Played some of the M.I.C. stuff I have on record at PBS-FM the other night. Cheers to Ronan for hosting.

Live Radio Special – Monsta Island Czars

Come On, Kick It!

Last week a portion of the late, great DJ Mister Cee’s record collection went under the hammer on eBay, featuring a veritable bounty of test-pressings and rarities, courtesy of a seller named paperstax. Luckily for the rest of us mere mortals, they provided audio snippets of some of the more exclusive items so that aging rap maniacs can ‘check the techniques’ (and see if we can follow it).

First off the bat, Mister Cee had dub/TV track acetates of just about every song from the first five Big Daddy Kane albums (that hadn’t been released as singles), which makes sense since he was Kane’s DJ and BDK needed these to rap over on stage. In the early nineties, record labels would press-up small runs of instrumental ‘Show Vinyl’ for groups to use, but I guess that wasn’t on the radar for Cold Chillin’/WB, so Mister Cee had to press-up his own.

Highlights include the ‘Wrath of Kane’ dub, ‘It’s a Big Daddy Thing’ dub (produced by Prince Paul, who later revealed that Kane used the demo mix of the beat!) and the instrumental for ‘Something’ Funky’, the b-side of Kane’s first single which is also used on ‘Just Rhymin With Biz’.

Keeping with the live show theme, there were also a couple of intro routines that served to hype the crowd before the ‘Prince of Darkness’ aka ‘Dark Gable’ hit the stage.

Next up is Mister Cee’s exclusive version of Nas’ ‘Street Dreams’, titled the ‘Etchasketch Remix’. I assume he played this on his radio show or when he was playing clubs at some point, but who knows.

Since Cee helped put Biggie on, it’s no surprise that there was ‘material from the Black Frank White in the stash. This 10” acetate, listed as ‘unreleased Hot ’97 radio freestyle feat. Funkmaster Flex w/ Mister Cee’, was previously uploaded to the internets as the ‘Another Rough One’ demo, since that’s how he opens the verse. Turns out this is actually Biggie doing the ‘Microphone Murderer’ rhymes (from the tape that Matty C covered in the Unsigned Hype column in March of 1992) over a new Mister Cee beat and re-packaged as a ‘Flex exclusive’ after the Bad Boy signing. It’s not clear if Flex ever played this on air though.

The crown jewel of this batch, which sold for an eye-watering seven and a half grand, were two exclusive Big Daddy Kane songs produced by Mister Cee. I nearly lost my mind when I saw ‘The Wrath (Part II)’ listed – could this be the legendary song where Kane took direct shots at Rakim but then decided to vault it? Turns out it’s not quite that earth-shattering – from what we can hear in this two minute snippet, this is the original version of ‘Put Your Weight On It’, only a lot more hyped-up and with 100% more ‘Amen Brother’! The flip, ‘You Can’t Hide Love’ is a reggae-tinged love rap before Kane went the full-Barry White. Either way, both are worthy of a proper release if the original masters still exist.

This incredible batch of auctions was a timely reminder that eBay > Discogs Marketplace when it comes to grabbing one-offs and bargains, and also makes me wonder why whoever has the rights to Kane’s catalogue isn’t putting some of this stuff out for Record Store Day instead of just re-packing Ice-T remixes that we already own.

Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Focus-Group Tested Rap

Rap Dummies on the mean streets of these here internets will tell you that Premier ruined Light-Years (look forward to dozens of fan-mad remixes of this whole tape with scratchy stemmed-out vocals soon I guess), but the cold, hard truth is that it’s Nas who brings proceedings down a notch. Premier has cooked up a varied platter of sounds here, using every trick in his arsenal to ensure this isn’t just 45 minutes of ‘Nas Is Like’ knockoffs. Preem serves-up expert rearrangements of classic breaks, stark minimalist beats and lush loops (with assists from Marco Polo on four tracks), providing Nas with a plethora of backdrops to unleash different flows and topics.

‘My Life Is Real’

This is basically an ad for the other six albums in the Legend Has It… series, which has been impressive in terms of scope if not always landing the shots. The shareholders so hype right now.

‘GiT Ready’

Things start-off strong out the gate with a classic Wilson Picket break, before Nas declares ‘High tech like Navidia/I’m smart, I know a little about a lot’. No big deal…I’m sure he’s not the first dude to mispronounce Nvidia, right? ‘Crypto key came with a password/Then I flipped that key to digital cash – word’. Next up, our host starts listing-off his investment portfolio, which is exactly what we want to hear on a rap album in 2025 apparently.

