CL Smooth - Future Flavas freestyle on Hot 97 (1995)

A brief appearance from CL Smooth on the first Future Flavas show hosted by Pete Rock and Marley Marl. CL drops a verse from Carmel City over the Brooklyn Zoo instrumental. Short and sweet, but good enough to warrant uploading.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth and Leaders Of The New School on Kiss FM (1992)

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Not one of my own tapes but I found it buried deep in the depths of Soundcloud and thought it deserved to be bought back to life, and this blog is the perfect home for such a thing.
LONS alongside Pete Rock and CL perform on Richie Rich's Rap Academy on London's Kiss FM back in May '92. If you want a good example of how record labels handled hip hop in the UK back then, Elektra had both groups performing at different venues in town on the same night. Top work there lads.

As you would expect from anything involving a young Busta Rhymes, this a lively affair with them hyping each other up and ad libbing all over the place. Classic material.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth live at The Jazz Cafe (2004)

Pete Rock & CL performing live at London's Jazz Cafe in 2004 for one of the first of what would be many reunion shows. I think this did the rounds online at the time as it was broadcast on 1Xtra (which is the source of this tape rip) and it also appeared on a promo CD, but for those of you who didn't catch it then, here it is...

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I saw them perform in London in 2010 and it was a good show, although maybe I was the only one to notice that there was a few awkward points when they performed the ladies records like Lots Of Lovin, Take You There and Appreciate to an audience that was 95% male. I guess that's the perennial dilemma of the golden era rapper.

Big L, McGruff, I Born & CL Smooth - NY Freestyle (1999)

Picked this 12" up on the cheap the other day. Bit of a strange line up - CL Smooth had all but disappeared by 1999 and I've no idea who I-Born is. Also unusual for a record of this nature to come with a proper cover. I'm not sure if it was a legit freestyle session or copy and paste effort but its worth a listen anyway.

While we're on a freestyle tip, I zipped up 40+ of  'em for those who slept or suffered a hard drive crash. Most of them are my own rips that have appeared on the blog over the last 8 years but there's also a few others that I've found online over the years. Click HERE

Pete Rock & CL Smooth live in London (2010)

Great show. Shout to Big Ted, Sarah Love, Jehst, Jazz T, Micall Parkinsun, DJ Matman, Mr Sheen and everyone else in attendance!

"Time to get wreck with The Creator..."

Info & tickets HERE

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Hot 97 freestyle (1994)

Was lucky enough to grab a handful of tapes off DJ MK the other day. Haven't had time to run through them all yet but thought I'd post this up as a taste of whats to come. Pete Rock and CL Smooth on Funkmaster Flex's 'Street Jams' show on Hot 97. This is from around the time that 'The Main Ingredient' was released.


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Check back soon for some DJ Riz, Stretch Armstrong, Westwood and Funk Flex sets!