Cutmaster Swift ft Guru, MC Storm & Jeopardy - Choice FM exclusive (1991)

Thought I'd found another early 90s Gang Starr radio freestyle when this one started up, but it turns out there's a more interesting back story to it. It begins with the **Choice Exclusive** drop and Guru says it's a freestyle, before going into a verse from Hardcore Composer. The tape is dated 1991, so Daily Operation wasn't out at this point. He's then followed by 2 British MCs, which threw me a bit as the cuts in the chorus and the sound quality aren't what you would expect from a radio cypher. Needing some help, I hit up Craig and he thought one of the rappers sounded like Big Ted, which turned out to be correct. I hit Ted up on Instagram and he gave me the details...

It's actually production by Cutmaster Swift featuring MC Storm (Swift's brother) and myself on the extra verses. It originally began as a freestyled acapella from Guru for 279 and he suggested Swift put a beat to it and put Storm and me on there too, and there you have it. Just another one of those hip hop history magic moments.
Cheers for reminding me of it. I have it and the instrumental on a TDK MA metal tape somewhere.

Swift was one of the biggest hip hop DJs in the UK from the early days, and Ted was still known as Jeopardy back then. MC Storm was part of the No Parking MCs (thanks again to Craig for the knowledge) and had a couple of underground releases in the early 90s.

Kind of quirky, and this type of thing would be commonplace 10-15 years later when every mixtape DJ and aspiring producer got their hands on pro-tools but back then it was quite unusual as far as I know. I was going to title it Gang Starr - Hardcore Composer (rare demo version) but thought that might be pushing it a bit. Even clickbait has boundaries.
Big up Eddie as always, I've nearly got through all his tapes now so it's nice that they're still producing results.

LL Cool J - Mr Controversy (unreleased, 90-91)

Been listening to some old LL recently, specifically Mama Said Knock You Out and Bigger And Deffer (which really needs the 2LP reissue treatment, along with a proper release of the Double L Cools Down bootleg) so I was pleased to come across this unreleased track from 1991 which presumably was part of the Mama Said... sessions with Marley Marl but didn't make the cut. That's a shame because it's pretty good. Can't say I remember hearing it back in the day but this is taken from a Max & Dave Kiss FM Rap Show so guess there's a chance I have heard it before. It's on YouTube already but the quality is predictably weak so only right we get it up on here.

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Black Rob - Gun Hell (2001)

New tapes are on the way soon but it's been a while since I posted some rare or unreleased Black Rob (a year next week to be precise) so here's a song from an obscure 12" that seems to be comprised of tracks taken from an early 00s DJ Khaled mixtape. You might be aware that before becoming an internationally successful meme clown and playlist creator, Khaled was a credible club DJ and had some half decent production credits on songs that didn't feature 47 different rappers, autotune or Justin Bieber. His remix of Heads High by Mr Vegas is definitely worth picking up if you see it. Anyway, back to Black Rob and he's got a healthy amount of unreleased heat in his catalogue. Gun Hell sounds like it might be a demo track - like the Espacio demo the chorus is a bit sketchy - but he comes with his trademark thugged out wordplay and its a worthy addition to the collection if you're fan of BR (and you should be by now or I've been wasting my time).

Not sure if Khaled did the beat on this. I'm guessing no. This might be his first appearance on OB4ZL but let's not get carried away.

Erick Sermon - Bomdigi (unreleased version)

Tobes put me up on this some time ago when it was still on Youtube. He has since hooked up a tape rip from an old 279 show which is what I've put on Soundcloud for your listening pleasure. Having asked around the 90s rap knowledge gods on the internet, no one seems to know about this. It could well be the original version of Bomdigi that was shelved due to sample clearance but it doesn't even seem to have made it on to a bootleg 12" which is unusual. It does feature the late Tommy Gunn so essentially it's a different version of the remix rather than the original E Dub solo version. Guessing it's tucked away on some Def Jam promo tape somewhere. The beat is lovely though - that soul sample wouldn't have sounded out of place 10 years later.

