be aware of this event next weekend (22nd Oct).  Enter the Battle is the UK's premier mixed discipline urban sports event featuring breaking, street dance, graffiti and an outdoor hip hop sound system with performances from Elements, Critical Beatdown & Suspekt.  Alongside these events are Extreme Martial Arts, BMX, Slackline, Freestyle Football and much, much more.

Following on from last years huge event at the O2 in London which was broadcast on Sky TV, this year see's the event move to a new venue in the Midlands.

For more information, check out http://www.enterthebattle.co.uk/ or check out their Facebook page for clips of the special guests and footage of last years show.

Blogwatch - September 2011

Chris Marco - Dubplates
September got off to a great start with Chris Marco releasing his Dubplates - Volume 3.  For anyone who isn't familiar with these, they're a mashup of reggae instrumentals and hip hop accapella's, all mixed exceptionally well by Chris Marco.  And what makes this even better is, it's a free download! 
I'm not normally a fan of this type of mix (mostly because they're not usually executed particularly well), but this stuff is top notch and could easily be legitimate, alternative, remixes from the original 12".  Featuring classic tunes from Masta Ace, Special Ed & Buckshot, MC Lyte, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Mos Def and plenty more.

And if you like this, then check out volumes 1 and 2 that are still available for download.  Volume 1 is a King Tubby vs Wu-Tang mashup, and Volume 2 is a Bob Marley vs Jay-Z mashup.

http://chrismacro.com/vol3-available-now


Kool Keith Interview

Yup, the legend that is Kool Keith gives an insightful interview into how it all began for him, starting out with Ultramagnetic and he also breaks down many of his solo albums since. Check out the full interview along with a Flac download of the The Four Horsemen album over at Olas Un Bekons blog:

http://www.olasunbekons.com/2011/09/ultramagnetic-mcs-four-horsemen-1993.html


6th Annual Zulu Nation anniversary mixtape
I don't know what year this is from, but it's certainly going to take you a long way back in time. It features Cosmic Force, Sha Rock, Lisa Lee and the L-Brothers and lasts for about 30 minutes. It's a rip from an old tape, but for me that just adds to the authenticity of the sound, it sounds just like it used to when I was a kid!

http://old-school-hiphop-tapes.blogspot.com/2011/08/6th-annual-zulu-nation-anniversary-with.html


N.W.A. - Live from 1989
My boy Jsta has just uploaded a nice little rarity on his West Coast/Ruthless Records blog. Jsta is proving that he is still the king of the G Funk by uploading this rare concert recorded in 1989. He rightly points out that N.W.A. were banned from performing in most places, so any live recordings of their early material are very rare.

Even if N.W.A. isn't your thing, it's worth checking out his blog as you won't find a better source for old skool West Coast hip hop. He's also extremely picky (in a nice way!) about audio quality, so his rips are always top notch.

http://phuk-tha-muthaphukkin-police.blogspot.com/2008/11/nwa-live-in-anaheim-california-live.html


New Masta Ace LP
Masta Ace has announced that he's completed his collaboration album with MF Doom and it's set for a November release date. The project is titled MA Doom: Son of Yvonne (which unsurprisingly follows in the same naming style as MF Doom's previous collaboration titles). The format of the album will be MF Doom on production using beats that he previously released on his Special Herbs series, and Masta Ace providing vocals. This raises an eyebrow as to what Doom's involvement has actually been? Is this more of a mixtape or mash up than a true collaboration? I don't know, but I'm always happy to hear new material from Ace, so let's hope this doesn't disappoint.

When asked whether there will be any guest appearances on the album, Ace replied "only one, Big Daddy Kane, that's it". Is this a sign that Kane is upping his profile in preparation for a release date for his new album The Last Supper (his first album in 13 years!)?



