New Sosa (effed-up spelling and the whole nine), not from Legendary but I Am Legend, a different CD? Go figure. Produced by the unfortunately-named The Batkave.

AZ feat. I-Rocc - ‘The Reverand’

I fucks with a lotta old LA shit, so it’s good to see that dudes like Nipsey Hussle and Jay Rock bringing back that pre-G Funk era. And MC Eiht over a Premier beat again? Approved!

Also, here’s the latest from Nut-Rageous aka Nutso, produced by Reef.

Nut-Rageous feat. Jay Rock - ‘NYC To LA: Respect The Flow’

As time marches on, hip-hop is now at the stage where there are a significant number of rapper’s in their 30’s and 40’s releasing new music. No big deal, right? Except that now that internets record labels can release your album with a promotional budget of $50, all these characters who might have been left on the scrap heap back ten years back are allowed to release new albums! The ? Remains…is this a good thing? Let’s examine some of the flood of new rap records made by dudes who probably have kids old enough to make their own songs….

U-God - I know what you’re thinking, but Dopium works in a bizarre alternative universe where the Wu-Tang are based in Seattle. Mixed in with some superior ‘traditional’ Wu bangers are tributes to hoes, cars and coke, book-ended by three god-awful dance remixes. Sir Mix-A-Lot would be proud. Special mention to a dude called Scotty Wotty who sounds like he’s a huge fan of CL Smooth (is that a good or a bad thing?). A mix of the great, the weird and the awful.

Kurious - Many of us have fond memories of a young Jorge, who rhymed about dropping acid and chasing dames over some vintage Beatnuts and SD-50 beats. Fifteen years later, and Kurious is all grown-up, mature and sensible - except now he likes rapping over syrupy R&B tracks with a whole mess of singing. When he reunites with MF Doom and Kadi, the Magician seems to get some of that old spark back, but then the next track makes you wonder why he even bothered releasing this to public, as he often seems to be just going through the motions. Not without some rewarding moments for die-hard CM fans, but prepare for some hard work with II.

Grand Puba - The Grand Man must be on the wrong side of 40 by now, which ‘Ain’t No Crime’ as his man’s Pos K once declared, but it also makes it hard to his take his trademark tales of scooping honeys seriously, unless he’s hitting the local bingo hall. Equally infamous for his off-key singing voice, Puba makes perhaps the most called-for use of auto-tune since Biz Markie, and expands his ‘one socially conscious records per solo album’ quota to pretty much half the album, which is a wise move considering his songs about skinz lack the potency the once had. Even though the obligatory Brand Nu reunion is so phoned-in they couldn’t even make a new beat for it, Retroactive is light-years ahead of the last Pu record and is worth checking out for the Large Pro track alone.

Blaq Poet - A lot of people have expressed their complete disregard for Poet as a vocalist, but these naysayers are missing out on the staunchest champion of non-progressive, traditional Queensbridge rap this side of Tragedy Khadafi. Don’t make the mistake of writing him off as a one-trick pony either - cuts like ‘Voices’ and ‘Sichuwayshunz’ demonstrate solid conceptual songwriting, and Poet stands strong as a take-no-shit, gruff voiced elder statesmen of the straight-up raw. The Blaqprint is another essential chapter in the Screwball saga. How can you front on an album containing a song called ‘Stretch Marks and Cigarette Burns’?

Wu-Tang - Live band? 90’s MC features? Yeah, the concept for Chamber Music reeks of ‘cheap gimmick’ on first glance, but after a listen you immediately realize that this may be the hardest rap album released in 2009. G Rap, M.O.P. and Raekwon going in over raw drums and a sinister loop? Approved! RZA talking some blunted science in between tracks? Sure, why not. Order me two copies, stat!

Raekwon, M.O.P. & Kool G Rap - ‘Ill Figures’

Some tracks from the Live Hard sessions that didn’t make the final EP. The only info I have on them is that ‘Trouble’ was “recorded weirdly”, while ‘About This Flow’ was produced by Lord Finesse. Another Unkut exclusive…

Show & AG feat. OC - ‘Trouble’

Show & AG - ‘About This Flow’

Show & AG - ‘Chain Of Events’

Despite being voted the Greatest of All-Time here at Unkut, KRS doesn’t always hit the mark these days. This isn’t one of those days. Taken from ALC’s Chemical Warfare.