‘NY State of Mind Pt. 3’

Nas already rapped over ‘Stilletto’ so I guess we’re stuck with the Billy Joel left-overs for the hook. This was completely unnecessary but kind of inevitable. Hey, at least the loop is good.

‘Welcome to the Underground’

Is this a live band? I’d kinda hoped Premier had ditched that creepy bass player guy he was hanging out with on Instagram. Maybe he has a really good car stereo and doesn’t mind carrying Preem’s records?

‘Madman’

Things get back on track for this absolute scorcher, despite Nas claiming ‘Multiple hitmakers on one album/I introduced it, in fact’ even though Run-DMC did the exact same thing in 1993 when they had Pete Rock, EPMD, Q-Tip, Naughty By Nature, the Bomb Squad and Chyskillz from Onyx produce the album? It’s not like nobody heard that album either – it went gold a lot quicker than Illmatic did.

‘Pause Tapes’

Great concept, this is some quality Old Mouf Rap for those of us who grew-up with tape decks and get misty-eyed whenever we see a TDK MA-X cassette.

‘Writers’

This seems like something that an unpaid intern at Mass Appeal suggested to create brand synergy for a future spray paint line (Nasty Nas Nozzles, perhaps?). Call me cynical, but I don’t recall ever hearing Nas give a shit about bombing until now. Is this an attempt to pull at the nostalgia thread of fifty-year-old rap fans? It sounds good but really wears out its welcome when he just starts reading out tags for half of the five-minute run time, by which point I’d rather be listening to ‘Wrong Side of The Tracks’ or ‘Out For Fame’ if I wanted to get a Krylon Rap fix.

‘Sons (Young Kings)’

I guess this is a follow-up to ‘Daughters’, so we’re really going with three sequels here? This has a nice, melancholy quality and Nas is rapping at full tilt.

‘It’s Time’

‘It’s Time’ is incredible, a masterful Steve Miller Band chop with just the right amount of swing, and Nas rises to occasion. It’s only two-and-a-half minutes long but maybe we’ll get an extended version on a 12” next year with an extra verse, like Jay-Z and Premier did for ‘A Million and One Questions’.

‘Nasty Esco Nasir’

Why is he still going on about this alter-ego stuff all these years later? We get it already. Then halfway through he slips back into Insurance Salesman mode and just says, ‘I do branding’. Is this a new genre called LinkedIn Rap? Will there be a QR code on the back of the CD where listeners can subscribe to the Nas Investment Podcast for stock tips and a coupon for a free drink at Resorts World Casino in Queens?

‘My Story Your Story’ (feat. AZ)

This is another winner, the best thing they’ve done together since ‘Serious’ (or was that the last time these two teamed-up on a song?).

‘Bouquet to the Ladies’

Nas activates ‘Performative Male’ mode and shouts-out a list of women rappers for what seems like an eternity. Isn’t this what the liner notes are for? It still comes-off though since his flow is on point and the music is amazing.

‘Junkie’

Another variation of the well-worn ‘I Used to Love HER’ concept, combined with the other rap cliche of rapping about dope being a woman. Luckily it’s very well executed so it works well enough.

‘Shine Together’

This reminds me of a Gang Starr album cut, in the best way possible.

‘3rd Childhood’

I predicted this song as a joke in my last article and here it is. Good track but the title is really stinking up the joint.

At this point we all should expect that Nas albums are equal parts great rapping and even greater amounts of face-palm worthy moments when he goes all Fake Deep on us – it’s become part of the charm at this point. I’ll pick this up when the proper picture cover version hits the shelves on the strength of ‘It’s Time’ and ‘Madman’ – those two songs justify the existence of this whole album – ‘It’s Time’ just might be my favorite rap song of 2025.

And yet, it’s hard to escape the feeling that these two could deliver something really special now that they’ve gotten warmed-up and don’t have the weight of twenty years’ worth of expectations to contend with. Just don’t call it Light-Years 2 for Chrissakes.

Actually, how about making this a trilogy where Q-Tip produces the new Nas LP and then bring in Large Professor to complete the cipher?

Photo: Rachelle Clinton.