DJ Triple C mixtape (1992)

First thing to say about this is the quality isn't the best, although once again it's been improved by the Random Rap Radio Remastering Service. It's got that slightly muddy and distorted feel in places that definitely gives off that whole 'rumbling out of a boom box in Camden Market on a Saturday afternoon' feeling from way back in the day.
If it was your standard tape from say, '95 (you know the ones with Wu, Biggie, Nas, Mobb etc) I probably wouldn't have posted it but it's from '92, when the scene wasn't as saturated, and it's also by Triple C who isn't a DJ you come across too often. More importantly it contains some Unreleased Heat ™. At the start of side 2 Triple C announces he's just been in the studio with Lord Tariq, Minnesota and DJ Scratch and then drops the exclusive. There's also someone rhyming on the track by the name of Pete Lova which we can safely assume is Peter Gunz. Now Deja Vu is still 5 years off at this point but Tariq and Gunz would end up releasing a couple of singles as part of Gunrunners (**obscure + expensive indie vinyl claxon**) before Minnesota and Tariq found some success with Money Boss Players, so this demo track is very much the foundation of that whole crew. If you don't have time to check the whole tape I posted the song on Soundcloud.

The rest of the tape is solid. Of course it is, it's 1992...

tracklist

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Straighten It Out

Kenny Dope - Axxis

Fu-Schnickens - True Fu-Schnick

Wreckx N Effect - Rump Shaker

Mary J Blige - Real Love (remix)

Grand Puba - 360 (What Goes Around) (remix)

A TEEM - Yeah

House Of Pain - Jump Around (Pete Rock remix)

Redman - Blow Your Mind

EPMD - Cummin Atcha

LOTUG - Psycho (instrumental)

Diamond D - Freestyle (Yo Thats That Shit)

MC Serch - Back To The Grill Again

Triple C, Lord Tariq, Pete Lova & Minnesota - unreleased track

Take 6 - Spread Love (45 King remix)

Yo Yo - Black Pearl

Mary J Blige - Reminisce

Gang Starr - BYS

EPMD - Nobodys Safe Chump

Diamond D - Best Kept Secret

A Tribe Called Quest - Hot Sex

Zhigge - Born Black

LOTUG - Check It

Das EFX - Straight Out The Sewer

EPMD - Can't Hear Nothin But The Music

Eric B & Rakim - What's Going On

Prince Ikey C - Smoked We Out

The discovery of this was made all the more satisfying by it turning up unannounced on a cassette that was labelled as a Radio 1 Rap Show from '99 (cheers G&L!)

McGruff Rugged & Raw aka If It Ain't McGruff It Ain't Me [a Herb McGruff compilation]

Over the last few years my waning (now pretty much non-existent) interest in new Hip Hop has meant I've gone back and discovered a new found appreciation for artists who I'd previously enjoyed, but perhaps never delved to deep into their catalogues. I've already hit you off with a Sauce Money compilation, and on a similar tip is this Herb McGruff collection. 

Signed by Heavy D to Uptown after the rest of his Children Of The Corn crew had found deals elsewhere, McGruff's debut album Destined To Be suffered from his label's attempts to jump on the Bad Boy bandwagon of the moment and have him dropping jiggy club efforts rather than the more thugged out Harlem-centric content that was his strong suit. Kind of understandable given that Uptown properly dropped the ball with Biggie (worst label decision ever in rap?) but history has shown us that the industry has a track record of signing acts with a big street buzz and then getting them to move away from the style that made them popular to chase radio play. In McGruff's case he got off to a good start with the Harlem Kids Get Biz promo 12", but the album had far too many lukewarm, middle of the road joints like Gruff Express and didn't really make much of an impression. What was interesting was the amount of collabs, features, and mixtape only/bootleg tracks that were circulating around the same time, and that's what makes up the bulk of this compilation.

I'm not sure if it was just bad timing, people stealing his ideas or vice versa but Herbert seems to have a issue in the jackin for beats department which probably hindered his progress somewhat. Creep is dope, but it's based around the same break Biggie used on Warning. Nasty with Foxy Brown uses the World Famous Supreme Team beat that's far too similar to the Firm Biz remix which dropped around the same time. Make It Hot has the same Eugene Wild sample recognisable from Foxy and Blackstreet's monster Get Me Home. I've included them all because 20+ years on it's not much of an issue but you can see how it may have been a problem at the time. 

I haven't really ventured into his re-emergence with Dipset in the 2000s so its mostly mid-late 90s material, and although it's pretty heavy on collaborations and guest appearances it's a decent representation of the man's work. Pick of the bunch for me is Harlem World with Mase on the hook, which samples Strawberry Letter 23. There's also East And Police produced by Godfather Don off 2008's The Demo EP,  a couple of the better tracks off the album in Reppin Uptown with The Lox and the aforementioned Harlem Kids Get Biz and some looseys like Bow Down with Mob Style and the mixtape only Hell Up In Harlem with Black Rob, Cardan & Cam'ron.

