Showing posts with label Public Enemy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Enemy. Show all posts

Saturday, 23 January 2021

Chuck D & House Of Pain - Westwood dubplates (1992)


Chuckie D and Everlast going off dancehall style and fashion for Tim over the Bam Bam riddim (Murder She Wrote). Sounds weird right? Seems like this was recorded as 2 seperate sessions rather than at the same time but on the tape I have they're played back to back. Shame Tim had pretty much phased these type of things out by the time he got to Radio 1.

Sunday, 7 June 2020

Flavor Flav on the Capital Rap Show (1992)



The world continues to be a mess and the amount of idiots piping up with an opinion just drains the soul at this point so take your mind off it for 5 minutes and check Flav doing More News At 11 on Westwood's show.


Friday, 20 February 2015

Some things...

Seven things, to be precise.

1) If in 1993 you'd asked 1000 people to pick a new rapper that would still be making reasonably successful music on a major label 20 years later, I'm pretty sure no one would've chosen Fat Joe. Mr Crack (as his fellow PTA members call him) has endured a decent career without ever being particularly outstanding. He's also managed a decent amount of commercially successful singles which is pretty bizarre for someone who made their name off Diamond D beats and Kool G Rap collabos. He's no one's favourite rapper yet he's outlasted most of his peers. Other '93 alumni like Jeru, Buckshot and Inspectah Deck are probably wondering where the fuck they went wrong when they're backstage waiting to perform to 150 people in a basement in Budapest and Joseph Cartagena is kicking back with a low fat smoothie watching the outakes from his videos with J Lo and R Kelly on his HD plasma. Salute.



2) People really need to chill with the J Dilla anniversaries, tributes and reissues. And what the fuck his mum has do to with anything is beyond me. I imagine if he could see what's happened since he died he'd find the whole thing hugely embarrassing. I get that he's very innovative and creative with his sampling and drums and blah blah but where's his 'TROY', his 'World Is Yours' or his 'Come Clean'? Fuck, where's his 'Grindin', 'Protect Ya Neck' or 'Get Low' for that matter. It kind of makes me scared of what will happen when we lose Primo, Dre, Marley and the 10-20 other producers that rank above him.

3) Kendrick Lamar. Just...no. I get that if you aren't into Drake/Young Thug/Molly & Weed rap or whatever then you might consider him a "refreshing alternative" but his voice is fucking terrible. Trying to sound like Canibus when you want to, like, really seriously get your point across because you have Something To Say is not the one. I get the feeling he wants to be Nas x Kanye but he's basically the US version of Rizzle Kicks.

4) How have we found ourselves in a world where Kanye, Paul McCartney and fucking Rihanna can make a song together without any fear of violent reprisals. It's becoming increasingly hard to believe Kanye was behind so much good rap music 10-12 years ago. The least he could do is throw us a 'Power' or 'Cant Tell Me Nothing' every now and again.

5) If someone thinks 'Illmatic' is the best rap album ever I just assume they're too young to have heard 'Nation Of Millions...'. One is a great rap album. The other is just a great album. One took early 90s Hip Hop to its logical conclusion and one just changed the whole fucking game. Pretty much all rap sounds weak if you play it after classic PE/Bomb Squad music. Check this great BBC4 documentary on the group here and an unintentionally hilarious look at what Professor Griff is up to these days here (spoiler: 2Pac was killed because he wouldn't let Quincy Jones take him up the wrong 'un)



6) There really should've been a third Crooklyn Dodgers record (I assume we've all agreed to pretend this didn't happen). 1998 would've been a good time for it. I think a line up of Big Daddy Kane, Sauce Money and Jay Z with Primo on the boards would've done the business. They could have tied it in with being a Biggie tribute seeing as all the other ones at the time were terrible.
On a related note, this is a really good article about the making of the first Crooklyn Dodgers record. A whole album could've been amazing. Shame Buckshot opted to do that second Black Moon album instead but then that's why he's in Budapest and not lounging with video hoes like ya boy Joey Crack.
Side note: This is probably the worst photo to ever grace the cover of a rap album

7) How the fuck did we get into a position where people are talking about this and using the phrases 'classic', 'fire' and 'blackout' ?  At best its mildly amusing but for the most part its pretty shit. I mean, I know the people championing it on twitter were probably the same ones losing their mind over Kendrick's 'Control' verse (yawn) but still.

This post was bought to you by a long week, a scroll back through old twitter posts and this morning's playlist being set to 'random'.

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Tim Westwood - Radio 1 Rap Show (1995)

Ah, the summer of 1995. To quote RZA, "everything was lovely". Tim kicks off this show with the first play of 'MCs Act Like They Dont Know' and follows it with some Das EFX, Wu Tang, Kool G Rap and Rakim, plus a KRS One freestyle and a bit of BDP live from 1988. After a few R&B joints at the start of side 2, he's joined in the studio with Chuck D for chat while they count down the Top 10 At Ten...

DOWNLOAD

If you haven't heard, it was recently announced that Westwood will be leaving the BBC after 19 years at the station. Go check The Martorialist for 10 Reasons Why Westwood Will Always Be The Bomb **explosion**

Saturday, 24 March 2012

Public Enemy live in the UK (1995)


This 1995 recording of Public Enemy live at The Phoenix Festival in England was recently broadcast on Sirius XM.

DOWNLOAD

I was especially pleased to see this as I was actually at the show. Memories are pretty sketchy as it was a long time ago ( I was 16) but I remember getting into an Island Records tent and meeting Chuck & Flav, aswell as - randomly - Mark Lamarr, and getting a poster and CD signed which then got nicked out of my tent. Also on the bill were Ice T, The Roots, Guru/Jazzmatazz and a load of other people.

Thanks to Dan at Philaflava for hooking up the link.