Hip Hop and Breakz

I picked this joint up from Hiphopsite.com back in late 1997 when I was buying a lot of vinyl from this site because they had such good deals and always threw in lots of cool merchandise like T-Shirts, stickers and other cool stuff.  I was interested in this 12" because of the artists featured in the group; Mikah 9, Abstract Rude, Aceyalone and the drummer of rock group Third Eye Blind Adrian Burley. Obviously I had enjoyed the lyricists work as part of Project Blowed, The Freestyle Fellowship and Abstract Tribe Unique.   This group of artists along with other musicians created a dope fusion of Hip-Hop, Jazz and Funk.  This was the first 12" released by Haiku D'Etat and they did go onto release two albums; Haiku D'Etat (1999) and Coup De Theatre (2004).  This 12" features three joints and an instrumental.  All three tracks are backed by live musicians with all three lyricists dropping verses alongside a female vocalist. The title track is cal...

Heres is a another gem from my own collection.  This is a certified Queensbridge classic from the legendary Kool G Rap.  I honestly cant remember where I picked this up from although something tells me I may have bought it from a friend of mine who was selling off his Hip-Hop collection, possibly Diablo I'm not too sure to be honest. Wherever I picked this up from there is no doubt this is a perfect example of Kool G Rap's Crime filled storytelling.  This 12" features two versions of the track; The Al Capone and the Untouchable version as well as instrumentals and an accapella.  Both of these are different to the album version.  There is also the inclusion of another track called Straight Jacket.  The A side starts of with a dirty version of the Al Capone mix of the track.  This version comes in at just over four minutes and features nice piano loop over the Skull Snaps drum break.  It also has vocal samples of Robert DeNiro from The Untou...

This is the fourth entry in my Crate Digging series whereby I pick out gems I had forgotten I had in my collection.  This little slice of mid nineties indie Hip Hip is brought to us by underground hero The Last Emperor and was released in 1997.  This was his first 12" and featured three joints; Secret Wars part 1, Bums and Monumental.  The Last Emperor was originally from Philadelphia but in the mid nineties mo ved to New York and began performing at The Lyricist Lounge. He was featured on KRS ONE's "C.I.A. (Criminals in Action)" with Rage Against the Machine's Zach De La Rocha which was featured on the. Lyricist Lounge compilation released on Rawkus. Two years later he signed to Dr Dre's Aftermath however like a number of promising artists at that time that never lead to an album release.  In 2003 it was announced that The Last Emperor had signed to Rawkus Records. A few singles were released in a period of 6 months, but around that time Rawkus ce...