KRS ONE, Fat Joe & Lord Finesse live at Rocksteady Park (1993)

This is something that I posted way back in 2009, except then it was by way of a hissy tape rip recorded off a Westwood show in 1995, and ripped to 128kbps. What we have here is the full 15 minutes in considerably better quality taken from the vinyl pressing (it's part 2 of 4 - the sleeves fit together to make a complete graf piece).

It's 1993 in Rocksteady Park for the annual jam and KRS is on stage with Willie D (the BDP one), Mad Lion, Fat Joe, Grim Reaper (aka MF Grimm) and Lord Finesse. Slap Them Up, Black Cop, Sound Of Da Police and Shoot To Kill get an airing. Joe and Grim kick a freestyle (Joe does his verse off Stricktly Roots - Beg No Friends), but this set gained notoriety for Finesse's superb acapella dis of Lords Of The Underground, which has always been a personal favourite of mine, so it was great to finally get a full uncut version in good quality.

DMX live in concert (1998)

RIP Earl. This is taken from a Westwood show in October '99 but the tracks are all circa Its Dark and Hell Is Hot. I think this is in New York and it sounds like Big Kap introducing him at the start. The crowd are hyped for this and X run's through a 25 minute set with all his early bangers and brings out The LOX for Money Power Respect and Redman and Method Man for 4,3,2,1. I never saw him live but he sounds like a great performer. If you somehow still haven't seen the video of him at Woodstock '99 go find that.

If you're in the mood for more DMX today, go back and check this tape I posted back in 2016 with a bunch of freestyles from 1996.  

There's also this tape of him guesting on Westwood's show in June 2000

It looks like Black Rob is in a bad way too, let's hope he pulls through. This remix of Mic Geronimo's track featuring Rob and X is dope and somewhat slept on.

 

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...

LL Cool J live in London (1987)

This a top notch recording out of Eddie's collection. LL Cool J live on the Def Jam Tour at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1987, where he was headlining with Eric B & Rakim and Public Enemy supporting. LL rips this shit and was fully on top the rap world at the time.
Despite some sterling detective work by Random Rap Radio (who also kindly assisted in improving the sound quality), I don't have an exact date but DJ Food has photos and memories of a show on the 1st November '87  and there's video footage from a different night, possibly the day before or after that, taken from BBC 2's Behind The Beat. Note the red Kangol in DJ Food's post and the white Kangol in the video.



On a related note - and as the annual Record Store Day nonsense has just passed - Bigger And Deffer really needs a nice double vinyl reissue with some extra tracks. A Lost Tapes album would be nice too, or at least a decent repress or digital issue of the Double L Cools Down LP. No? Ok, Wu Tang, Doom and Dilla reissues for the rest of our days it is then.

I can't record audio into my laptop at the moment but regular service should resume as soon as I get that sorted or can bring myself to buy a new laptop and reinstall everything.

Westwood live from Notting Hill Carnival '96 with Heltah Skeltah, Lost Boyz, Blak Twang, Foxy Brown & Montell Jordan

Following on from the tape of Carnival '95 I posted a few weeks ago, here's the recording of the 1996 broadcast, which I think takes in Sunday and Monday's performances. If I recall correctly, it was broadcast on Monday evening, and the swears are edited so it's not live and direct from the Westway. Westwood and Goldfinger hold down the selection with live performances by Heltah Skeltah, Lost Boyz, Blak Twang, Foxy Brown (who had no solo records at this point but was killing every feature) and Montell Jordan.
I've posted parts of this before but it's always better to have the whole thing uninterrupted. Highlights include Foxy having to back track when the crowd starts booing after her hypeman disses 2Pac and Jeru, a ruck kicking off during Montell's set ("they too busy fightin over there") and the whistle & horn posse greeting each banger with the appropriate response. 4th Chamber goes off. A GZA b-side. Your favourite Soundcloud rapper could never.

Westwood live from Notting Hill Carnival '95 with Jeru The Damaja & Mad Lion

I've posted parts of this tape over the years but here's the full 2 hour show (now in 320), with Jeru and Mad Lion performing and Westwood and his crew running through a ton of rap, ragga, miami bass and R&B. Whistles and horns are in full effect and the reactions to certain tunes really let you know what was big on the street at the time, as opposed to an extensive twitter debate with William from Worcestershire who's adamant everyone was listening to Outkast and Jay Z back then and GZA and Smoothe Da Hustler was just some backpack shit.

