London Style & Fashion (an early 90s UKHH compilation)

Out of Eddie's collection emerges a healthy amount of early 90s UK artists on rap radio. Freestyles and live recordings taken from Richie Rich's Rap Academy and Max & Dave's show on Kiss FM, and Westwood. Rather than drip feed them I thought I'd gather them up in one big zipfile for you. It's mostly names you'll recognise if you're familiar with that scene although there is a couple of lesser known artists. This era is kind of a niche sub-genre of hip hop and in terms of the history of the UK scene its often overlooked in favour of the 80's golden era (London Posse, Monie Love, MC Duke etc) and the early 00s generation (Jehst, Klashnekoff, Task Force). 

Essentially the dance music explosion of the 90s sidelined hip hop for most of the decade in England. I was going to go into more detail but this article covers a lot and is worth a read if you want to know more. 

As for the comp, I've posted the two MC D freestyles before, and I think the Caveman one is from somewhere else (?) but the rest is brand new. Enjoy. 

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Blade - Kiss FM Rap Academy (April 91)

Brotherhood - Radio 1 Rap Show (June 95)

Cash Crew - live in London (Dec 90)

Caveman - Capital Rap Show

Deadly D, Def K & DJ Cel - Kiss FM Rap Academy

Gunshot - Lightning 90.8FM (Nov 90)

Guttersnypes - Choice FM freestyle (Dec 93)

Hardnoise - Live To London (Aug 90)

Honey B & Culture Shock - live (Sept 91)

Katch 22 - Kiss FM Rap Academy (Feb 92)

MC D - DJ 279 special (July 93)

MC D - Kiss FM freestyle (July 93)

Sir Drew - Capital Rap Show promo

SL Troopers - Kiss FM Rap Academy (Feb 92)

Son Of Noise - Freestyle (July 91)

Have to big up Eddie once again for these. If you're sitting on a box of tapes get in touch and let's free the gems!

If you're in the mood for some more classic UKHH then GM B-Eazy just dropped a new mix...

MC Serch - Kiss FM freestyle (1991)

 

Don't call it a comeback! Hardware/software issues seem to be sorted just in time for Lockdown II so I thought I'd kick it off with a treat. MC Serch on Richie Rich's Rap Academy going in for nearly 10 minutes over some UBBs and he sounds particularly dope over Got To Be Real and Dance To The Drummer's Beat. This is from around the time Derelicts Of Dialect dropped so guess 3rd Bass were in the UK doing some promo. Shout to Eddie, who's tapes I'll be getting back into over the next few weeks. Hopefully there's more gems like this.
Thanks to Brett from This Is For The Hustlers for the hints and tips on the new blogger layout.

Richie Rich - Rap Academy on Kiss FM (1991)

Another out of Yoda's collection. Richie Rich's show on Kiss, with guests Force N K.Zee in the house for an interview and freestyle session.

download at the hip hop radio archive

Pete Rock & CL Smooth and Leaders Of The New School on Kiss FM (1992)

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Not one of my own tapes but I found it buried deep in the depths of Soundcloud and thought it deserved to be bought back to life, and this blog is the perfect home for such a thing.
LONS alongside Pete Rock and CL perform on Richie Rich's Rap Academy on London's Kiss FM back in May '92. If you want a good example of how record labels handled hip hop in the UK back then, Elektra had both groups performing at different venues in town on the same night. Top work there lads.

As you would expect from anything involving a young Busta Rhymes, this a lively affair with them hyping each other up and ad libbing all over the place. Classic material.

Richie Rich on Kiss FM (1991)

Another tape of Richie Rich doing his thing on the Rap Academy show in the early days of (legal) Kiss FM in London. This is from January 1991 and features music by Gang Starr, Jungle Brothers, Brand Nubian and Kool G Rap...

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All about the advert for the first series of Beverly Hills 90210 on this one

Richie Rich - Kiss FM (1991)

Another Kiss FM tape, but the first time I've dropped a Richie Rich show. There was no date on the tape (courtesy of Diseone) but Im guessing its early 1991, or possibly late 1990.
Richie was one of the bigger Hip Hop DJs in London in the mid-late 80s, holding down shows on Kiss in both its pirate and legal forms. He also set up Gee St Records which was the UK outlet for releases by Jungle Brothers, PM Dawn and Gravediggaz amongst others.
Although his own productions were mainly Hip Hop based cut-n-paste affairs, he also dropped the classic 'Salsa House' before ending up presenting on MTV Europe in the early 90s. Since then he pretty much disappeared. I've been told he gave up music and found God.

Richie Rich - Kiss FM London 1991 by Djstepone on Mixcloud