…and contractually-obliged Nas features

On paper, Mass Appeal Records’ Legend Has It… series is directly aimed at my dome piece (and wallet), as it reheats eighties and nineties rap faves in the microwave of nostalgia and forces them to let Gout-Era Nas rap on at least one (or more) songs. Any seasoned rap fan would be well within their rights to expect that all of these records will have at least one great song per LP and maybe two or three ‘pretty, pretty good’ efforts. While the final chapter – the Nas and DJ Premier album that’s become rap’s answer to Guns & Roses’ Chinese Arithmetic in that it can’t possibly live-up to the weight of expectation but it will be a relief when it’s released so that everyone can stop thinking about what could have been if they’d actually made it in 2005/2006 when they started talking about the idea to the press – isn’t out until next week, let’s look at the strike rate for the first six efforts.

Slick Rick – Victory

I did a quick review of this, and was puzzled why the songs were so short but then Rick released the accompanying mini-movie a few weeks afterwards so I guess that gad something to do with it – but shouldn’t that have dropped first? Anyhoo, I liked this enough to buy it when the record hit the shelves, based on how good the b-side is and the simple fact that The Ruler is rapping over drum breaks.

‘So You’re Having My Baby’ is the sure-shot for me, while ‘We’re Not Losing’ and ‘Another Great Adventure’ (with a Q-Tip assist on the beat) and the gloriously ignorant ‘Landlord’ all hit the mark. Looking forward to the Vance Wright remix 12”s that will never happen!

Raekwon – The Emperor’s New Clothes

The Chef has really flooded the market at this point, having released some many albums and mixtapes that are indistinguishable from each other that it’s hard to get too excited about this. Tracks like ‘Pomegranate’, ‘Da Heavies’ and ‘Mac & Lobster’ with Ghostface get the job done with solid music and rapping, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Shallah Raekwon is just clocking-on with his punchcard like a modern-day Fred Flintstone.

Obligatory Griselda guest track? Check. Unsuccessful attempts at making punk-smoove 90’s-era Hot 97 crossover singles? Two checks. Allowing Swizz Beatz to ruin a great Method Man verse because Rae may or may not owe him money for a painting he was overcharged for? Check.

Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele 2

This should have been called ‘GFK Vs. Ultimate Breaks and Beats’ since it has no connection to the first Supreme Clientele album outside of the name and the loop in ‘Rap Kingpin’, but I appreciate that Ghost is rapping over classic drums here – fried vocal cords and all.

A lot of this is reminiscent of Pretty Toney-era Ghostface, repeating the whole rapping over the whole song trick he did on ‘Holla’ for ‘Windows’ (except Tom Jones! Wales represent). Actually he raps over breakbeats on the skits on that album, so maybe this should have been The Pretty Toney Album 2 instead? The ‘Pause’ skit is funny because Ghost kinda misses the point while he scolds the listener for taking his old lyrics out of context. An enjoyable victory lap but it just makes me want to listen to older, better Ghostface songs.

Mobb Deep – Infinite

I bought this one on the strength of the song with Big Noyd on it (the awkwardly titled ‘The M. The O. The B. The B.’) and the ALC-driven ‘Score Points’ and ‘My Era’, however it’s disconcerting hearing Havoc say stuff like ‘I guess I’m cancelled’ and having a hook where he says ‘Easy Bruh’ but I guess even the Thun Language had to evolve.

Nas manages to stink-up his three (?!) appearances and I’m not sure if having The Clipse on here was part of some contractual obligation with Mass Appeal but just to be clear the Conservative Rap Coalition don’t care about those guys except for that one song that Pusha-T did that reminded me of a modern ‘I’m Not Playin’ by Diamond D’s first group.

Big L – Return of the King

The Lamont Coleman well is beyond dry at this point, since all of the usable stuff already appeared on The Big Picture and the D.I.T.C. album, so a lot of this seems to be remixes of freestyle sessions and guest spots from guys like Joey Badass and Mac Miller. Would Big L, a notorious wiseacre, have fuxed with these dudes if he had to share a studio with them? Possibly, although I like to imagine he would have snapped on both of them to the point where they both started crying and had to pretend they had hay fever or some shit.

De La Soul – Cabin In The Sky

This starts off strong, with the first three songs sounding great (DJ Premier outdoes himself with ‘Sunny Storms’, Supa Dave smashes it on ‘Good Health’ and Pete Rock serves-up a welcome Steve Miller snippet on ‘The Package’), but as soon as Killer Mike shows up it all goes downhill as they slip into the sort of wandering, sentimental navel gazing you’d expect from their pals Common or post Life Is Good Nas (funny that!)

