Hip Hop and Breakz

I remember buying this record in Deal Real Record in London's West End, just off Oxford Street. They played the track for me and I immediately had to buy it. It was so refreshing and new, the beat was reminiscent of Tribe and the lyrics reminded me of De La Soul in that they were light hearted and humorous. This was my first introduction to Mos Def and I was very impressed. I went on to follow Mos's career closely and just months after buying this 12" I saw him do a live in store with Kweli at Deal Real and he was dope but more importantly a regular nice guy. A year or so later I saw him perform with Kweli and Co Flow at Subterania and his freestyle skills were very impressive. Mos was at the time so innovative and charismatic whilst not taking the whole indie backpack scene to serious, I have to say that I don't feel the direction he's taken of late is'nt my kinda thing but this is about 1997 not 2010. The A-Side is produced by Sean J Period and uses the...

For the 9th part of my random 90s 12" series I have chosen an often overlooked Method Man 12" from 1995. This is a pretty dope 12" featuring Mr Meth over a couple of disjointed Rza beats but more importantly this 12" marks a turning point in Method Man's lyrical style. Prior to the release of this 12" Method Man's flow was more fluent and of a higher tempo. You could often hear Meth on 36 Chambers and Tical having to take breathes in between hectic bars. It was almost as if he had too much too say and was struggling to take breathes in between these lines. He sounded hungry, trying to prove himself over the other members of the crowd. Remember for a lot of people Meth was the first member of the Clan they ever heard. An example of this style can be found on the original version of Meth Vs chef where Meth wrecks the track "for Dolo", check the link below. However on the Riddler 12" Meth debuted the style that he would utilise for hi...

This album appears to have come out of nowhere, in fact I wasn't even aware that legendary UK producer/rapper Lewis Parker was working with MF Doom cohort John Robinson. To be honest until 2008's album with MF Doom I had never even heard of John Robinson however when I heard 'Who is this man ?' I began to instantly dig his style and choice of beats. 'Who is this man ?' was entirely produced by Doom and featured well written, interesting and mature lyrics from Joh Robinson. When I saw that Lewis Parker, one of my favourite UK hip hop heads and the man behind the fantastic Masquerades & Silhouettes (1998), was handling the beats on this new JR project I knew I had to listen to it. Apparently these two worked on a limited edition 10" earlier this year called 'The Unseen Trap' which I haven't heard but will no doubt track down soon. This LP is 13 tracks long and features production entirely by Lewis Parker and John Robinson handling the emce...

The Extended Players are Shortee Blitz, Dj Mk, Harry Love and Mr Thing, the finest collection of Hip Hop DJs the UK has to offer!! Between them they've won countless DJ titles, toured the world over, produced hip hop classics of their own, won MOBO awards and so much more, not to mention Mk & Harry Love’s online stream show the Funhouse the latest hit to come out of the Extended Players camp! So join us as these turntable masters show you exactly how to rock a party playing the best hip hop related music in the finest way possible. This will be a sick jam not to be missed and will bring back memories of other London Hip Hop nights like; Gullyvers, The Hop, Kung Fu and the like. If you are in London on this night you need to be there. 8pm – 3am // FREE before 10pm, £5 after. http://www.westburybar.com/ http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thefunhouse

Heres a new Redman Joint and video for it paying tribute Michael Jackson, Lookin Fly

MF Grimm is back with a new album, You only live twice: The Audio Graphic Novel. This album is his first since 2007's The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man and is entirely produced by Twiz the Beat Pro who is on the same label as Grimm, Day by Day Entertainment. The artwork for this album was done by artist Jim Mahfood who is also doing a 13-page comic book based on the album. You can check out a track from the album which is due to be released on the 8th of June and is well worth picking up. Support some real hip hop and grab this album. Angel's without Wings

Technically this isn't really a random nineties 12" as it came out in 2000 but I was going through my record collection and realised that I had yet to convert this to MP3 and I figured there may be some people who check out this blog who may apprecaite this dope 12". DJ Cam is a dope DJ and Producer from France known mainly for his instrumental hip hop albums which heavily sample traditional Jazz. By the time I picked this 12" up in 2000 I had been listening to DJ Cam since his second studio album Substances in 1996. Substances could easily sit in the same category as Shadow's Endtroducing using dark jazz loops and break alongside strong hip hop samples creating a melancholic but enjoyable soundtrack. DJ Cam has steadily produced albums since the early nineties with his last release being 2007's Lost and Found. This 12" features a fantastic DJ Premier remix of a track from a strange enhanced CD project called the Loa Project volume 1 which only had t...