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East And Police 

Creep

Villain Guys 

Harlem World ft Mase

Freestyle

Reppin Uptown ft The LOX

Harlem NYC - Beats 2 Blow remix with Bootsie & Big L

Uptown Connection ft Mase & Big L

Harlem Kids Get Biz

Hell Up In Harlem with Black Rob, Cam'ron & Cardan

Pure Uncut Raw with Eightball, Canibus & DMX

Bow Down ft Mob Style & Meeno

Nasty ft Foxy Brown

Kay Slay freestyle

Obviously these were taken from a variety of sources - CD, vinyl, digital, some official, some less so. If you've got anything else that should've been included let me know.

It's not Epic it's Rocafella!

Live from Sylvia's in Harlem, Westwood hosts Cam, Juelz and Jim who drop a freestyle over The Roc (Just Fire) and What Happened To That Boy and Cam does his lyrics from Down & Out (2 years before that came out). Keith Murray is also in the building alongside 50 Grand for some more freestyle action.

On a related note, another Radio 1 Rap Show from the year before threw up this oddity on the Top 10 At Ten. It's a remix of Oh Boy, that despite being dismissed by Just Blaze* as a "fake DJ trickery attempt", is actually pretty decent and definitely better than the official 'Oh Girl' remix. I've no idea where the Cam verse came from if it wasn't done for this track but he's accompanied by 2 other dudes who despite sounding like State Property, appear to go by Frank Mueller and TD (Ted Dibiase?). Can't find any info on  them or this version so if anyone can help out please do.



*my DMs are hotter than yours

The Firm - Phone Tap (remix)

I had no idea this existed until today when I caught it on this Stretch Armstrong show from 1998.
I wouldn't say it's better than the original but it's not bad, and I'm surprised it hasn't crossed my path at some point in the last 20 years. Anyone know if this made it onto any kind of vinyl or CD, official or otherwise?

G Dep - Hit Em High (2001)

Just found this unreleased G Dep track tucked away on a Crib Underground 12". Nothing mind blowing but a solid enough effort that should interest any fans of early 00s Bad Boy material. I think it might be produced by Clark Kent. A brief search throws up appearance on a couple of mixtapes by Clue and PF Cuttin, and a MySpace page, which seems like something from another lifetime. Annoyingly, Audiomack seems to have done away with it's download feature so here's a Mediafire link.

I've dropped a few more Westwood shows on the archive in the last couple of days.

18th January 2002 with Tom Silverman

9th June 2000 (no guest)

4th June 1999 with Roots Manuva & DJ MK

plus I've also reposted shows that other people have uploaded, including some old Capital Rap Shows

Black Rob - Smooth Criminal (Espacio demo)

The Black Rob rarities continue to surface on a regular basis. Once again this one appeared by way of Grime & Lime uploading this DJ Rampage mixtape. It's listed on the cover as 'Smooth Criminal' but what we appear to have is a demo/reference track for Espacio, which ended up being a single off Life Story. There's no Lil Kim on here but Rob does reference Dep and seems to rap a part possibly intended for him. The verses are different from the final version and in typical demo fashion, there's no chorus. It's another storytelling / heist type joint that BR does so well. 

Mobb Deep - If These Walls Could Talk (2002)

It's hot and sunny outside but let's ignore that completely and go for some moody Queensbridge raps with this unreleased Mobb Deep joint that was on the flipside of the NORE track I posted recently.
Depending on which bootleg or mixtape you have this is also known as 'Snitch' or 'Snitched On' and samples Beethoven's Fur Elise; obviously I didn't know that until it appeared on the Google search but it's one of those classical pieces everyone recognises. Grimey.

Other things worthy of your attention:

Good Kool G Rap interview for Rolling Stone

Digital Underground's demo tape

15 Classic Big L freestyles

Jimmy Green's Roy Ayers mixtape

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

March 9th and all that

Here's the full version of Biggie's 'Real Niggaz Do Real Things' (aka "the one over all the west coast beats") which was all over the mixtapes back in '95 but for some reason rarely found in the full version you've got here. As you'd expect it appeared on a ton of bootleg 12"s but usually in parts 1, 2 and 3. All a bit strange. Anyway, this Crib Underground 12" has the best quality full length version that I'm aware of and it includes the DJ Jam interlude and everything...