Alchemist feat. KRS-One - ‘Grand Concourse Benches’

Jorge brings a fresh perspective to the topic of NYC’s ‘Finest’ in the second verse.
II is out now on Amalgam Digital.

Kurious - ‘Wake Up’

Ghostface live, huh? Yeah, that shit was quality. It featured everything you’d hope for from a Starks’ set - an overpowering smell of weed surrounding the stage, winning live renditions of ‘Nutmeg’, ‘Run’ and ‘Mighty Healthy’, Ghost diddy-bopping around like an excited kid who just ate a bag of candy and….a bunch of cover versions? Sure, a musical tribute to the late, great Ol’ Dirty Bastard and nods of respect to GZA and ‘em are understandable, but when Ghost launched into non-Wu covers, I was puzzled. Why is half of the Theodore Unit performing Pharcyde’s ‘Passin’ Me By’? With seven official solo albums under his belt, plus all the Wu-Tang and Theodore stuff, it’s not like Pretty Toney is short of material, so why throw a Biggie cover in there, of all people? It’s not just GFK that I’ve seen do this, this techniques seems to have become as much a part of the modern rap set as trying to determine which side of the room is “more live” and asking us if we like that “real hip-hop”.

Do you feel ripped off when an MC performs other rapper’s songs on stage?

Ghost performing a similar set in Berlin, Germany 3 weeks ago:

What better way to pay respect to the King of Pop than these two gems…one of the most inspired blends ever courtesy of mixtape royalty Ron G, and an album of dope Jackson 5 chops from The Are…

Michael Jackson - Remember The Time (Ron G Blend)

The Are - Dem Damb Jacksons

For a great list of written tributes, Rafi’s on the case.

This Wu-Tang Chamber Music record is serious.

Inspectah Deck,U-God and Masta Ace - Kill Too Hard

For the second part of our talk, Doo Wop discusses the Bounce Squad, issues with Kid Capri and teaming-up with Tony Touch…

Robbie: So who was the full line-up of the Bounce Squad?

Doo Wop: Rev. Gotti, All That, Snagglepuss, Uneek. Snagglepuss, towards the end he had brought his brother Leatherface – rhymed on two tapes. He got a good response but he didn’t get too much light. Lord Tariq was like a cousin. He was the first one to rhyme on my tape that I made that nobody probably even heard. It was in like ‘91, this guy named Big-O from Soundview projects that I knew, he’s like, ‘Yo, you’re making tapes right? I’mma bring me man to your house. He gonna spit’. He brought Lord Tariq and I was fuckin’ buggin’. Tariq was spitting that cocaine type rap in 91. Nobody was even really doin’ that shit, so it was crazy.

How did you put the crew together?

Everybody has their entourage soon as they start getting known. Little corny-ass group of dudes that just roll with you, they don’t have to rhyme or nothing. One of my best friends, this guy named Eddie Crest, he said, ‘We should like have a name like ‘Doo Wop and such-and-such’. Even though they don’t rhyme, the just wanted a name – like Kid Capri had a crew called Trooper Love that used to roll with him, but they were just his goons, his boys. His muscle! That’s what everybody had. So my fiend came-up with the name ‘Bounce Squad’ ‘cos I used to always say, ‘Bounce! C’mon! Bounce! C’mon!’ It was just a crew of guys that used to roll with me, like I go sell my masters to stores? They would be with me, just chillin’, making sure everything’s cool. That’s what it was then. But around ’93 I did a party not too far from where I grew-up and my friend took my record crates in a cab and we were just walking back home. We passed this building - it was like 3 o’clock in the morning - and there were these two guys out there, and one of them said, ‘Ain’t you Doo Wop or whatever? My man right here can really rhyme!’ I was like, ‘Let me hear something’, and it was Snagglepuss. From then on, we got cool, and I was like, ‘Yo, we gonna do something’. So I kept his number like, ‘Let me come up with ideas. You know what? Not just me and him - let’s put a crew together!’ Everybody had a ill personality…Wu-Tang used to tell me that before they even came out, they used to look forward to hearing the Bounce Squad. As bugged out as it sounds, because we never blew like we should have, we really inspired dudes like Wu-Tang! They even told me that. So it took me a little minute to come up with…you’ve got Snagglepuss, who’s rhyming like a fuckin’ cartoon character - and it’s dope - he’s got lines and he can really flow, but I’ve just gotta make it even better than that. Then I met Uneek - a girl, she’s rough, she’s hardcore - OK, cool. Then I wanted two or three more MC’s, and I had my boy print up flyers for auditions for dancers - because we were doin’ some type of show or video coming up - then all of a sudden these two guys come, and they said, ‘We’re not here to dance, but we wanna rhyme for Doo Wop’. It was Rev. Gotti and All That, and they were dope! I liked All That more but you had to take both of ‘em, so it’s like, ‘Fuck it. Rev. Gotti’s still cool too’. And that’s how the Bounce Squad came about.