Also, I know it's (finally fucking) February but you can pretend it's August.

I've got the Carnival '96 tape so I'll post that up at some point. Anyone holding 1997? I'm not sure if they did a live broadcast for that one.

Run DMC live in London (1986)

Taken from this 1995 Radio 1 Rap Show, here's 18 minutes of the mythical night at Peoples Club in Paddington, West London where Run DMC, Whodini, Hurricane and Cut Creator (and possibly even LL Cool J) performed and freestyled for 3 hours at an after party on the Raising Hell tour.

Other snippets of the night have been online before and Westwood even played some of it back in his LWR days, but I don't think we'll ever get to hear the full session. I messaged DMC on twitter hoping to get more info but all he could offer was "I remember that night! Fun as hell!!!"

There was a good interview with Tim a few years ago on the XXL site where he spoke about the club:

"People's Club, that was like one of the first black-owned clubs in this country. It was originally called the Q Club, but then it lost its license. In those days, clubs could operate without a license so it was like an illegal club and that used to go on until 6, 7, 8 o'clock on a Friday morning and it was just crazy. It was a real hood spot; you're talking about the '80s here so there was a lot of guys dressing like pimps and it would be a lot of their girls in there as well. There would be a lot of pimps, a lot of drug dealers. You couldn't use the toilet in there because it was like a drug-dealing [den]. By 6 in the morning, there'd be a smoke cloud in the basement and there'd be people smoking coke and crack and it was just one of those extreme street spots, but that's where I played every Thursday.

And what used to happen was Whodini used to record their albums over in London 'cause they were signed to Jive Records and their studios were only in London so they'd be over. And people like Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but they didn't really come to the club like Whodini did. And then when that Raising Hell Tour with Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys and Whodini came, they all used to just come down there and freestyle for hours and just hang out and get high. Larry Smith, rest in peace, he used to come there every Thursday. You couldn't buy anything by the glass, it was only bottles. You could only buy like a bottle of champagne, a bottle of brandy, a bottle of wine. As a young kid, like 18, 19, 20, just growing up in that environment, it was like the best experience"

London Posse live in London (1991)

UK dons Rodney P and Bionic performing Gangster Chronicle, Live Like The Other Half Do and Jump Around at Westwood's Live To London jam at The Arches in Vauxhall, which was broadcast on Capital FM, hence the "censored version, seen?!".

Not much UK rap from the 80s and 90s has aged particularly well imo but all the London Posse stuff still holds it's own. Shame we never got that 2nd album around the time How's Life In London came out.



Thanks to Diablo for the tape of this one.

download at the hip hop radio archive

Clark Kent, Biz Markie & Funkmaster Flex live at Mecca (1994)

Recorded live on a Sunday night in NYC back in early '94 (I'm guessing), with Clark Kent, Biz and Flex on the tables at Mecca. If you've checked a few tapes of club nights from this period you'll know that the selection tends to be largely the same but it's a good listen regardless - classic hip hop, funk & soul and breaks.

1Xtra Original Fever 15.03.04

Some UKHH from back in the day. Rodney P & Skitz host their 1Xtra show live from the BBC's Maida Vale studio wit DJ IQ, Cappo, Taz and Blak Twang all passing through and performing.

If you like early 00s UKHH, I also dropped this tape of Greenpeace's All City Show on XFM from 2004 with Klashnekoff 

Funkmaster Flex & Biz Markie live in NYC (1994)

I'm back. New tape deck, more tapes, less time than ever. This one is off a TDK simply labelled 'Funkmaster Flex Birthday' but I have a feeling it's this under another name (which was posted online years ago - can anyone confirm it's the same tape?)

Flex and Biz Markie get busy with a full on party set - old school, new school, reggae, funk, soul and some slow jams (ugh) at the end.

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Thanks to Diablo and MK (it's his writing on the tape) for this one.

Biz Markie - Live at The Que Club (May 1994)

The Diabolical one on the tables at NYC's Q Club in May '94. Loving hearing the crowd singalong to Ain't No Fun when Biz cuts the volume...

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Thanks again to Diablo for this one.

Masta Ace live in London (1995)

First up out of the incredible selection DJ Diablo sorted me out with at the weekend is this recording of Masta Ace at Flavour Of The Month from December '95. All the info you need is on the flyer above...

