Hip Hop and Breakz

Back in the summer of 1996 (which is almost twenty years ago, damn I feel old) there were all sorts of dodgy remixes and bootlegs floating around.  This here piece of vinyl is a perfect example of this sub-genre.  Someone has managed to get hold of a few a capellas and have made up their own beats for these tracks that were everywhere that year.  I probably picked these up in Uptown Records where I bought a lot bootlegs that year.  Although there were plenty of these bootlegs around at that time the cheap music creation apps like Garageband and Fruity loops had not yet come into existence and making tracks like this actually required access to high end music software like Q-Base and some actual hardware. All of the tracks on this EP are produced by a dude called Funkmaster Frankenstein  who soon after dropped the Funkmaster and went onto produced some nice underground head nodders throughout the 90s and well into the 2000s.  The first track is Franke...

I picked this bootleg EP up in the summer of 1997 from the legendary Deal Real record in London's West End. I remember paying about £8 for it and I think it was essentially a bootleg of four tracks from Loud artists; Xzibit, Tha Liks, Big Pu and The Dead Presidents (Dead Prez). My man Mr lawson tells me this was a bootleg of tracks featured on a Loud promo tape called Summer Heat. It has soome good tunes and I have always been a fan of tha Liks so I picked it up. The first track on this is from Xzibit and is called L.A. Times and is produced by Mel-Man, someone who I heard often does Dre's work for him. This was released by Loud as an official promo 12" in '97 before being featured on Xzibit's second album 40 Dayz and 40 Nights in 1998. Its a decent enough track with an almost marching beat and Xzibit dropping his usual insights on life. Not bad, nothing amazing just a typical Xzibit album track really. The second joint on the A-side is the Liks jojnt and its a...

I was never a big Lord Have Mercy fan, to me he was always a hype man for a rapper who didn't need a hype man. But when this bootleg 12" came out in 1998/99 I was a major M.O.P. and I still am to this day so I had to pick this because of the fact that it co stars lil' Fame and Billy Danzene. This bootleg was picked up in Uptown records in London's west end for about £8. It is produced by Nottz and it was originally recorded for Lord Have Mercy solo album 'Thee ungoldy hour', but that album never came out. However a track as dope as this rarely gets left on the cutting room floor and finally made it onto M.O.P.'s 2000 classic 'Warriorz'. Home Sweet Home could almost be a Premier, joint like the majority of the 'Warriorz' album was, but its Nottz who created this funky joint. Its made up of some nice horns as well as an off kilter piano loop with some humorous lines from Lord Have Mercy and those Brownsville boys. Of course Billy and L...

It has been a little while since I dropped a Dodgy bootleg on y'all so heres a dope little mid nineties East Coast gem for you to savour. Back in 1996 the seminal DJ / Producer, Frankie Cutlass dropped a dope little compilation album called Politics and Bullshit. Frankie handled the production and had some dope emcees on board; Kool G Rap, Mobb Deep, M.O.P., Lost Boys, Heltah Skeltah, Craig G, Fat Joe, Busta, Sadat X and BIz Markie to name a few. A few months before the first single from this album dropped the phenomenal Mobb Deep, Kool G Rap and M.O.P. track Know the game started making noise on Mixtapes and getting play from people like Westwood and 279. The track is a 100% classic that often gets overlooked when people mention Mobb Deep and Kool G Rap other duets. Not only does this track have Mobb Deep and Kool G Rap, both QB legends but it has Billy Danze and Lil' Fame on the hook, what more could you ask for? Well a dope beat would good and Frankie Cutlass does his...

I bought this 12" in 1996 from Unity records near Carnaby Street in London's West end. This was mainly a drum and Bass shop but in the back they had a dope lil' Hip Hop section that always had the best promos and bootlegs. This 12" is labelled up as a Test pressing and is on green vinyl so I probably a bit over the odds for it but at the time was really getting into M.O.P. and I have always been a QB fan. Side 1 features a track from Queensbridge Legend Tragedy joined by Mobb Deep. The track is called Judas Theory and is a diss to Capone N Noreaga. For some reason Tragedy was unhappy with them and decided to make this track. Its a pretty regular mid nineties QB joint probably produced by Havoc and it features a rather angry Tragedy calling out CNN as some sort of bitches or snakes as he actually calls them. Not really too sure why Trag wrote this or where Mobb Deep fit into the whole picture but I'm sure they weren't the voice of reason telling Tragedy ...