What was happening leading up to the ‘95 Live tape?

Before that, I was known as having the Bounce Squad, which is a group of unknown MC’s I put together. We were really becoming known for our intros – we always did catchy concepts. Every tape I put out from ’93 up to right when ’95 came in was with the Bounce Squad. That’s what everybody was really looking forward to – what the Bounce Squad were gonna do next on the intro. But then I got a record deal with Virgin Records around Fall of ’94, and that’s when everything just went down the drain with the Bounce Squad because it just caused all kind of problems. The label wanted us to move to LA for like a year to record the album…as good as that sounds to some people, after we agreed and we signed the deal, THEN they told us about this ‘moving to LA’ thing. We felt we was gonna lose the streets in New York, because every month it was like anticipation for the next Bounce Squad intro. We figured like, ‘We’re gonna record an album, but we’re gonna lose the streets. So what good is the album gonna do?’ So back and forth we went with the label and we asked for a release. We didn’t want to do the deal anymore. They said, ‘OK, we’ll give you a release but we gotta keep Snagglepuss, which was like our Method Man. Like the way Method Man is to the Wu. They told me he agreed to it! Behind my back, he agreed to staying with them and moving to LA to doing a solo album! He was a key component in the intros, so it was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ So that caused all kinds of problems where, ‘How we gonna do these intros and not have somebody that everybody looks forward to? His punch-lines and his character…man, this is crazy’. So we took a little break.

So how did you get the Virgin deal? I only ever saw the 12”.

‘The Bounce Master’ and ‘Hit ‘Em In The Head’. That’s what actually got me the deal with Virgin. What it was, they just signed me and they signed The Luniz at the same time. I was in the process of waiting for my advance and all that to come in, and the A&R calls me and goes, ‘Yo, don’t you have a crew of MC’s called the Bounce Squad?’ Somebody put him up on it I guess – after he signed me. He was like, ‘Can we add two to the deal? We want Uneek and Snagglepuss’. Like a dick, not knowing the business, I added them to my deal. I was being cool to my peoples, but that was bad business. They shoulda got separate deals! It was a good thing that I didn’t fuck with ‘em, ‘cos they were doin’ shiesty stuff from the jump, right from the door.

Were you rhyming from day dot? Or was that later?

Early tapes that I made - that never even left my door step – talking about ’89 and ’90, the tapes that I made to experiment, that me and my boys would listen to in the car. Obviously I used to listen to Kid Capri, and he wasn’t takin’ the rhyme shit too serious, but it was entertaining to me, ‘cos you hear him - all his personality on the tapes – and all of a sudden he starts rhyming, too. I got a kick outta that – in a good way – so I guess that’s what inspired me to do it. Probably the rhymes was garbage back then, but I just kept at it. He was inspiration to everybody from me era – Ron G and everybody – he gotta be. I don’t know if they’ll admit it, but he definitely inspired us to do what we do, for sure. Even though I had beef with him for a whole two years. But I’m not gonna sit here and lie and shit.

That was more a competitive thing, wasn’t it? Vying for top spot?