Trugoy’s ‘Don’t Push Me’ finishes things off nicely, and almost helps to forget how dreary the most of the past twelve songs were, but this album – maybe more than anything they’ve done – sorely lacks Prince Paul’s ear for sequencing and dark, sarcastic sense of humour. Or at least Plug Four’s ability to bring those qualities out of the group.

This must have been tough for the group to make, but it feels like a missed opportunity to return to their abstract, coded lyrics that were unlike anything else in rap, before they traded it all to settle for cranky uncle status as they reminded us that ‘Stakes Is High’ but we still need to pay the gas bill so let’s not make it too complicated for the young ‘uns.

Nas and DJ Premier – Light-Years

According to the Wikipedia page, this will feature both old and new jams (word to Spoonie G) and open with…’N.Y. State of Mind Pt. III’? Whoa there Nelly (no St. Lunatics) – didn’t Alicia Keys already record this with Nas and Rakim? Or has that been stricken from official Nas lore at this point? Maybe they can really lean it and just make the whole album sequels! ‘3rd Childhood’, followed by ‘Nas Is (Still, Kinda) Like’, ‘(Losing My Short-Term) Memory Lane’ and ‘I Gave You Power (Shingles)’.

Please Listen To My (Beat) Demo

Between 1995 and 1997 seem to be the years that white label rap remix records peaked, in terms of the sheer numbers hitting the shelves – you couldn’t go near a rack of 12” singles without tripping over a bootleg remix of ‘Life’s A Bitch’, ‘Microphone Masters’ or anything from Busta Rhymes first album. At this stage, white label remixes fall into two categories – stuff that was commissioned by a record label but didn’t get used on an official release (so the producer decided to press-up it up for ‘promotional purposes’), or a 33 1/3 RPM business card for an up-and-coming beat maker trying to make a name for themselves.

Some noteworthy contributions from the former include Buckwild’s Still Diggin’ Sampler EP, DJ Eclipse’s Wild Pitch era white labels and the DJ Spinna Remixes EP (although I don’t think this was released until later), while the latter includes Frankenstein’s Live From New York, the Vinyl Reanimators/DJ Mighty Mi EP’s and DJ Honda’s Remixes (this is a bit of a wild card entry, since Honda was already signed to Sony at this point so these are officially approved remixes of artists signed to Sony/Relativity/Ruffhouse. Nevertheless, it was still showcasing Honda’s music to those who weren’t familiar).

Every now and then, some of these home-made remixes made it to the proverbial ‘big leagues’, like the time that Mighty Mi pressed-up his own version of Ghostface’s ‘All That I’ve Got Is You’ and an A&R called him to ask if they could put put it out themselves, or in the case of DJ Shame’s legendary remix of Tim Dog’s ‘Bronx Nigga’, he won a contest run by the label and received a Numark dual CD player as the prize, in addition to his mix getting a limited promo pressing on Ruffhouse!

In this 2006 interview, Shame also talks about how he campaigned to get his remix of Kool G Rap and Nas’ ‘Fast Life’ picked-up by Epic, but they went with the Salam Remi ‘Norfside’ Remix’ instead. To add more sugar to the Kool-Aid (word to Hard Knocks), original producer of the song Buckwild also submitted his own remix to no avail. I like all three versions but there’s something about the ill scratches on the Vinyl Reanimators mix that really hit the mark.1

Unauthorised remixes provide an opportunity to completely recontextualize a track and switch-up the whole mood of the song entirely, as with the Buckwild remix of Nas and AZ’s ‘Life’s A Bitch’ that isn’t the one with the Grover Washington loop (confusingly labeled as #2 on the white label but #1 on the Rare Studio Masters CD). This version captures that wonderfully bleak, eerie sound that Buck and the likes of Dr. Butcher were delivering during this period. Too depressing for ya? No worries, DJ Eclipse has got you covered as he R.A.M.P.’s up the vibe with this version without going full Gap Band.

The flip side of this, and perhaps the most valuable public service that bootleg remixes can provide, is to give songs that had really shitty music a second lease of life, thus emancipating some great raps from purgatory. Think of all the quality LOX verses, trapped behind Swizz Beats and Dame Grease ditties? Or basically everything that anyone even vaguely associated with the Wu-Tang released after The RZA changed his beeper number?

