Rap Summary

 photo from @Represent_NYC_

Recent goodies courtesy of DJ people

Red Alert on Kiss FM, Oct '87 & Whizkid live in Peckham in '84, both courtesy of DJ MK who has been sharing some holy grail business on his Mixcloud recently

Jaguar Skills has dropped the Hip Hop Time Bombs for 1984 and 2011 (2003 comes out on Monday)

Nice mini-mix from the dons Its Overture

TDK presents Where Brooklyn At ?!?! The Biggie Fat Tape

Stetsasonic performing on WNYU, 1986 from DJ Andy Smith's collection

Wojavelli follows his Best Of Eightball mix with a Best Of C-Murder and Best Of BG

Run DMC on Mike Allen's Capital FM show, May '87 at Random Rap Radio

That should keep you going.

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"

All I Need (aka unreleased & unobtainable 90s heat)

The JS-1 mix that dropped today pre-empted a post I've been meaning to do for a while. With the advent of blogs, youtube, forums and Discogs it's been alot easier than it used to be to get hold of rare/unreleased music. However, there's still a handful of tracks that only seem to exist by way of tape rips, or with DJ tags on them. Here's the ones I'm looking for (ideally full versions in CDQ, but I'd settle for just better quality than what I've got)

Charlie 'C-Boogie' Brown 'Whatcha Gonna Do For Me' (1995)
This uses the same beat as Craig Mack's 'Makin Moves With Puff' which makes me wonder if thats why it never came out. I heard Westwood play it once. One of the good folk at the TROY forum hooked me u with this tape rip a few years ago. There's no mention of it online as far as I can tell (unless its actually called something else).

Dogg Pound 'Niggaz Dont Give A Fuck' remix (1993/94)
Extremely dope remix, heard once on Westwood's show and later resurfaced on Rare Dave's infamous mixtape. I'd guess sample problems might have got this one shelved. It would've sounded right at home on 'Doggystyle' or the 'Above The Rim' soundtrack though. UPDATE 26/07: turns out this version is actually pretty good quality. I forgot I had it and thought I was uploading the tape rip

Big Kap & Rev Run 'Yaknowhumsayin' (1999)
No idea what the correct title is but it sounds like it should've dropped on AV8 or Buds. Kap and Run do a call and response party joint over the same sample Jazzy Jeff used on Brand New Funk. Again, this was heard on Westwood. Once.

Freddie Foxx, Tragedy, Cool Whip, Raekwon & Havoc 'Lets Be Specific' (1996)
A bit of an anomally in this list as its available on the first Funkmaster Flex '60 Minutes Of Funk' mixtape, but I'm obviously after the full version. I'm reliably informed its on a Crib Underground 12", although unfortunately its not listed on Discogs.

So there it is. Any artists, label execs or people in the know that have more info on any of these or, better yet, can actually hook me up with a copy (MP3 or otherwise) get in touch!

NEW SOUL FOCUS RELEASE!

Its been a while since we dropped anything on the Soul Focus label but we're back! I actually posted a rough version of this in the early days of this blog but its since been mixed and mastered properly and just generally sounds a lot better...

Eric B & Rakim 'Let The Rhythm Hit Em' (Soul Focus remix)

Another Soul Focus remix! As with the 'Poppa Large' remix this is quite simple but very effective. We've put Eric B & Rakim's 'Let The Rhythm Hit Em' acapella over Run DMC's classic 'Beats To the Rhyme' instrumental with a few Apache and Chuck D samples chucked in for good measure.
This one's for the DJs and the B-Boys...

DOWNLOAD

"The turntables might wobble but they dont fall down..."

I'm not aware of any other mixes on the net by Jam Master Jay (RIP) so thought I'd get this blog started off with something original.

This is taken from Tim Westwood's Radio 1 show around the time Jason Nevin's house mix of 'Its Like That' was blowing up in Europe.

Stream & download at The Hip Hop Radio Archive

Strictly classics - EPMD, ATCQ, Eric B & Rakim, etc. Its cool to hear Jay cutting them all up and throwing in a few anecdotes here and there, such as the time he had the choice to sign Common or Onyx and went with Onyx.