Artful Dodger Presents - Get The Message
Style Warrior has shared this great little graffiti documentary from one of the UK's graffiti legends, Artful Dodger (aka A. DEE).  What makes this documentary a little different, is that it's not about showcasing Dodger's artwork, or a range of different pieces from around the UK.  Instead, Dodger explores graffiti culture as a whole.
The documentary lasts about 2 hours and contains many memorable clips from the past, such as appearances on Hart Beat, newspaper clippings, interviews etc.  I'm not sure when this film was produced, but I'd make an educated  guess at around 1995-1996.

http://stylewarrioruk.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/artful-dodger-presents-get-the-message/

Public Enemy Live 1988

Following on from the MC Duke post a couple of months ago, here is another clip from the TV programme Behind the Beat that used to air on BBC2 (UK only).  This time it's a live show from Public Enemy performing My Uzi Weighs a Ton.  This was originally shown in 1988 and is a rare clip, so I hope you enjoy it. 

I've seen Public Enemy perform live numerous times over the last 20 or so years, but it was these earlier shows that had a level of energy that I think was unique to that era.  In the late 80's and early 90's PE were probably the only group that put on a proper stage show and blew their audiences away.  Flavour would be jumping off 15ft high speakers, the SW1's were doing their routines and Chuck was bouncing all over the place without ever losing a breathe, they were incredible.

Don't miss the download link at the bottom of this post if you want a copy for keeps.



Download Link (Hotfile - 27mb)
http://hotfile.com/dl/96325219/1e7b43e/Public_Enemy_-_My_Uzi_Weighs_A_Ton_(Live_Behind_The_Beat_1988).avi.html

World DMC DJ Championships 1987-2001

    



This nice little medley shows the DMC Champion for each of the years performing their winning DJ sets.  Seeing these performances back to back really shows how much turntablism has progressed since the early years.  From Chad Jackson scratching with a pool cue, to Rock Steady DJ's being the first crew to take the title, and then DJ Craze's amazing 3 titles in a row, total domination of the competition.

Here are the list of winners, the download link is below.

1987 - Chad Jackson (UK)
1988 - DJ Cash Money (USA)
1989 - Cutmaster Swift (UK)
1990 - DJ David (Germany)
1991 - DJ David (Germany)
1992 - Rocksteady DJs (Mix Master Mike, Q-Bert, & DJ Apollo) (USA)
1993 - Dreamteam (Mix Master Mike and DJ Q-Bert) (USA)
1994 - Dreamteam (Mix Master Mike and DJ Q-Bert) (USA)
1995 - Roc Raida (USA) - X-Ecutioners
1996 - DJ Noize (Denmark)
1997 - DJ A-Trak (Canada) - youngest ever world champion aged 15
1998 - DJ Craze (USA)
1999 - DJ Craze (USA)
2000 - DJ Craze (USA)
2001 - Plus One (UK)

Download Link (Hotfile - 700mb)
http://hotfile.com/dl/83600055/af9d6dd/World.DMC.DJ.Champions1987-2001.rar.html

Shyheim - Live on BET

Shyheim (aka The Rugged Child) was the youngest (and probably smallest!) member of the Wu-Tang Clan. But his age and stature hasn’t affected his presence within the Wu-Tang and compared to many of the better known Wu affiliates, Shyheim has actually had much more success. He’s released studio 5 albums over a 15 year career and worked with a stellar line up of major artists including Big L, 2Pac, Mya, Smoothe Da Hustler, B.I.G., Jay-Z etc.

In 1995 he made a cameo appearance in TLC’s Waterfalls video and has since starred in several Hollywood movies along side the likes of Omar Epps, Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree and other rappers such as Nas and LL Cool J. I don’t think U-God or Cappadonna could top that.

In this video, Shyheim performs one of his biggest hits Manchild, live on BET's Teen Summit alongside fellow Wu affiliate Tekitha.  This is one of my favourite Shyheim cuts, second only to Furious Anger with Big L. 

Download Link (Hotfile - 28mb)
http://hotfile.com/dl/85608110/fc91fc9/Shyheim_Feat_Tekitha_-_Manchild(Live__BET_Teen_Summit).mpg.html

3rd Bass - Gas Face - Live on Arsenio Hall 1990

No doubt fresh from an argument with De La Soul, Arsenio Hall presented 3rd Bass performing Gas Face during which Serch dances in a manner that hints he may not have arrived earlier enough at the studios to visit the boys room.

Download Link (16.5mb):
Video.