He was already killin’ shit, he was at the top. I was just trying to come-up. We went to the same high school, so I kinda knew him already. We grew-up ten, fifteen blocks from each other. He knew I deejayed but I guess he never expected me to try and take on mixtapes. He probably thought I was just gonna be one of these battle DJ’s or whatever, or house party DJ’s. When I came out, I was doin’ somethin’…and everybody thinks - and I’ll let ‘em, I don’t care - that I just started [with Capri] for no reason, to try to get a name. But it was that I had got wind of that at a party he was like, ‘Yo, who the fuck is Doo Wop?’ or ‘Fuck Doo Wop!’ But it all ended-up being a lie, like someone lied just to start trouble. But at that time I had to jump on that opportunity. ‘What? He said that? OK, let me make a tape now!’ Not even considering that it might’ve been a bullshit story. I just ran with it because…it sounded like it was real! But later on, me and Kid talked – it was nothing, it was bullshit. It was all over nothing.

It escalated and got really serious didn’t it?

It got crazy! It was even a time when I was doing a party in Richmond, Virginia, he came up in there with all his people. I was just with my girl and shit, they had to get security to get him out of there. I ain’t gonna lie, I was out-numbered like a motherfucker! That’s how it was in ’94, he came up in there to confront me! Not to chill, not to talk – straight problem. But everything’s cool now. Around ’97, me and him finally got cool. I even went to his house a couple of times and chilled. We even did a song which was gonna be on the Universal album – when I signed to Universal, that album never came out either – and DR Period did the beat and the shit was dope! I don’t even have a copy of it, Universal got the DAT. Trading lines almost like how Styles P and Jada does it, it wasn’t like a verse, then a verse then half a verse each.

Speaking of which, you and Tony Touch have been killing it with that Diaz Bros. stuff.

How that started is he thought I took a shot at him in ’96. I said something like, ‘Niggas caught the vapes off my last tapes’ – some shit I said, where 50 MC’s had came out. He thought I was referring to him – which I really, really wasn’t. At that time, right after ’95 I was really killin’ it on the streets, so I had a lotta of these other little dudes that’s tryin’ to come-up, talkin’ shit and whatever. I didn’t want to say their names, but I would say little slick shit. But nobody knew these little dudes, so the first person who would think it was towards them would of course be Tony Touch, ‘cos he was huge, and he did 50 MC’s after ‘95 Live. Then he said a little slick shit on a tape, but we met up at D&D to talk about it, because I think we really had kinda a respect for each other, whether we felt like it was about to be a little beef. But it was not like the me and Kid shit, it wasn’t like a disrespectful thing, it was just like, ‘What’s goin’ on?’ We sat down and we talked, and that night we came-up with the idea for the Diaz Bros. And then we did the ‘Phone Tap’ intro and it was on from there.

How many tapes did you make together?

We did that thing with KaySlay where he hosted it. Tape-wise? We only did about three or four tapes. I did something on probably every one of [Tony Touch’s] albums. The industry is funny – they’ll talk about a deal, but when it’s time to go sit down and do it…that shit gets me frustrated. Fuck it, I can’t really deal with that shit. Like Universal that time in ’98! That wasn’t like Virgin – this was real money. Virgin shit was maybe $150,000 for my first album. $150,000 total budget – including $30,000 advance, which I split up with the whole Bounce Squad anyway, because I wanted everybody to eat. So you’re talking about $120,000 total for a fuckin’ album., and then they wanna move us to LA! That money has to come out of the budget too! Universal was like a $350,000 deal for just me, alone! I start recording mad songs, but they wanted me to do like DJ Clue. They wanted me to get songs from people that are already done and just shout-out over them! I’m like, ‘Why would I do that? ‘ The highlights of my times have always been the fuckin’ intro – I wanna make an album like that! At the time I signed, Cash Money had just signed to Universal, and I was in the office having a meeting with the A&R and he let me hear Juvenile. I said, ‘Yo, I wanna get him over the ‘Top Billin’ beat’ and they was like, “Nah, nah, nah, I don’t think he’s ready for that yet’. I mean by the time a fuckin’ momth or two months came, he was like the biggest thing in the fuckin’ world! I’m like, ‘Yo, we coulda gave him like $5,000! Now he’s gonna want like $35,000!’

