Nas & Akinyele freestyle (1991)

Don't think this has been online before, but its something I've had for a while and never got around to posting. Nas and Akinyele trading rhymes in what I guess would be 1991 as it's similar to the lunchroom freestyles that leaked a few year ago. This session sounds like it's from a radio show but I have no idea which one.

I tried to embed the Audiomack player but it kept bringing up a Guru freestyle. Fuck knows what's going on there. It's on my Audiomack page either way.

Radio 1 Rap Show 1st anniversary with Funk Flex, Sadat X & Akinyele (1996)

This was a bit of a big deal at the time. Previously the Rap Exchange shows had given us 2 hours a month of Flex's show in NYC but this time he'd come to the UK to (relentlessly) promote his first 60 Minutes Of Funk mixtape and play at Club UN for the 1st anniversary of Tim's Radio 1 show, which started in December 94. What we got was two 3 hour shows of Flex mixing interspersed with Akinyele and Sadat X freestyles as they'd accompanied him on the trip, having featured on the mixtape's lead single Loud Hangover. I've posted some bits of these recordings years ago but thought I'd better throw the whole 6 hours up before the blog is done.



I remember being at home with a really shitty cold listening to this live on both nights (often I'd record and listen back the next day) and I'm pretty sure this was the first time I heard California Love and Woo Hah. I also wrote down the entire tracklist at the time but can't quite bring myself to type it up yet.Suffice to say that with that much time to do his thing, Flex runs through pretty much everything. Alongside the new music there's golden era classics, breakbeats and some R&B.

Don't Sleep #15 Akinyele 'Freaky' (1996)

Banger. This is a record that I'd only heard on Stretch Armstrong and DJ Ev's excellent 'Back To Back' mixtape, and a few times on Stretch's radio shows. It was after posting one of those shows that someone in the comment section informed me that I could find it on the 2004 album 'Live At The Barbeque' which compiled a bunch of unreleased and rare Ak tracks. Shout out to Mighty Mi for that putting that together.
Anyway, Freaky is definitely something that would've shifted decent units had it dropped in a 12" back in the day. I haven't been able to find out much about the other rapper on the track, who I think is called J Mo (or Jay Mo/Jay Moe) as there's a couple of rappers with that name and it looks like they're based in the Bay Area rather than Queens. [Updated] It's CJ Moore.
Akinyele has a bit of a strange time with rap fans, in that 90s heads and boom bap purists fawn over his debut album and then mostly ignore anything he released after that. Maybe all the sex chat made them uncomfortable or something. This track also proved to be a source of inspiration for Nas, who I assume thought that as barely anyone had heard it he would be safe to jack Ak's punchline about not even picking the cotton out of asprin bottles for his verse on 'Why You Hate The Game' in 2007. Sneaky.

Audiomack seem to have gone corporate and bitched out on the download feature so here's a link if you want the MP3.

If you like this you should visit/revisit The Martorialist's playlist of Akinyele deep cuts. The Robbery Song in particular has been in regular rotation round here recently.

Doo Wop, Akinyele, Fat Joe, Lord Tariq & Pretty Boy Floyd 'Gotta Go Down' (1995)

OK, so I didn't just drop a 4 figure sum on the Hip Hop collector's Holy Grail, but £3 did just get me a bootleg 12" that includes the b-side which did the rounds on the mixtapes back in the day...

Akinyele & Sadat X freestyle (1996)

Here's another Akinyele & Sadat X freestyle from their appearance alongside Funkmaster Flex on Westwood's Radio 1 Rap Show back in January 96.
The pair go off over LL's 'I Shot Ya' instrumental...

DOWNLOAD HERE

If you missed it, I posted another Ak & Sadat freestyle from this show here

I'll be posting another mix from Funk Flex on these shows soon.

Akinyele & Sadat X live on Westwood (Jan 96)

By popular demand, here is the Akinyele and Sadat X freestyle they dropped when they were guests on Westwood’s show in January 1996.
As it was the first anniversary of the Radio 1 Rap Show, Funkmaster Flex came over to headline the celebration party at The Temple in Tottenham (a regular Westwood spot). Flex bought over Sadat and Akinyele who featured on his ‘Loud Hangover’ 12” which was the lead single off his first legal mixtape and DJ’d on Westwood’s Friday and Saturday night shows.
I remember being ill that weekend and staying in to tape it. I’ve still got all four 90 minute tapes so I might post those up at some point.

DOWNLOAD AKINYELE & SADAT X FREESTYLE