Cutmaster Swift ft Guru, MC Storm & Jeopardy - Choice FM exclusive (1991)

Thought I'd found another early 90s Gang Starr radio freestyle when this one started up, but it turns out there's a more interesting back story to it. It begins with the **Choice Exclusive** drop and Guru says it's a freestyle, before going into a verse from Hardcore Composer. The tape is dated 1991, so Daily Operation wasn't out at this point. He's then followed by 2 British MCs, which threw me a bit as the cuts in the chorus and the sound quality aren't what you would expect from a radio cypher. Needing some help, I hit up Craig and he thought one of the rappers sounded like Big Ted, which turned out to be correct. I hit Ted up on Instagram and he gave me the details...

It's actually production by Cutmaster Swift featuring MC Storm (Swift's brother) and myself on the extra verses. It originally began as a freestyled acapella from Guru for 279 and he suggested Swift put a beat to it and put Storm and me on there too, and there you have it. Just another one of those hip hop history magic moments.
Cheers for reminding me of it. I have it and the instrumental on a TDK MA metal tape somewhere.

Swift was one of the biggest hip hop DJs in the UK from the early days, and Ted was still known as Jeopardy back then. MC Storm was part of the No Parking MCs (thanks again to Craig for the knowledge) and had a couple of underground releases in the early 90s.

Kind of quirky, and this type of thing would be commonplace 10-15 years later when every mixtape DJ and aspiring producer got their hands on pro-tools but back then it was quite unusual as far as I know. I was going to title it Gang Starr - Hardcore Composer (rare demo version) but thought that might be pushing it a bit. Even clickbait has boundaries.
Big up Eddie as always, I've nearly got through all his tapes now so it's nice that they're still producing results.

Gang Starr - Capital Rap Show freestyle (1990)

Daaaaamn son, Guru busting Take A Rest over the Eat Em Up L Chill beat on Westwood back in 1990? Finding things like this is what keeps me going through these tapes and trying to hunt more down.

Guru freestyle (2005)

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I saw Guru performing with Solar and Doo Wop back in 2005 and copped this mix CD after the show. It's basically a best of mix, hosted by Guru but it seems like he's also playing the tracks. Off one deck. Low budget merch issues aside  - maybe it was done at short notice, when I bought my ticket it was billed as a Gang Starr show - what did make it worth getting was the freestyles over some non-Gang Starr Premier beats, such as The 6th Sense, So Ghetto, Nas Is Like, Unbelievable and also Quiet Storm.  I posted them up in zipfile about 8 years ago but they're all pretty short so I figured it would be easier to paste them all together into one continuous track.

DJ Filthy Rich presents Hard To Earn (2019)

Filthy Rich continues to bring the heat with his themed mixes, this time dedicated to what is probably my favourite Gang Starr album, and definitely the one with the best singles. Check the technique...

tracklist
DWYCK ft Nice & Smooth [Filthy blend]

Comin’ for Datazz [Filthy blend]

Mass Appeal (ft Quran, Lord Finesse) [Filthy blend]

Brainstorm

Now You’re Mine (Chumps Get Beatdown) [Filthy blend]

Code of the Streets [Filthy blend]

Speak Ya Clout (ft Jeru, Nutcracker, Lil Dap) [ReFix]

Blowin’ up the Spot

Tonz ‘o’ Gunz (ft Lil Vicious) [Filthy ReFix]

The Question Remainz 

Borough Check (w/ Digable Planets)

F.A.L.A. (ft Big Shug)

Suckas Need Bodyguards

Alongwaytogo

Mostly Tha Voice

Doe In Advance (OG Unreleased version)

Serious Rap Shit (w/ Group Home)

The Planet

Guru, Eminem, Defari & The Beatnuts - Wake Up Show freestyle (1998)

I've only ever had a couple of Wake Up Show tapes in my possession so was happy to see this one in the last batch of cassettes that Tobes hooked me up with. I was particularly pleased to find this treat on there though: Guru stops by the show to do a quick interview (just before Moment Of Truth came out) and then drops a few verses alongside a relatively unknown Eminem, before Defari steps up to the mic and then the Beatnuts get involved. Good times. Do things like this still happen anywhere outside of the BET awards?

That's followed by a Smif N Wessun freestyle - they were rolling as the Cocoa Brovaz at the time -   and Em jumps on the mic again. The full show is below...





Not sure if it's a West Coast radio thing in general or just something Sway & Tech did but their lengthy intro and approach to drops and jingles might even out do Weenie & The Butt. Definitely not mad at their female co-host's voice though. Much more soothing than your standard rap radio DJ.

Had my first copyright infringement takedown notice from Audiomack last week, for a bootleg remix of Top Billin of all things. Hopefully they don't go the way of Soundcloud and Mediafire. Seems crazy that in 2017 there isn't an established reliable platform for hosting music to stream and download. I'll persist with it for now but if things start disappearing on a regular basis I might need a new home. It has occured to me that having Eminem's name on there might be a red flag. Can't say I wasn't a tad shook a few years ago when minutes after making a disparaging remark about Jimmy Iovine, I received a notification informing me that INTERSCOPE RECORDS IS NOW FOLLOWING YOU.

Guru interview on KXCI 91.3 FM (1997)

Interesting one this. Guru being interviewed over the phone on a small community station out in Tuscon, Arizona. You Know My Steez had just come out and Moment Of Truth was being finished up for release in March '98. He mentions that they were trying to get Busta Rhymes on the remix for Steez but ended up going with Kurupt (probably for the better imo). He also offers up an acapella rhyme but unfortunately the dude in the studio leaves a beat playing so it ends up sounding a bit off due to the time delay on the phone and what have you.

The latest additions to the Westwood Archives mixcloud have just gone up:

Radio 1 Rap Show 10.04.99 with Busta Rhymes

Mixmasters Weekend 11.01.97 with One Step Ahead & DJ Casualty

DJ Premier - The True Heads Merch mix (2014)

A mix of some of the less lauded tracks from Gang Starr's catalogue, put together by Primo to launch the Gang Starr clothing line (seems a bit late, but there you go)

DJ Premier - The True Heads Merch mix (2014) by Djstepone on Mixcloud

Thanks to Ominous on the Philaflava boards for the download link

Guru freestyles

Taken from a CD I bought at a Guru show back in 2005, heres a few short freestyles over some classic (non-Gang Starr) Primo beats such as '6th Sense', 'Nas Is Like', 'Unbelievable' and 'So Ghetto' aswell as Mobb Deep's 'Quiet Storm'...

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I was going to wait until the first anniversary of his passing on April 19th but chances are every blog under the sun will be doing tributes that day (plus I'm likely to forget) so I thought I'd get in there early with something different.
If you missed it first time round you can still get the Guru freestyle on Kiss FM from 2004 HERE

RIP Guru - One Of The Best Yet...

Sad news today. Gang Starr are probably my favorite group ever. I can't really say much that hasn't already been said but if you need some music to play today and you don't have Matthew Africa's recent Gang Starr mix, go and get it HERE


















Also, if you missed it when I originally posted it, here's a freestyle by the man when he was up on MK & Skully's Kiss FM show back in 2004

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UPDATE: Mister Cee dropped a Guru tribute mix on Hot 97 earlier today

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Spotted at DJ MK's blog

Guru - Kiss FM freestyle (2004)

Guru spits a quick freestyle on Kiss FM back in 2004 when MK & Skully were co-hosting the Rap show on Thursday nights.

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This is decent but Kyza had been on the mic earlier that night and absoloutely killed it. Think I might drop that next.

Where the hell is DJ Skully at these days?!