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Funkmaster Flex live at The Temple (1999)

Flex live at The Temple (formerly Club UN) for one of Westwood's parties. Loving the crowd reaction when he drops Money, Power, Respect.

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Intro

Crooklyn Clan - The Franklinz

Notorious BIG - One More Chance (Hip Hop mix)

Notorious BIG - One More Chance (Stay With Me)

Cam'ron & DMX - Pull It

Eminem - My Name Is

Junior Mafia - Get Money

Wu Tang Clan - Itz Yourz

Wu Tang Clan - Triumph

Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz - Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)

The LOX - Money Power Respect

Rampage ft Busta Rhymes - Wild For Da Night

LL Cool J - Doin It

Ol Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya

TLC - No Scrubs

Sporty Thievez - No Pigeons

Total ft Notorious BIG - Can't You See

Mary J Blige - Everyday It Rains

Faith Evans - Love Like This

Mary J Blige - Real Love (remix)

Mobb Deep - Shook Ones pt 2

Mobb Deep - Quiet Storm

Masters At Work - Get Up

UPDATE: here's Flex on the Radio 1 Rap Show broadcast the same night

Beanie Sigel live in NYC (2002)

The Broad Street Bully live on stage in New York. Bit shouty but that's rap concerts for you. This also carries on the great hip hop tradition of the hype man's mic being louder than the main artist at times.

Eminem & Dr Dre live in London (2000)

Westwood dropped this in the middle of a Radio Rap 1 Show I was ripping and it was more enjoyable than I expected. Em and Dre at the Brixton Academy 3 weeks before the Marshall Mathers LP came out. I found the set list here, and it's about a 50/50 split of Em songs and stuff off 2001, plus G Thang with Em doing Snoop's parts.
Good to see that they stayed true to the tradition of US artists coming to the UK and performing ridiculously short shows (30 minutes!) while probably charging £20-£30 a ticket too. Thankfully that seemed to die out over the last 15 years as touring became a bigger earner than sales, although someone should tell Redman and Method Man, who really should be doing more than 45-50 minutes given the size of their combined catalogues.

UPDATED 26/12 - full Radio 1 Rap Show this was taken from now available here

Tim Westwood at Notting Hill Carnival (1995)

It's a 3 day weekend here in the UK which means there's a bunch of stuff going on including Notting Hill Carnival. Over the years I've posted up a few bits from Westwood's stage as I'd taped the 95 and 96 sets when they were broadcast on Radio 1. In this 40 minute segment he goes in with a wicked dancehall selection - Bounty Killer, Supercat, Lady Saw, Merciless etc - and then switches into some early 90s Hip Hop. It's nice hearing the whistle posse and horn crew giving it up for songs like Time 4 Sum Aksion and Uptown Anthem, and they're properly loving the ragga stuff too.

Some of the '96 tape is available on the Westwood Archives Mixcloud page

Pete Rock & CL Smooth live at The Jazz Cafe (2004)

Pete Rock & CL performing live at London's Jazz Cafe in 2004 for one of the first of what would be many reunion shows. I think this did the rounds online at the time as it was broadcast on 1Xtra (which is the source of this tape rip) and it also appeared on a promo CD, but for those of you who didn't catch it then, here it is...

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I saw them perform in London in 2010 and it was a good show, although maybe I was the only one to notice that there was a few awkward points when they performed the ladies records like Lots Of Lovin, Take You There and Appreciate to an audience that was 95% male. I guess that's the perennial dilemma of the golden era rapper.

Kid Capri - Live at the Q Club (1991)

The Kiiiiid Capri gets busy live in the spot back in 1991....

STREAM SIDE A    STREAM SIDE B

courtesy of a kind donation. You might also want to check these if you missed 'em

Kid Capri interview on Juan Epstein

Kid Capri Live at The Building, New York City (1990)

Funkmaster Flex & Lovebug Starski live at The Palladium (1993)

This is dope. Flex rocking NYC's Palladium back in '93 with Lovebug Starski on mic duties. What else do you need to know?

DOWNLOAD   STREAM SIDE A    STREAM SIDE B

Good quality recording as well, unlike some live clubs sets I've posted before. The only downside is that it sounds like Nas was due to perform that night (in New York, in 1993.) as they call him to the stage, but the tape runs out before we hear anything. Thanks to MK for the tape.