Back in 1995 Smooth Da Hustler burst onto the scene with a track called Broken language with featured his brother Trigger the gambler. The track was a simple idea, have smooth and trigger going back and forth boasting about what they were over a steady beat that seemed to be building to a crescendo. The track was very popluar at the time although to be honest I found it a little boring and the novelty quickly wore off. What was good about the track was the great chemistry between Smooth and Trigger. Smooth went onto drop a fairly strong album although not groundbreaking. The album featured his brother and a sort of East Coast version of Nate Dogg, D.V. Alias Krist who specialized in singing some rather cheesy but likable hooks. The album dropped on Profile and shortly after Trigger got picked up by Def Jam who were obviously hoping to capitalize on the hype surrounding his brother. However Tigger's Def Jam solo album, Life's a 50/50 gamble never made it to the record stor...

I picked this 12" up in January 1998 from the now defunct Mr Bongo's on Poland Street in London's SoHo. I am unsure if either of these tracks got a legitimate release but if they didn't t the time I'm sure that they will pop up sooner or later on one of the multitude of Beatnuts greatest hits of unreleased collections that seem to get a bi-annual release. The Off the Books remix features an elctro-synth laden beat with Big Pun dropping a classic verse; Hey yo it's all love, but love's got a thin line and Pun's got a big nine, respect crime but not when it reflect mine The shit I'm on is wrong but it lasts long Pull a fast one, then Pun'll wake up, with the stash gone I'm mad strong, and my cream is fast Smoke the greenest grass, my bitch got the meanest ass and a taste legit, I don't have to waste a whole case of Crist' All it takes is my pretty face and my gangsta wit Lace the click, cause we all share It's all fair like love a...

This week's dodgy bootleg is a 1997 released Jeru 12" featuring two post Gangstarr tracks. This was picked up from one of London's West End record shops, probabley Deal Real before it shut down or perhaps Mr Bongos and it probabley cost somewhere around £7. The A-side is called East NY Stalks and the B-side is Friend or Foe which is often referred to as Friends due to Jeru's interpolation of the chorus from the classic track Friends. As mentioned this 12" dropped in 1997 only a year after the underated but incredible Wrath of the Math which was entirely produced by DJ Premier. But soon after this album dropped rumors started to circulate that there was beef between Jeru and the Gangstarr foundation in particular DJ Premier. Then in 1997 we get this bootleg/promo 12" showing up in record shops with the track 'Friend or Foe' on the B-side. This is supposedly a diss track aimed at Gangstarr and Premier in particular. There is a number of reasons fo...

I posed this back in October and a lot of people have been been requesting that i re-up the whole 12", here it is again with a better link this time grab it while you can. 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...

A big thank you to my peeps over at Philaflava who have clarified where and what this track is. I bought this from a friend in 2004 and all he told me was that this was never officially released and was not to be confused with another KRS ONE joint called 'Questions and answers', which is on the Sex and Violence album released in 1992. This track is the Pal Joey remix of 'Questions and Answers' and is sometimes referred to as 'No Questions'. Its a dope upbeat track with a mellow organ loop and was produced by long time KRS studio engineer Pal Joey. KRS drops some dope question related rhymes and says RIP to De La Soul, who had recently released De La Soul is Dead. The vinyl is pretty decent quality, nice and heavy and it has the same track on both sides. Pal Joey co produces the original 'Questions and Answers' with KRS and he also produced the original version of '13 and Good' (anyone got the remix Westwood used to play ?) as well as '...

Although I have listed this as a bootleg my friend, Mr Lawson tells me that its actually a legitimate release albeit probably just a promo. Either way its in my bootleg box so I'm listing it as a bootleg for the sake of my ongoing series. "I thought I was the illest," Biggie was quoted as saying in Ego Trip Magazine Vol. 1, Issue 3 when referring to R.A. the Rugged Man. Biggie and R.A. had recorded the notorious "C*nt renaissance" together early in both their careers. R.A. the Rugged Man (real name R.A. Thorburn) is a sick emcee from Suffolk County, New York on Long Island. R.A. signed with Jive Records as part of the group Crustified Dibbs, a vehicle for R.A. and producer Marc Niles (Nigga Niles) in 1993. They were due to release an album in 1994 called "Night of the Bloody Apes" but after numerous altercations with his record Label they decided to shelve the album. In all honesty by that time R.A. pretty much hated his label (he even had a song...

