Hip Hop and Breakz

Homework Volume 1: Birthday Beats by DJ Harry Love My man DJ Harry Love has been producing classic Hip-Hop joints for a number of years now featuring some of the UK's finest lyricists; Verb T, Ransom Badbonez and Jehst to name a few.  He has just released a new compilation via Bandcamp called Homeworkwork Volume 1:Birthday Beats.  It os ten tracks long and can be bought from Bandcamp for as little as £3 although listening to it will surely prompt you to make a more generous donation.  Its a dope little project with some interesting beats and rhymes.  Hopefully the first in a series of compilations from one of London's finest.  Pick that shit up y'all.

The year was 1997 and the Hip-Hop community had not heard from Gangstarr since their 1994 album "Hard to Earn".  An underground classic that had given us "Code of the Streets", "Mass appeal", " Suckas Need Bodyguards" and  "Now You're Mine" amongst other underground classics.  The Hip-Hop landscape had changed considerably between 1994 and 1997; the independent scene had grown, there was a new breed of conscious Hip-Hop emcees, bankable acts were losing their direction and producers were now more important than ever.  It was rare to see one producer craft an entire album for one act instead acts were cherry picking beats from the best producer's beat tapes in the hope of recreating another "Illmatic".  However more often than not it lead to disjointed albums that did not flow.  Jumping from one producer to another.  So many albums at that time featured a Premier joint, a Pete Rock joint, a West Coast joint, a Mobb Dee...

So earlier on today I was taking my daughter to an optician's appointment and was 10 minutes early so I took a look in the Charity shop next door to the Opticians. I find it hard to walk past a charity with vinyl in it without taking a look. The Charity shop was a Cancer relief shop and had a couple of rows of vinyl at the back. So I got diggin' and found the usual collection of Simple Minds LPs, strange German classical albums and KLF EPs but then I came across a few hip hop records. The first was a John Forte album so I just put that one back in the rack along with the Wyclef 12" next to it. Then I came across something really surprising The Beatnuts Street Level instrumentals which according to the label features to unreleased instrumentals . As you can see from the photo above someone has at some point in the life of this vinyl spilt some coffee or hot chocolate on the cover but other than that its in perfect condition and cost just £1.65. The second gem I found...