His Bigness drops some classic verses over Deep Cover, G Thang, Murder Was The Case remix, Black Superman and Gin & Juice. He even shouts out Death Row at the end. Probably one of my favourite Biggie tracks.
Side note: I recently watched The People vs OJ Simpson and the use of Black Superman for Johnny Cochran to walk into the courtroom was fantastic.

Black Rob & Lil Vicious 'Rippin MCs' (1998)

Since it's inception, this blog has dropped more than it's fair share of rare/unreleased Black Rob tracks and here's another one. I can't tell you too much about it other than it's taken from a  DJ Avalon (no, me neither) mixtape called Laugh Now Cry Later. BR was on Bad Boy at this point but Whoa was still a good year away. You can file this one under random unexpected collaborations as he teams up with mid 90s one hit wonder Lil Vicious...



Sounds kind of like a freestyle but it had a title so they were obviously going somewhere with it. Big up Steve for sending me this.

This is only 2 minutes long so here's some other things you might want to check:

Ed Lover on The Combat Jack Show - this is brilliant. Ed's got stories for days. Well worrth a listen. CJ's interviews with Masta Ace and AZ are good too if you're a fan and have got the time.

DJ JS-1 - Sure Shot mix

Mr Thing's Pete Rock & CL Smooth at 25 mix

If you're into old school (late 80s/early 90s) WWF then go here 

DMX freestyles tape (1996)

It's easy to forget that in the late 90s DMX was one of the biggest artists on the planet. Admittedly alot of people weren't keen on him and Swizz Beatz's production wasn't for everyone, especially if you were bumping Shawn J Period and Hi Tek at the time. Dude is a more than competent rapper though so if the keyboards and barking put you off back in the day I'd still suggest giving this a try. I don't think this has been online before, and it finds the Darkman in a considerably less amped mode than he was known for. You'd expect a rapper on the come up in '96 to be rhyming off things like Shook Ones and Who Shot Ya but Earl goes with a less predictable selection of instrumentals. Omniscence's 'Touch Yall', LL's 'Hey Lover' and the 'Wu Wear' beat all get laced, plus there's 3 takes over 'If I Ruled The World'. They vary slightly so I left them all in. The tape itself is fully no frills. Literally just someone playing the beat and DMX rapping over it. No multitracking or added adlibs etc...

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I didn't have a cover or tracklist so I've just named the tracks after the instrumentals, apart from a few I couldn't recognise. Big up Grime & Lime for throwing this one my way. Go see him for mixtapes.

The Firm - La Familia (1996)

As you might already be aware, a recent collaborative effort on the Philaflava forum resulted in a reconstruction of The Firm album, re-imagining the track selection as it should've been. It's one of those releases thats generally considered a bit underwhelming, mostly due to it being less than the sum of its parts. The highs are high but the lows aren't really what the people involved should have put their names to in 1996. During the course of the discussion, the subject of 'La Familia' was raised. This was a song I'd kind of forgotten about since having it on a Future Flavas tape back in the day, but it turns out it's only official release was as a clean version on Foxy Brown's 'I'll Be' single, and Cormega's verse had been replaced by one from Nature after the group's line up changed. Save for a couple of mixtapes and poor quality youtube rips, the original was nowhere to be found. You can probably see where this post is going.
A quick check on my shelves turned up this bootleg 12" with the uncensored version featuring Cormega. So here it is. Shout out to DJ Filthy Rich for cleaning up the pops and crackles for me.



The Firm: How It Should've Been

The 12" is well worth picking up if you see it, as it also includes the original version of 'Benjamins' without Biggie and 'You'll See' (another promo only Bad Boy track). The Tracey Lee/Canibus/McGruff joint is also unreleased.

The LOX 'Kiss Of Death' (unreleased)

Inadvertantly came up on this the other day after adding it to a Discogs order without really knowing what it was. Turns out its not Kiss Of Death off the first Ruff Ryders album (which is what I was hoping for) or the track of the same name off the second Jadakiss album. What we have here is an apparently unreleased LOX track which I'm guessing is from sometime in the late 90s...