Heres the next in the ongoing series of Dodgy Bootlegs and this time we have a Double Whammy for you Queendbridge heads out there; Large Pro And Nas's One + One and Noreaga's Married to Marijuana. Once again we have another bootleg grabbed from one of London's SoHo hip hop emporiums, this one I think was purchased at the long defunct original Deal Real records (not to be confused with the fake trendy one off Carnaby street, those who know understand what I'm saying). Deal Real was a very dope shop on a little street called Noel street if I remember correctly. I picked up some serious vinyl at Deal Real, made some good friends and also met the occasional emcee or Dj. Deal Real, which was originally Handspun, stocked a fantastic collection vinyl hip hop, mixtapes and some classic breakz. I'm getting off the point here. I picked this 12" up straight after hearing the A-Side featured Nas and Large Pro over a Large Pro beat, I never even bothered to hear the B-...

This is a strange kinda bootleg because often bootlegs are put out without the artists permission. This one however was put out by Q-Tip under the pseudonym The Lone Ranger as to avoid any sort of trouble from his label at the time Jive. This was purchased from Uptown records in the summer or 1998. I usually wouldn't buy from Uptown because they were usually a little bit more expensive than the other london stores likes Deal Real, Bongos, Wild Pitch, Unity and even HMV. But if you missed a 12" at the other shops there was usually an over priced version on the shelves at Uptown once it had disappeared from the other joints. The other thing about Uptown was that it made most of its money by selling shit RnB which meant it was always full of people asking for the latest Mary J Blige clone or Jodeci clone which I used to find really annoying. Anyway getting back to the point this is a dope joint produced by Q-Tip as a tribute to the great T-La Rock. Its a bouncy upbeat trac...

This is the third in my series of Dodgy Bootlegs and this one is From about 1999 and is De La Soul featuring Pete Rock's dope Stay Away. I picked this up in the now closed down Mr Bongos in London's SoHo. If I remember correctly it cost about £6 and was well worth the money. Its a Pete Rock produced track with De La dropping the usual lyrics but it also heavily features long time Pete Rock collaborator Rob-O despite him not being credited on the label. A dope beat if somewhat slower than Pete's usual jam but well worth checking out. I am unsure where this was originally supposed to end up but it did appear again on vinyl a few years back with the Pete Rock produced compilations For Pete Sake:The remix years which featured a number of Pete Rock produced tracks. It also showed up in 2004 on the Days Off Promo CD which came out just before the Grind Date and was distributed by Hiphopsite.com. However it didn't appear on the Grind Date album. Stay Away, don't com...

This is the second in my series of dodgy 90's bootlegs and this time its the turn of Mobb Deep and Cormega. I picked this up in the long since closed Unity records in London's SoHo back in the late nineties. Its a dope Havoc produced Mobb Deep and Cormega joint that I've only ever seen on this particular bootleg although it was rumored to be from the original version of Cormega's shelved Def Jam album Testamant. Its a darkly orchestral beat typical of Havoc at that time and the lyrics are the usual crime riddled, morbid threats that those Queensbridge kids throw about so well. Prodigy handles the first verse, Cormega the second and Hav drops the last one. Prodigy's verse is the strongest in my opinion with this classic quote; 'Overdose music It's theraputic to the user Driving wild under the influence of this Careful, cuz ya might just crash ya shit Total ya whip and still pull my tape out the deck' Pure Queensbridge Classic. Check the link Q.B.C. r...

This is the first in a series of dodgy mid to late nineties bootlegs that I have taken from my collection and am posting up here for you guys to enjoy. This 12" was picked up from either Mr Bongo's or Deal Real in London's west end in probably about late 1996 or early 1997. At that time you couldn't go into a London record shop without finding some sort of dodgy bootleg hip hop 12" or another. This one features two songs from Tragedy the QB legend. The first track is Strange Fruit which is a Pete Rock produced track featuring Capone and Noreaga. Another version of this track would later appear on Pete's first solo album Soul Survivor with an altrer line up of Tragedy, Pete Rock , Cappadonna and Sticky Fingaz. Fo this track Pete samples the creative genius of David Axelrod. The track he uses is called Smile and is taken from his 1968 album Songs of innocence. The B Side is simply called Real and thanks to my man Zingama who informs me that this track is p...