Hip Hop and Breakz

Back in the Summer of 1995 I was sharing a flat with one of best friends in South East London and spending too much time playing Mega Drive and too much money on records. One of the most important records I bought that Summer was the first 12" from Raekwons' classic debut Only Built for Cuban Linx. The 12" had Criminology on the A side and Glaciers of Ice on the B side. Although Criminology is a strong track that works well with the rest of the album Glaciers is my favorite track on this 12" and also my favorite Raekwon track overall. On Glaciers we see the start of the orchestral sound that would eventually be the sound that Rza perfected on Ghostface's album and on the masterpiece Wu-Tang Forever. I had first heard Glaciers in a late night smoking sessions with my friends at the time and had been totally blown away by Rza's layered production. Rza had been tearing up the East Coast for a couple of years with his dirty and raw style of production but th...

What do you get when take Hip Hops best producer, a sick lyricist and a classic David Axelrod song ? You get Royce Da 59's new banger "Shake this". As you all know Royce is a dope Detroit lyricist who proved his skills in the same clubs that birthed Eminem in the mid to late 1990s. He dropped has number of dope 12"s, a few albums and mixtapes since then. However his best work has always been with Premier behind the boards and this track shows this again. Premier always gives Royce dope beats that allow him to show off his mic skills to their full extent and this track is no different. Its an up beat track that has Premier returning to his David Axelrod collection. The Axelrod track he samples is from his 1968 Capitol release "Songs of Innocence" album and is called "Holy Thursday". Premier has samples Axelrod numerous times in the past as have DJ Shadow, UNKLE, Pete Rock, Dre and many more. David Axelrod is a very talented Jazz, Funk and So...

Back in about 1999 I picked up a Bootleg Mobb Deep 12" from London's now closed down Mr Bongos. I've always been partial to a nice bit of Havoc and Prodigy especially if its Havoc behind the boards. I like the dark ominous production style that Havoc fathered and their style of morbidly threatening raps has always cheered me up. At the time I had only heard 3 the Hard way and Gun Love on a couple of mixtapes and had liked what I heard despite the wack DJ shouting all over the tracks. So of course being a big QB fan I had to grab this bootleg 12" The track Gun Love is about a love affair and how it lasts through the various ages of Prodigy's life and how much this love means to him. I know what your thinking this doesn't sound like the usual Mobb Deep subject matter but the love that he's talking about is as the title indicates his Gun Love. I know this sort of thing has been done before by a few other decent MCs but Prodigy drops the rhymes with su...

Last Year Lupe went and pissed off a whole lot of hip hop heads by saying he had never even listened to Midnight Marauders and that he was more of a West Coast Gangsta man than an East Coast Backpacker, fair enough not everyone gets to listen to every classic album when they dropped. But Lupe then went on to perform a cover of Electric Relaxation at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors show and he messed up the Lyrics, then he made a few posts about how he was asked to do the track by Q-Tip and then Tip refuted that on Hot 97. The whole thing seemed to get a little bit silly in my opinion. Now months after what became known as Fiascogate we have a remix of the track Paris, Tokyo from Lupe's very underrated album The Cool. The original version of this was produced by Lupe's boy Soundtrakk and I think he's behind the boards on this one too as the beat is very similar to the original. The beat is mellow and laid back with some nice drums and a cool keyboards loop. Pharrel does his ki...