Radio 1 Rap Show with LL, Gang Starr, Nas & Noreaga (1997)

Hadn't heard this October '97 edition of the Rap Exchange before I found it on a Google deep dive over the weekend. In terms of guests this is up there with the best of them and whoever ripped it - shouts to you - was good enough to leave the interviews in there (most of us seem to have hit the pause button back in the day in order to fit a 2 hour show on a C90 and get maximum tunes). The playlist is decent too: alongside the big tracks of the time by DMX and Busta, there's EZD's Premo produced GunzIs4, plus Calm Down, Firm Biz remix, and the original version of Desperados. And that Nas and Noreaga freestyle I posted a few years ago. Even the songs off LL's Phenomenon LP are decent enough - is that slept on?

Tracklist is below, and it'll be on the Hip Hop Radio Archive in due course if you want the download

Radio 1 Rap Show 25.02.00 with Cipha Sounds & Noreaga

Good show this one. Cipha Sounds co-hosting with Tim for 3 hours, with a mix of golden era stuff and new joints. Lots of good tunes plus there's a phone interview with Noreaga (I still call him that because NORE looks weird when it's typed out) in the second half.

Noreaga - Colors (2002)

Noreaga putting his 2002 twist on the Ice T classic is as gully as you'd expect. It's a mixtape only track that as far I can tell went under most people's radar unless you had a copy of this DJ Envy tape, and even then you were only getting a snippet. Fortunately it made on to the streets in it's full glory on this white label (alongside an unreleased Mobb Deep song). Strange it never got a bit more attention but there you go. It really sounds like it needs some trademark Kay Slay drops but you can't have everything.

It's a shame that for the most part rappers and DJs were fairly unimaginative when pulling out beats for their freestyles back then. The majority tended to reach for the hot track of the moment or tried and tested classics like Who Shot Ya or Shook Ones pt II. The Colors beat would've been a great pick, as would Juice Crew Dis or  Black Superman. Perhaps the famed East Coast Bias was very much in effect until the mid 00s.

NB: Audiomack have changed their embedding thingy so not only is there only one option for sizes - fucking massive - but it's also messed up the way the older ones appear on the site. You're probably best just clicking onto my audiomack page and DLing off there if you have any problems

Westwood live from Sylvia's in Harlem (2003)

A ridiculous line up of guests on this show. You can find the first 90 minutes with Ja Rule and Sean Paul here, but the second half  is where it's at with Timbaland, Busta Rhymes, Noreaga, Kardinal Offishall, Freeway and TOK all passing through.

And here's the Freeway freestyle over In Da Club

NB: at the start Westwood says Busta will be on the following night's show, but this was a Saturday (there was no show on a Sunday) so I'm guessing this wasn't actually broadcast live and they forgot to cut that out of the edit.

Noreaga, Musaliny & Maze freestyle (1997)

Nore and his mans go in over Puffin On Blunts, Phone Tap and Nuthin But A G Thang and a couple of other beats. Taken from this rather nice promo doublepack, Shout out to J Preme on the TROY forum for hooking me up with this.

Nas & Noreaga - Hot 97 freestyle (1998)

I got hooked up with a rather large stack of tapes today courtesy of the ever generous RB (he came through with the Jay Ski tapes and some mid 90s Westwood a couple of years back). All in all there was 20 tapes of Clue, Juice and Cutmaster C. Some have been online before, some haven't but I'm gonna rip the lot and get em on here because dead links/poor quality/obscure sites no one checks for etc.
Until I get around to doing that, here's a taster from Cutmaster C's 'New York Undercover' tape. Nas & Noreaga with Flex on the tables on Hot 97 back in 1998



If you've got tapes you'd like to donate for the blog (can be returned if needed) then get in touch.

Ya Heard! Volume 1 - The Penalty mixtape (1998)

Mixtape for Penalty Records with Cipha Sounds and Funk Flex holding down side A mixing up a bunch of stuff from Noreaga's debut with a few CNN joints and some other bits and pieces, like the promo only classic 'Calm Down' featuring Nas. The B side is just snippets with more Nore plus joints by Cardan, Crooked Lettaz and Skull Duggery...

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Been a bit quiet posting on here recently but there's some treats on the horizon. Stay tuned.

"Still a Dapper Dan design, still immaculate..."

My favourite song of 2013 so far. Large Pro still got it. Nice that it got a video too.

Dirty Harry 'All Star Killers' (1998)

Another strange 12". I can't find it listed on Discogs but this is - I think - a blend put together mixtape king Dirty Harry, although it could well pass for an original track. Despite the big name line up I dont recognise the verses from any other songs and they flow together nicely. It opens with a sample from 'Menace II Society' and features Big Pun, DMX, Method Man, Fat Joe, Cam'ron, Noreaga, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz.

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Canibus, DMX & Noreaga - Hot 97 freestyle

As promised here’s the Canibus, DMX and Noreaga freestyle session from Hot 97. Its from late 97/early 98 when these 3 were about to drop their highly anticipated solo debuts.
This period was something of a changing of the guard in Hip Hop. Biggie had died, Death Row had lost Dre and 2Pac, Jay Z and Nas had just released slightly disappointing albums and Eminem was yet to blow up. The time was right for new artists to come through. Unfortunately Canibus could never really get his beat selection on point (possibly due to hanging out with Wyclef too much), DMX was huge for a while and then lost the plot completely and Noreaga managed some solid material but then decided Reggaeton was the future.
Anyway, this is heavy. Flex is on the tables cutting up a load of classic breaks for them to rhyme over. It went on a bit longer than the 30 minutes here but my tape ran out.

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Shout out to Supar Novar