For Doo Wop mixtapes, go here.

Diaz Bros-4,3,2,1 Intro

Diaz Bros-Click Bang

Diaz Bros-G’z Up

Diaz Bros-Phone Tap Intro

Doo Wop & The Bounce Squad- Da Bounce Master

Doo Wop & The Bounce Squad - Spring 1 Intro

Doo Wop Part 1

The Uptown Bounce Master (aka Doo Wop) is a true mixtape pioneer. He took the idea of intro’s to the next stage by assembling an all-star cast for his two part ‘95 Live series. He’s also nicer on the mic than most full-time MC’s. He broke-down the history of his classic tape features with me last-week, as well as the two legends who got away…

Robbie: You were the only person who really called Lil’ Wayne out when he shat on mixtapes. It was kinda ironic, wasn’t it?

Doo Wop: Exactly, like how could you do that? And he’s dope to me! The day after I did that, I still played his shit at a party, because that’s what the people want! If you just Google the word ‘mixtapes’, I won’t come-up right now at the top page – Kid Capri won’t even come-up! It’ll be pictures of Lil’ Wayne! He’s dope, he deserves all the fame he gets, but it was just real arrogant and unnecessary [when he was interviewed by Foundation Mag]. Why would you even do that? I did something – he probably never even heard it – but whatever. I just did it to stand-up for the DJ’s. These dude’s just let that shit slide like it’s OK. It didn’t make sense. If I wasn’t me, and a DJ made a record standing up for DJ’s, I’d play the shit out of that record! I never heard it on the radio – Flex never played it. Enuff didn’t play it. DJ’s that I was cool with, and I’m standin’ up for y’all too! Even one time? He shitted on y’all! He’s like, ‘Mixtape DJ’s can suck my dick!’ That’s what he said! First of all, you’re not gonna say nothing. Second of all, somebody else says something, you’re not gonna support it, but you play his shit right after that…

The 95 Live tapes would have to be the most well-known of all your projects. How did they come about?

At the beginning of ’95 I just was home and I got a call from Fatman Scoop, which at the time was the street promotions guy for Tommy Boy. He was calling me just for the generic calls that they make for all the DJ’s, he just calling me to say, ‘Hey, you got the New Jersey Drive soundtrack? You need anything?’ You know, regular shit. I’m was like, ‘Yeah, I’m straight.’ As soon as I was getting ready to hang-up, he’s like, ‘Oh, Busta Rhymes said to say, ‘What’s up’. He’s here in my office, he said to tell you’. At the time I never even knew Busta. I’m like, ‘He said ‘What’s up’ to me?’ I didn’t know that these big dudes knew about the underground mixtapes. So he got on the phone and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a big fan. Anything you need, here – take my number’. I was like, ‘What the fuck!?’ I was star-struck. I didn’t know what to say. So I took his number, then after a few days I’m like, ‘Maybe I should call this dude and see what’s up. Test the waters. If Busta Rhymes is feelin’ my shit maybe I should try with some other guys - try to reach out’. So he gave me Raekwon’s number, I called him out the blue, like, ‘Yo, this is Doo Wop’. ‘Doo Wop from Uptown? From up in the Bronx?’ I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ It bugged me out. So I asked him, I said, ‘I’m doin’ something and I wanna do [an intro] for the first time ever with all known rappers’. And that’s how that came about. It was a domino effect. Once Busta put me onto Raekwon – of course I had a relationship with Fat Joe already, so that was easy – somebody got me Q-Tip, and all these guys just came to the studio! The only money I spent was for studio time. They weren’t talking about money, any time I wanted them to come, they would come. It was just dope, just the chemistry. In one night I had Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, Rampage, Fat Joe and Raekwon – all those guys at one session. And the studio was no bigger than like if three people in there and it’s crowded. All these people, and their boys! I was amazed – this was less than a month after Busta said ‘What’s up’ to me over the phone.