That doesn’t mean that it’s not worth having a tilt at sacred cows such as ‘Shook Ones’ accapella or anything from Illmatic, it can still be enjoyable to hear classic lyrics in a new context, even if there’s no hope of ever surpassing the original version. Unless it’s anything involving Biggie Smalls or MF Doom, that is. Please let those dudes actually rest in peace you fucks.

Go FLAC Yourself

If I had a dollar for every time some Real Hip-Hop Truther lost their shit because something only came out on CD, I’d have enough money to buy a hand-numbered, ALDI-brand Roc Marciano wannabe’s Obi-Strip Rap album from France at 2AM because rap music has long since been co-opted by Hypebeasts who speculate on how much the caviar colour way will be worth in twelve months.

At various points in human history, records reined supreme, then tapes ruled the world before being crushed under the cold, steel boot of compact discs. This was great for record companies, because CD’s cost absolutely fuck-all to make so they had more money to waste on dodgy computer graphics in TLC videos, but it didn’t mean shit to me as child with nothing but a Sony Walkman to my name and occasional access to the family turntable to record LP’s onto a TDK D-90 (or SA-60 if I was being fancy).

This was the era where I decided to skip a whole day of school to pick-up my pre-ordered copy of BDP’s By All Means Necessary, catch the train home and proceed to hope that bad boy was less than 45 minutes long so it would fit on one side of a tape (turns out it was 47 and a half minutes but losing the final half of ‘Necessary’ wasn’t exactly the end of the world, since that and ‘Nervous’ are basically extended skits). It didn’t take me long to figure out that just buying the tape version meant I could listen to the music as soon as I bought it.

CD’s had already hit the scene, but the portable CD’s players (Discman? What is this, Tron?) were kinda flakey and expensive, so I was Team Tape for most of high school. This only really paid off a handful of times, where the cassette releases had exclusive songs like on the first Digital Underground and the third Stetsasonic album, but you’d still get some extra pictures compared to the bare-bones vinyl packaging so it wasn’t a total loss.

Years later, after having already acquired my own turntable in the mid 90’s and starting to buy LP’s again, I got onto the internetS and found a bunch of online spots that were selling old rap CD’s for a couple of bucks. By this stage, I had a car courtesy of my job and it had a decent factory CD system installed, so I was able to relive all types of 90s rap – but now with bonus songs, 32 page booklets sporting expensive photo shoots and ads for the artist’s t-shirts and hoodies, and even this CD-ROM enhanced joints like on Mobb Deep’s Hell On Earth where you could call numbers on a virtual phone box in a pixilated recreation of Queensbridge!

Returning to the second BDP album again, I just threw the tape and CD on the ol’ trusty Panasonic boombox and noticed how much louder the effin’ cassette sounds compared to the CD, but they both sound good. The real difference is how much better the cover looks – you can see the BDP logo on KRS’ custom tracksuit pants now!

In 2025, you can still get some stuff on tape, a decent amount on CD and fifteen variations of every LP and EP, as well as a cottage industry in 7” re-issues and bootlegs to get us to buy the same songs all over again. The real casualty in all of this has been the near extinction of the greatest format of them all – cassingles! No, hang on…I mean the mighty 12”.

Who can forget the excitement of trawling through all five versions of LONS’ ‘The International Zone Coaster’? It turns out that the Re-Remix Edit, Remix, Ultra Shandilere Tango-Trixx Mix, Zone Flight Z9ZU Mix and the Radio Edit all have different music! There wasn’t even room for an instrumental on that insane platter! Not to be outdone, some mentalist over at EastWest records approved a double 12” of remixes for Champ MC!? And what about stuff like this late career Bobby Brown 2×12” that covers everything from House, Miami Bass, R&B to Bridge Rap mixes – aka the old ‘throw everything at the wall and hope that something sticks’ method.

Obviously it makes no financial sense to press-up 12” singles in this day and age, but if I was to be fired into space via a giant cannon to live underground on Mars with my pal Johnny Cab from Total Recall and could only take a box of possessions, I’d be loading up a crate of rap 12” singles with ‘Dub’ mixes edited by Chep Nuñez and every eighties rap CD I own.

Played two hours of rap songs that were soundtrack exclusives this past Monday on Ronan’s Hippopotamus Rex show on PBS-FM. Turns out neither of us could remember many of the films…

Live Radio Special: Rap Soundtracks

Beat-Jack Cut & Pastes All Up In Your Face

Hot off the success of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, Priority Records were (in his own words) ‘beggin’ Ice Cube to release some new music as soon as possible. The result was the Kill At Will EP, which delivered a couple of remixes and skits alongside ‘The Product’ (one of my favourite Ice Cube songs ever) and the all-conquering ‘Jackin’ For Beats’.

The Bomb Squad weren’t involved this time around – Eric Sadler theorised to Brian Coleman in Check The Technique, Volume 2 that this was because Cube didn’t want to split the money this time around, and Sir Jinx reported not earning a dime from producing this EP so I guess Street Knowledge Management took the whole kit and kaboodle? As Cube tells it:

‘I had thought of that concept, because at the time so many dope beats had come out. I just wanted to rap over all that shit…I’m not going off on anyone in that song, I just want their beats!’

Once the beats had been chosen, Sir Jinx and Chilly Chill put it together, ‘mixtape style’ and then Cube (with a little help from his cousin Del) blew the roof off that sucker.

This wasn’t the first time that a cut-up edit style track had been used to rap over (Original Concept did something similar on ‘Runnin’ Yo Mouth’ in 1987) but since Cube was on top of the world at this point in terms of popularity, it was his version that left a lasting legacy. New Yorkers such as Cormega and Biggie Smalls would go onto adapt this style for mixtapes and white labels, and while Sticky Fingaz and Talib Kweli went as far as just using the same name for their versions.

But enough about remakes, we’re here to talk bootlegs, dagnabbit. Fast-forward to 1995, and Stretch Armstrong and DJ Mighty Mi started releasing white label remix singles of rap posse cuts. I asked Mighty Mi about this period last year:

I think one of the one of the first ones I remember hearing was the one with the D&D All-Stars and the Red and Meth ‘How High’. Was that like one of the first ones you put out?

I think the Crooklyn Dodgers one was actually first, in the same format of playing their famous beats when they go. I can’t remember when I started getting that idea to do that. I think it had come from something else, but I’ve really kind of stuck to it throughout the years. [laughs]

Were those acapellas from records or did you get them from the labels?

I’m pretty sure they were on their records because we would actually put them in live – that’s how we would get the vocals on. That’s why I loved recording them at Stretch’s house because he was actually amazing at it. First you would loop-up the instrumental bed in the MPC and you would lay that down first. So it would be eight bars of ‘I Got it Made’ by Special Ed into eight bars of the Black Moon song into eight bars of ‘The Symphony’. That was the formula. So you would lay down the instrumentals first, then the hard part was flying in the vocals live. But Stretch was incredible at it – he was a musician first before he was a DJ, so he had perfect timing. So I would love to do it at his crib because he would do it in one take. And I knew that the vocals would just be so tight. [laughs]

So you weren’t sampling the vocals? He was blending it live?

Yeah. We’d lay down the instrumental first onto ADAT and then you’d have to put the vocals in live. If you messed up you could still start over because you were actually recording onto an eight track. But he was just so good at it that I knew it would be the quickest and most precise way to do it.

I would say the ‘1,2 Pass It’ and the ‘Crooklyn’ were kind of attempts to make songs that were not quite popular enough sounding to play in the club? Like an excuse to now play it in the club – I’m putting Special Ed’s biggest records under his verses, which makes it more appealing in a nightclub situation than just hearing the original Crooklyn Dodgers Premier beat. Even though it’s brilliant – maybe not for the clubs. That was my initial thinking where I put their own famous beats behind them – to make it appealing to more people.

As Mighty Mi alluded to, he continued to revisit this technique as recently as 2001 with the Eastern Conference All-Stars Air Max ‘95 Remix.

In 1996, Spinbad and JS-1 rose the stakes again when they dropped their Cold Cuts Remixes tape, which opened with a dizzying remix of KRS-One’s ‘Hip-Hop Vs. Rap’ that proved to be popular enough that it appeared on two separate white labels. 1Spinbad takes the medley/cut-up technique to new heights by dropping in the beat for each song that KRS references, as he shouts out rap staples from the past. Spinbad then went on to release the album couple of tapes focusing on cutting and blending 80’s pop, but with in a hip-hop style.

