A big ass Wake Up Show freestyle cipher (1997)

Freestyles were a regular part of rap radio by 1997 but this is like a Mr Bongo regular's wet dream. It's a 37 minute freestyle session on Sway & Tech's Wake Up Show from late 1997 and the line up is immense. Kool G Rap, Craig G, Juice, Shorty Wreck, Eminem, Kwest Tha Madd Lad, Thirstin Howl, Wordsworth & Mos Def and Talib Kweli all step up and do their thing. A lot of those names were new on the scene at the time so there's definitely an element of hungry MCs with something to prove when their time on the mic comes around.
As far as I can tell, this is a simultaneous broadcast with Marley Marl who's on the radio in NYC with G Rap and the lads. At one point you'll hear Eminem (of all people) get told to hold off rhyming so they can switch over for some rhymes from the east coast.

The full tape (with the 50 mins of the show before the freestyle) is available on  the Hip Hop Radio Archive

There's a snippet of this on YouTube but I don't think the whole thing has been online before



Thanks to Random Rap Radio for supplying the tape of this (and a few others soon to come). He's about to drop a very dope limited edition cassette mix of super rare live 80s Hip Hop with the latest issue of Dig Mag, so get that.

Guru, Eminem, Defari & The Beatnuts - Wake Up Show freestyle (1998)

I've only ever had a couple of Wake Up Show tapes in my possession so was happy to see this one in the last batch of cassettes that Tobes hooked me up with. I was particularly pleased to find this treat on there though: Guru stops by the show to do a quick interview (just before Moment Of Truth came out) and then drops a few verses alongside a relatively unknown Eminem, before Defari steps up to the mic and then the Beatnuts get involved. Good times. Do things like this still happen anywhere outside of the BET awards?

That's followed by a Smif N Wessun freestyle - they were rolling as the Cocoa Brovaz at the time -   and Em jumps on the mic again. The full show is below...





Not sure if it's a West Coast radio thing in general or just something Sway & Tech did but their lengthy intro and approach to drops and jingles might even out do Weenie & The Butt. Definitely not mad at their female co-host's voice though. Much more soothing than your standard rap radio DJ.

Had my first copyright infringement takedown notice from Audiomack last week, for a bootleg remix of Top Billin of all things. Hopefully they don't go the way of Soundcloud and Mediafire. Seems crazy that in 2017 there isn't an established reliable platform for hosting music to stream and download. I'll persist with it for now but if things start disappearing on a regular basis I might need a new home. It has occured to me that having Eminem's name on there might be a red flag. Can't say I wasn't a tad shook a few years ago when minutes after making a disparaging remark about Jimmy Iovine, I received a notification informing me that INTERSCOPE RECORDS IS NOW FOLLOWING YOU.