I made two tapes only in ’95 – ’95 1 and 2 – and that shit carried me for a couple of years. It got me all kinds of shows and notoriety and everything. But now it’s so common, I don’t expect these young kids to really appreciate if somebody even did something like that now. It’s like, ‘So what? Everyone knows someone who’s a rapper!’ Back then it was like, ‘Who can get a rapper – plus a twenty minute intro of everybody that was hot at the time in ’95?’

I assume you used to make a nice grip of cash off of your mixtapes at one time?

In ’95, I made a living off of ‘95 Live 1 and 2. I actually bought my first Lexus off of that CD. My first car ever was in ’95, I didn’t even have a car before that. I got a brand new ’96 Lexus in ’95 off of that tape alone. I ain’t gonna lie. And all the parties that came off of that tape – just the popularity that I gained just from that CD alone. That was bugged, because it’s not like I’m gonna bring these MC’s with me – and they knew that – but they would hire me to DJ at parties. Like fly me to fuckin’ Bermuda! Before that, nobody from Bermuda ever called me to come do a party! When it was tapes and I would sell one master tape to a store, I could go to Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx and get $500 - $750 for that one master tape.

After ’95 Live I even took certain things for granted. I coulda had Biggie and Jay-Z - that’s two rappers that never rhymed on my tape. Ready To Die had just came out, it was a video that Uneek was doing with Lauryn Hill and Bahamadia and these other girls called ‘Ladies In The House’ that Tommy Boy released. It was a video they were shootin’ at a club called The Tunnel. It was day-time, but they made the club look like it was night time already ‘cos it was a club scene or whatever. I’m just standing there, ‘cos I just went there to represent Uneek - I didn’t want to be in the video, I just wanted to chill and make sure she’s good – and I look to my right, and down the hall I see Biggie Smalls. That’s when ‘One More Chance’ had just came out and he’s like the biggest thing in the world. I never met Biggie up to this point, but people were crowding around like groupies, and I didn’t want to be looked at like, ‘Excuse me, excuse me!’ I’m kinda-like stand-offish, so I say to myself, ‘So if I get a chance to talk to him, it’s cool, but if I don’t then whatever’. I was walking down the hall with Uneek and we’re passing where he’s at, and he’s still with these people that’s asking him for autographs and he says, ‘Yo, Doo Wop – when you gonna let me rhyme on your tape?’ And I said, ‘Ohhh shit!’ In my mind. I’m like, ‘Yo, whenever you want! Of course, fuckin’ right now – I’ll go get my four-track!’ I didn’t say that, but I’m like… So he says, ‘Here, take my number’. And he gave me his house number. I’m like, ‘OK, this might be a fishy number’. I wait like a week, I call him and his mother picks up – that’s right before he got his own place. He had just got the money from Ready To Die and he was about to move to Jersey. And he was there! He picked-up, he’s like, ‘Yo, let’s do it! When do you want to do it?’

I’m sitting in the studio, and it was like two hours passed by the time he was meant to be there. I’m like, ‘This dude’s not coming. He sounded cool, he was cool with me, he acknowledged me – but he’s not coming. He’s too big right now - he’s probably not even thinking about it’. Lil’ Cease calls me and says, ‘We had a car accident’, and I was like, ‘Yeah, alright Lil’ Cease. Alright, cool’. I thought it was a lie! That’s when he broke his leg! He’s was comin’ to do my tape when he broke his leg! That’s what he was comin’ across the bridge to do! I mean, obviously he was gonna do a bunch of other shit that night, but he was heading to the studio I used to do all my stuff out of on 38th Street in Manhattan.

[Before that] it was this one time when he was gonna do my tape when he was first coming out with Ready To Die, and he was like, ‘Let’s do it. Here’s my hotel room’, ‘cos we were both out of town in Virginia – he was doing a show and I was doing a club – and we were gonna meet after. I got so pissy drunk that when I grabbed my four-track to go get him, I sat on my bed and I just fell asleep. I woke up in the morning with the four track laying next to me! I’m like, ‘I just missed one of the biggest opportunities in the world! Fuck!’