(for some reason the audiomack embed isn't showing up so go here if you can't see it)

I'm guessing its from that era mostly due to the design of the label which is similar to a few other unofficial released from that period. Also, the fact its under the name 'Goodfellaz' makes me think it might be something the group put out while they were still under contract with Bad Boy, during the well documented Let The Lox Go campaign when they trying to move over to Ruff Ryders. It's definitely the sort of grimey mixtape joint they'd have gone for when they were trying to get away from the whole shiny suit image. It sounds as though it might not have been mastered propely thats all part of the deal with these things.
If anyone has got any info on it drop knowledge in the comments. Also, if anyone can confirm that a 12" of Kiss Of Death from Ruff Ryders Vol 1 definitely exists that would be splendid. I've heard the instrumental at the beginning of this Cipha Sounds mix on Westwood so it must be out there in some format. The fact there's 2 songs (and an album, plus the track above) with the same name makes searching for it a bit awkward.

KRS ONE 'Outta Here' unreleased original version (1993)

I tend to assume that once some rap rarity has been uploaded to the net, everyone has heard it and saved it to their harddrive, but when I mentioned this version of Outta Here during a recent twitter convo, it turned out at least a handful of people - and so probably more in the wider world - had missed out when the tape rip of Westwood playing it was posted online a few years back (by Unkut if I remember right). This is basically the same track, with one of Primo's best beats in my opinion, until we get to 1.53 when Kris speaks on that infamous visit he paid Mr Magic...



We cant be sure what the exact reasons were for the lyrics being changed before the song was officially released. Maybe Jive didn't fancy Magic getting litigious over the coke head allegations or perhaps KRS just got cold feet and switched it up himself.
It begs the question of how many other tracks of this nature there sitting in the vaults? I've already covered Lil Kim's withdrawn 2Pac dis, and I recently saw an interview with Clark Kent speaking about a savage dis track Jay Z made (also about 2Pac). There's also the Swizz Beatz produced version of 'Ether' that Large Professor mentioned, and the numerous rumoured shelved/deleted shots between Kane and Rakim. All we have now is Drake vs Meek Mill.

its the uncensored version of the Firm Biz remix!

The Martorialist's recent playlist of AZ deep cuts inspired me to resurrect my search for the full, raw, uncut version of the excellent World Famous remix of The Firm's 'Firm Biz'. It's a track that I've seen mentioned in request threads and most wanted lists over the years but even in an era where pretty much every demo, alernate version and Austrian promo CD single has been uploaded, this has remained elusive. The clean version is a reasonably easy find - in the UK anyway -  as its included on the promo album sampler. In contrast, acquiring the dirty version was the result of finding a Japanese record store with some poor quality streaming audio samples of this bootleg 12", and then a seller in France who wasn't charging the earth for a copy (the extornionate shipping costs from the US to the UK are a whole 'nother topic though). This might only be a humble little Hip Hop blog based in the UK's stockbroker belt but not too many sites fucking with us when it comes to the hella rare unreleased 90s heat game...

If you're unfamiliar with the track, you need this in your life. It's one of those remixes that's essentially a completely different track rather than a remix. The chorus of the original remains intact (although it may have been resung) but the Teena Marie sample is dispensed with in favour of the awesome beats from the Malcolm McLaren classic. Half-A-Mil is drafted in to set things off with the opening verse and basically everything is lovely from there on in. The Firm album isn't actually that bad despite getting a bit of a bad press at the time, but this is better than anything on there, with the obvious exception of Phone Tap.

File this one alongside joints like '24 Hours To Live', 'Off The Books', OC's 'Dangerous' and such like, in terms of late 90s uptempo NYC rap bangers that straddled the thug/jiggy divide. Easier said than done in the era where it was hoodies and timbs vs shiny suits and god forbid anyone get in between the two. I still remember trying to find a copy of Clipse debut 12" 'The Funeral' and Uptown Records not knowing what it was ("bit underground for us mate") and Mr Bongo 2 minutes away not stocking it because "if you heard Funkmaster Flex play it we probably wont have it, mate". That's a whole 'nother topic though.

Tracey Lee, The Reepz, A+, Canibus & McGruff 'Universal MC' (1996)

With the impending house move ever nearing, the vinyl cull is under way. Whilst going through the shelves, I came across this bootleg that I picked up a few years ago on the strength of Biggie & The LOX's mixtape classic 'You'll See' (the original 12" being pretty scarce on these shores but I found it eventually). I overlooked this posse cut with Tracey Lee, A+, Canibus and McGruff at the time, but it's definitely worth copping if you see it for a decent price...

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I hit up Tracey Lee on twitter and he couldn't remember who did the beat but confirmed it was a promo only joint. As far as I can tell it only exists in official form on this Universal Records CD, so I'd say it qualifies as unreleased heat. Enjoy.