DJ JS-1 explained how it all went down:

In the 90’s we were doing the 4-track mixes and really trying to go crazy producing mixtapes. We scratched hooks from songs, added songs from movies and all stuff like that. On the cover with him on the original Rock The Casbah mixtape, it’s me, him and A.Vee. I’m wearing my Jungle Brothers camouflage hat. [laughs] We took The Breakfast Club cover. Me and Spinbad had made a tape called Cold Cuts Remixes and we sold a lot of that. Then he put the 80’s tape together, I did a few scratches on that I think, I was at his house. We were always cutting up 80’s stuff but nobody was making a mixtape with it, and he was like, ‘I’m just gonna go for it and put all the movie stuff on it like we do for hip-hop mixes.’ I don’t even know what the numbers would be on that, sales-wise, but that tape did excellent. It really got around.

By the time 1999 rolled around, Stretch was DJing for Eminem and put out the Shady Vs. Stretch 12”, which contained the ‘Rockstar Remix’ of ‘My Name Is’ (a nod to Boogie Down Productions’ ‘Dope Beat’) on the a-side with a ‘Jackin’ For Beats’ style freestyle session on the flip, titled ‘Dre Beats’, thus bringing everything full-circle before the Mash-Up Era of the 00s took over and we had to endure stuff like Jay-Z making a CD with Linken Park and mixtapes where Biggie raps are put over Ringo Star solo loops (guess it would be called Bingo if it doesn’t already exist).

What happens when the House of Hits puts a hit on you, musically speaking?

Soul II Soul owned dance floors and radio airwaves all over the world in 1989, when the one-two punch of ‘Keep On Movin’ and ‘Back To Life’ took the hip-hop DJ’s blend tape style to the mainstream. This was the breakthrough that DJ Hot Day, Kid Capri, Grandmaster Vic and Ron G had prepped us for – smooth R&B vocals over proper rap drums.

Teddy Riley’s New Jack Swing sound had already been circulating for a couple of years at this point, but that was very much a different beast – a faster, twitchy groove designed for the polkadot shirt and Gumby haircut dance floor set. Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and Nellie Hooper nailed it when they delivered a gentler, head-nodding tempo that worked just as well in the car as it did on the floor.

This was still the Wild West in terms of what you could sample, and it wasn’t long before rap fans noticed that the addictive groove of both songs had a familiar ring to it – the beat sounded exactly like Biz Markie’s hilarious ‘Pickin Boogers’!

Marley Marl explained his take on this to Havelock Nelson for the October 1991 issue of The Source magazine:

‘When I first heard “Keep On Movin’” I bugged out. I was like, “Oh shit…right off my jam.” You know it was dirty as hell and I knew nobody knew about this Larry Graham shit. He just have to had lifted it off the dub version of “Pickin’ Boogers”. That flipped me out, but it just let you know that was another innovation I came up with that was good. It’s not the Soul II Soul sound, it’s the project sound of Marley Marl.’

That being said, Larry Graham break is a stretch, since the album that hosted ‘The Jam’ (Graham Central Station’s Ain’t No ‘Bout-A-Doubt It) had a UK pressing so the ‘rare groove’ heads over there would have been up on it.

But sonically? If we compare the sound of the original drum loop, taken from Larry Graham’s ‘The Jam’ at the 5:08 mark, to Marley’s version for the ‘Pickin’ Boogers’ dub, his version has a very different feel due to the way it’s been compressed, EQ’ed and given that Queensbridge coat of grime to it.

Marley detailed his set-up during this early Cold Chillin’ records period to Amir Said for The BeatTips Manual, which explains why songs such as ‘Eric B. Is President’ and ‘Pickin’ Boogers’ have such a distinctive sound:

‘I had a Roland TR-808 that was triggering off of three separate samplers…I couldn’t afford no Emulator, so I bought the cheap little samplers, the one-shot bullshit. I had a Korg SDD-2000. It had a sampler and a digital delay. I had three of those.’

Jazzie B already had form here, having previously used another Marley Marl dub (‘Make The Music With Your Mouth, Biz’) as the basis for the ‘London Beats, Volume 1’ bootleg his crew released in 1987. As he told Jeff ‘Chairman’ Mao in 2010:

‘We made our own mixtapes, and this is an example of what we used to do. This is what ended up being called rare groove, we didn’t pay any royalties, nothing. We did it with three turntables, and if anyone remembers the Bozak Mixer, that was my pride and joy, it cost us a lot of money. Someone nicked it as well…We called this “London Beats” ‘cause it was all the songs that were big on our club scene in the early ’80s.’