And then the Jay-Z thing – I spoke to Dame Dash when Reasonable Doubt came out. I was like, ‘Can I get Jay to rhyme?’ He asked him, called me back. ‘Jay say he’ll do it. When you wanna do it?’ I say, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow’, and that day I didn’t feel…I was just tired. I called Dame Dash back to tell him can we do it the next day. He didn’t pick up, so I left a message saying, ‘Can we do it tomorrow instead? Call me back and let me know’. This dude never called me back ever again. He was like, ‘Fuck that. This dude was gonna have Jay-Z on his tape and he just pushing the session back? Fuck that!’ So I didn’t get Jay to rhyme on the tape. I was like, ‘Damn!’

Big L was another dude that was incredible. Before he died he had just rhymed on my tape, and he had said he wanted a copy of the CD, so I said, ‘I’m goin’ to the city, so I’mma cut through Harlem to give it you. So I went to Harlem and I gave it to him and he said, ‘Are you going to the city? Could you drop me at Roc-A-Fella? I got a meeting with Jay-Z, he wants to sign me’. So I dropped him off and that’s it, that’s the last time I seen him. A week or two later he was dead.

Look out for Part 2, where we discuss the Bounce Squad, the Kid Capri situation and the Diaz Brothers…

Kid Capri feat. Doo Wop - Mixtape Shit

Tony Touch feat. Doo Wop - Tape 55 Freestyle

DJ Spair feat. Doo Wop - Things Just Ain’t The Same

Doo Wop feat. M.O.P - 95 Live Freestyle

Doo Wop feat. NORE - What If

Doo Wop feat. Raekwon - Castle 2 Castle

Doo Wop Responds to Weezy:

“This is the Dirt Dog you pretty motherfucker! You sound like a bunch of sex!”

Nervous British rap fans + English jump-offs + insane Ason Unique = Comedy Gold.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard, RZA and Method Man Live In London On Radio 1 With Tim Westwood

Everyone likes to boast about how hard they’re working these days. DJ Johnny Juice - the guy who performed the cuts on ‘Rebel Without A Pause’, amongst other things - makes these blowhards look like the posers they really are. Just check out what he’s got cooking in the studio:

Leaders of the New School album (Charlie Brown, Dinco D and Milo):
“I’m trying to set up multiple shows for L.O.N.S. and S.O.B. for the fall, since I’m producing both of their albums, and since I’m LONS’s DJ”.

A Son Of Bazerk project:
“We have finished 3 songs and have 2 others in the works. The idea is to finish a whole album. It’s taking a little while because they are a little rusty but they still sound dope”.

Chuck D solo album:
“A lot of songs that he did that Flavor didn’t get on or that he did in the immediacy of the moment”.

Two DMC solo albums:
“One is already complete. I did about 4 or 5 songs. I am doing the whole 2nd album - an all-”King of Rock”-ish type album for him”.

A new X-Vandal album: “The lead MC from Puerto Rican punk group Ricanstruction and myself. Kind of like a Puerto Rican P.E.”

He’s also making a mixtape based on original Public Enemy sample sources, an Old School Hip Hop tape, a break beat mix, an Old School R&B mixtape and an Old School House (Classics) tape.

Take that, Puffy!

Johnny Juice & Son of Bazerk - The Unkut Interview

Short but nothin’ sweet about this old mouf convention. Sounds like Large Paul did the track too. Grand Puba’s Retroactive drops on the 23rd via Babygrande.

Grand Puba feat. Large Pro - Same Old Drama

Bonus: Puba on “Punks…”

DX: Do you remember your initial reaction when you first heard “Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down” and “Pass The Gat”?

Grand Puba: That’s the thing that kinda messed me up [after leaving the group to go solo], ‘cause I wish I was on “Punks,” I woulda murdered that shit. I was like, “Damn!” It’s like I know [Sadat] X wish he was on “360,” and Jamar wish he was on “Soul Controller.” I had that [moment after “Punks”] like, “Damn, man.” That shit, and the “Pass The Gat” shit. Those are my regrets, man. I wish I was on them joints right there

Read the rest here.

Since Muggs has a new Soul Assassins records about to drop, it seems like the perfect time to unearth this Max and Dave interview with him from January of 2007.

DJ Muggs KISS-FM Radio Interview, UK (1997)

Propers to crate digga.

Soul Assassins feat. RZA and GZA video: