Radio 1 Rap Show 23.06.00 New York Live with Craig Mack & Half A Mil

First up out of the insane collection of Westwood tapes I recently acquired is this edition of New York Live, which was Tim's regular link up with Marley Marl. Craig Mack is in the house for the first part and then the late Half-A-Mil steps up. Both sessions include stupidly long freestyles (mostly off the dome on Half's part which serves to remind me how much I prefer someone busting pre written rhymes). In what is probably one of the more random things I've heard recently,  Larry O (of Real Live) and TJ Swan both jump on the mic with him for a bit aswell.



This is the show that Tim recently posted video footage of, which isn't something that happens too often. Hopefully he's got more to come that will match up with these full shows I have.



Been considering creating a seperate site just for all these Westwood shows but we'll see how things go.

its the uncensored version of the Firm Biz remix!

The Martorialist's recent playlist of AZ deep cuts inspired me to resurrect my search for the full, raw, uncut version of the excellent World Famous remix of The Firm's 'Firm Biz'. It's a track that I've seen mentioned in request threads and most wanted lists over the years but even in an era where pretty much every demo, alernate version and Austrian promo CD single has been uploaded, this has remained elusive. The clean version is a reasonably easy find - in the UK anyway -  as its included on the promo album sampler. In contrast, acquiring the dirty version was the result of finding a Japanese record store with some poor quality streaming audio samples of this bootleg 12", and then a seller in France who wasn't charging the earth for a copy (the extornionate shipping costs from the US to the UK are a whole 'nother topic though). This might only be a humble little Hip Hop blog based in the UK's stockbroker belt but not too many sites fucking with us when it comes to the hella rare unreleased 90s heat game...

If you're unfamiliar with the track, you need this in your life. It's one of those remixes that's essentially a completely different track rather than a remix. The chorus of the original remains intact (although it may have been resung) but the Teena Marie sample is dispensed with in favour of the awesome beats from the Malcolm McLaren classic. Half-A-Mil is drafted in to set things off with the opening verse and basically everything is lovely from there on in. The Firm album isn't actually that bad despite getting a bit of a bad press at the time, but this is better than anything on there, with the obvious exception of Phone Tap.

File this one alongside joints like '24 Hours To Live', 'Off The Books', OC's 'Dangerous' and such like, in terms of late 90s uptempo NYC rap bangers that straddled the thug/jiggy divide. Easier said than done in the era where it was hoodies and timbs vs shiny suits and god forbid anyone get in between the two. I still remember trying to find a copy of Clipse debut 12" 'The Funeral' and Uptown Records not knowing what it was ("bit underground for us mate") and Mr Bongo 2 minutes away not stocking it because "if you heard Funkmaster Flex play it we probably wont have it, mate". That's a whole 'nother topic though.

Cormega, Nature & Half A Mil freestyle

QB's Cormega & Nature alongside Brooklyn's Half A Mil (RIP) spitting something for DJ Kay Slay. Proper NYC street shit...

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