To add another wrinkle to this torrid tale, EPMD went and did the exact same thing in reverse for their track ‘So Wat Cha Sayin’ at exactly the same time! Erick Sermon explained the circumstances around this to Daniel Isenberg aka Stan Ipcus back in 2012:

‘I happened to be going on tour, and we were overseas in London. The DJ plays this beat, and it’s “Fairplay” by Soul II Soul. And I’m like, “What the fuck is that?!” And he gives me the dubplate. I still got it, it’s warped now. When we get home, and we’re going in the studio, I had the dubplate. And that was it, with ‘One Nation Under A Groove.’

I heard Clark Kent find those drums later on in life, and I was like, “Yo, how did you find those?” He knew it was ‘Fairplay’ for some reason, because people were searching for that, because it was “Impeach The President” just beefed up. Clark Kent knew. He played it on the radio one time. I couldn’t believe he found it. But it was years later that he found it, not immediately.

Jazzie was a dope producer for Soul II Soul. He was hard. But he had no idea we used that record. They would’ve been came and got us. But he had to know, because it came out that year, and I took it. He might’ve just not been focused on that type of stuff. Because it was a dub version on the B-side of their record.’

By some strange cosmic coincidence, DJ Pete Rock then played this very same EPMD single right before he starts cutting-up doubles of Soul II Soul’s ‘Back To Life’ for almost ten minutes on an 1989 episode of WBLS’ In Control radio show, hosted by none other than…Marley Marl.

As you might recall, ‘Back To Life’ was an accapella track on the first Soul II Soul album, Club Classic Vol. One, but after the single mix (which apparently used the drums from ‘The Jam’ this time combined with some Dennis Coffey percussion instead of Marley’s version) became a hit the original version was swapped out on later US pressings, since a huge number of punters had bought the album and returned it because it wasn’t the mix they knew and loved.

By the time 1990 rolls around, Marley Marl gets some payback and grabs a snippet of the Caron Wheeler vocal (from the album version without any backing track) for the Intelligent Hoodlum (aka Tragedy) single, ‘Back To Reality’, complete with Nellie Hooper style piano keys!

Just to add some more sugar to this already undrinkable Kool-Aid, A&M Records then enlisted C.J. Macintosh for the ‘U.K. Remix’, and he went and looped the start of ‘Keep On Movin’ – complete with a snippet of Caron’s ‘Keep’ vocal clipped in. What the actual [Aaron] Fuchs is going on here?! Did Marley make an expensive truck call to London and demand that C.J. added the Soul II Soul record as part of a double-decker trolling of Jazzie and Nellie? I’m surprised that he didn’t ask the pressing plant to carve ‘I Dare U 2 Sue Me!’ on the run-out groove at this point.

But, as Blastmasta KRS-One was so inclined to declare when on stage, ‘We’re not done…we’re not done.’ The final chapter of this bizarre saga saw Caron Wheeler (the vocalist for the aforementioned Soul II Soul singles) record a single with the late, great Biz Markie in 1999, over a backdrop of Rocky horns, courtesy of Saleem Remi and pals. Did Biz ask her what was up with her boy Jazzie B pinching his ‘Pickin’ Boogers’ drums a decade earlier while they were sharing tea and crumpets at Power Play? Maybe Caron gifted him the mythical, one-of-a-kind Bob James ‘Mardi Gras without the bells’ CTI 12” he used to troll everyone about as compensation? You’ve got to respect the man, he played that bit to the end like a true comic-book villain.

Some demo action to soundtrack your Saturday night.

Intelligent Hoodlum – ‘No Justice, No Peace [Pete Rock Mix]‘

As heard on WBLS’ In Control and Tim Westwood’s Capitol Rap show before the Intelligent Hoodlum album was released. The album version, credited to Marley Marl, features a snippet of the same horn and sharper drums. Not sure if Pete’s version was a demo or a radio exclusive remix? Either way, it’s fresh for ’89.

Intelligent Hoodlum – ‘The Rebel Returns [Demo]‘

This plays like the an early version of ‘The Rebel’ from In Control, Volume 1 from 1988, but I’ve seen it on a Westwood radio playlist from ’89 so who knows?

Bonus: Trag and Scram rapping at the House of Hits while some random white guy drums!