Radio 1 Rap Show 20.10.00 with Ice T and Out Da Ville

17 years ago yesterday this is. Lots of future hits in part one, with Ante Up, Cold As Ice, Gravel Pit, What's Your Fantasy, Shake Ya Ass and Where I Wanna Be all making early appearances on the UK airwaves prior to hitting the mainstream playlists. Ms Jackson is on here too and that didn't hit the UK Top 40 until 4 months later which seems mad but that's how terrible UK record labels were with rap music back then.

Part 2 has a phone interview with Ice T and Notts crew Out Da Ville are in the house.

DJ Step One - The Best Of Ice T

One day late but here's the First Of The Month mix for September and it's a good one (if I do say so myself). Ice T is one of my favourite rappers and as most DJs that post mixes online seem to be content with dropping the 39,873rd 'Best Of Premier/Pete Rock/Dilla' mix I'd thought it was about time someone paid tribute to rap's
original OG. Here's 1hr 10 mins of tracks covering Ice's peak period from 1986's '6 In The Morning' to the Home Invasion LP in 1993. There's a few blends, freestyles and live tracks in there too. Fortunately you can just stream/DL it so there's no danger of shooting anyone in an argument over the cassette...

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Tracklist

Intro

Home Of The Bodybag

I Ain’t New Ta This

You Played Yourself

Drama

Heartbeat

Mind Over Matter

Addicted To Danger (Beatnuts remix)

C4 News interview

6 In The Morning

Combat Jack Show acapella

Colors (YGB blend)

Ziplock / Ricochet (live in NY 1992)

High Rollers

I’m Your Pusher (AMW blend)

Last Wordz (w/ Ice Cube)

New Jack Hustler

Power

Radio Suckers

Capital Rap Show freestyle 1989

That’s How I’m Living

Original Gangster

This One’s For Me

My Word Is Bond (w/ Donald D)

Evil E What About Sex?

99 Problems (w/ Brother Marquis)

Bitches 2

Peel Their Caps Back

Soul On Ice

Ain’t A Damn Thing Changed

A few things about this mix then:
 - There are some omissions. Due to time restraints and things not "fitting" I had to leave out Lethal Weapon, Somebody Gotta Do It, Fly By, Girls LGBNAF and several other classics from the man's catalogue. I enjoy pretty much everything on Power, Iceberg and OG so there always had to be some things that didn't make the cut.
 - Although I've never been a massive fan, I've become slightly more appreciative of Home Invasion after doing this mix. At the time it seemed like it should've been a lot better - particularly on the production side - but Ice's voice seems a bit off at times and he does a lot of  tracks in a whispery flow/lower register. It's a solid enough set though.
 - Although it's rarely mentioned, Ice is one of the genre's best storytellers. Up there with Slick Rick and better than Kool G Rap imo.
 - The acapella taken from his Combat Jack Show interview is fantastic, as is the interview itself.
 - Donald D's verse on My Word Is Bond >>>
 - Think I'm going to check his later albums from Return Of The Real onwards - there has to be a few gems on those, although the less said about this cover the better.

Totally Iced Out : a compilation of Ice T remixes, features & loose tracks

Ice T circa Power to Original Gangster is probably my favourite rapper ever. I've mentioned before I was a bit disappointed with Home Invasion but he had a good 4-5 year run for the most part. As a bunch of my vinyl and CDs will be going into storage for while, I've been ripping audio like a madman and a result of that is this little comp. It's not meant to be exhaustive by any means - there was really no need to include Dick Tracy for example - but there's some nice remixes, guest spots and soundtrack joints that may have passed you by or been forgotten about...

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We kick off with the Simon Harris Hi-Tech remix of 'Drama', taken from the UK 12" of High Rollers. Harris doesn't mess with the song too much, just adding a break beat and a few samples. One of the few exceptions to the rule that all UK remixes of US tracks are terrible. That's followed by 'Colors' which you'll know but as its probably the best Ice T track not to appear on one of his albums it had to be included. Next up is the remix of 'You Played Yourself' by King Tee & Aladdin, and the dope 12" remix of 'Heartbeat' featuring War. DJ Premier's remix of Lifestyles Of The Rich & Infamous is pretty nice, and the collaboration with Ice Cube for their movie Trespass (initially called Looters but switched in the wake of the LA riots) is a reminder that the whole soundtrack is worth pulling out once in a while. Into the Home Invasion era, I've included 3 remixes from this CD single - the Beatnuts remix of 'Addicted To Danger' and the superior version of G Style. I left out the Ronin remixes of Gotta Lotta Love and Thats How I'm Living though (see earlier comment regarding UK remixes). Things finish up with Tracey's guest spot on 2Pac's 'Last Wordz', from 93's 'Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ' and another West Coast posse cut taken from Spice 1's 'Black Bossalini' LP - the under the radar 'Recognize Game' with Too Short, from 1997.

If you're a fan I highly recommend checking out Ice on the Combat Jack Show, where he pretty much covers his entire life story in 2 hours. Interesting stuff with some great stories.

Hard Drive Clearout

A few bits that I've found on other sites over the years that you might've missed (and the links are probably dead now anyway), things I ripped and never got round to uploading,  joints that don't really warrant their own post...

 Ice T, King Tee & Bango freestyle (Capital Rap Show 1989)
courtesy of  Irish Craig  (I think)

 Rakim acapella freestyle (early 90s ?)
no info on this and its only about 25 seconds long but still...

Main Source 'Looking At The Front Door' (alternative/demo version)
I think I got this from unkut.com a few years ago

Big L - Pre Game freestyle (1999)
Lamont over the Sauce Money banger

Children of The Corn - American Dream (alternative version)
this version appeared on a DJ S&S mixtape and features a slightly different Big L verse to the one that appears on the promo 12"

 OC - DJ Camillo freestyle (1998)
Nice OC freestyle off a Camillo mixtape. Pretty sure I got this one from Roy Johnson .

Ice T live in New York (1992)

Ice T was one of the first rappers I really got into. I heard him being interviewed on Jeff Young's show on Radio 1 back in '88 when 'Power' came out. I bought it not long after. Being that I was only 10-11 years old at the time, the swearing and sex rhymes were obviously the main source of appeal but it still holds up when listened to today. 'Power', 'The Iceberg' and 'Original Gangster' are all solid sets and on my list of all time favourites. He definitely doesnt get acknowledged enough when people are discussing the legends and pioneers of Hip Hop's golden age.

This is a recording of a show from 1992, just after 'Original Gangster' had come out.

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Quality on this is pretty good as its from a CD - Ice T & Bodycount 'In Your Face' (I didnt bother posting the Bodycount tracks) - and sounds like its straight from a DAT recording. These sort of things are quite common for rock and metal acts but quite rare in Hip Hop as far as I know. I once read that there was a loophole in copyright law in some European countries that meant you could get away with selling unlicensed live recordings. This CD is fully barcoded and released by a label in Italy. Weird.