Tuesday, February 27, 2007

O.C.U. - Penitentiary Bound E.P. (Vinyl Rip)


These guys have appeared on our blog a couple of times already with tracks from their 'Stronger Than The Mafia' album. That album is pretty def but at least in my opinion doesn't match their debut E.P. they dropped on cassette and vinyl back in about 1990. There's no year on the cover or record but their album came out in '91. O.C.U. (Organized Crime Unit) are an underground group from South Chicago that consists of Homicidal MC, Impact, Murder 1, Sudden Death and DJ Tragic. The E.P. is on Kapone Records and is a must if your into underground 90's gangsta hip hop. The track 'Cocaine' reminds me of Mix-A-Lots 'Im Your New God' that came out a year later on 'Mack Daddy'. I hope you guys love this shit as much as I do.

MP3's:
O.C.U. - Penitentiary Bound
O.C.U. - Don't Give A Bitch An Inch
O.C.U. - Murder In The 1st Degree
O.C.U. - Cocaine
>>DOWNLOAD<<

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Conseps & Patti - The Ice Breaker



...:::Spirit Kitchen Recordings Presents:::...
CONSEPS & PATTI
THE ICE BREAKER
...:::Mixed By DJ Kansel:::...

....:::Tracklisting:::...
1:The Ice Breaker
2: Force The Content
3. Resident Records Exclusive
4: Take Caution
5: Just Visiting
6: Positively Negative
7: Brain Dump (Original)
8: Office Space
9: The Insult
10: Suss Character (Original)
11: Headshots
12: B Sharp Records Exclusive
13: No Edicate
14: Clinic 116 Exclusive
15: Moeshzilla & King Kongseps
16: Bonus Scratch Mix


>> DOWNLOAD <<

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Whatchya Sippin On??



Whether it be a 40 of Old English, a styrofoam cup of lean, a swig of hennessy or a sip of crunk juice - rappers have been rhyming about sipping liquid since the early stages of hip hop's creation. Artists such as Tha Alkaholiks and Drank-A-Lot of The Luniz emerged over time fully embracing the art of drinking up big, both in their names and in their music. Tha Liks debut album, '21 & Over' not only pictured the trio reaching to a fridge packed with 40's on the cover, but also played host to tracks such as 'Only When I'm Drunk' and 'Last Call'.

Fellow Likwit Crew member and mainstay of the Compton rap scene King Tee recorded the short yet funky DJ Pooh produced 'King Tee's Beer Stand' which featured Ice Cube and was recorded as a marketing jingle for the St. Ides Malt Liquor company for a mixtape but was soon withdrawn due to controversy, instead it found its way on King Tee's 1993 'Tha Triflin Album' release. St Ide's also pursued promotion of their product through various other rappers including the likes of Snoop, The Geto Boys, Nate Dogg, EPMD and the Wu Tang Clan who all featured on various commercials for the company.


Various 40 ounce bottles of brew have made their way on to countless hip hop album covers over the years, for example on Jay Tee's (CEO of 40oz Records) 'So Cold' album, Street Military's 'Next Episode' which also has a disc resembling a 40oz label, the aforementioned Alkaholiks covers, the insert of Sir Mix-A-Lot's 'Mack Daddy', Duce Duce's 'A Sip Of The Duce' and quite possibly the most well known example, Eazy E's classic 'It's On' EP, which pictures the late Compton legend pouring out some liquor while standing up against a brick wall to resemble the death of Dre's career. Subsequently, Eazy E's 1996 posthumous release 'Str8 Off Tha Streetz of Muthaphuckin Compton' featured the 40 Oz. themed 'Sippin On A 40' featuring BG Knoccout and Dre'sta.


Aside from the malt liquor variety of drinking tracks there is one of the Vallejo hip hop scene's most celebrated icons, E-40 from The Click, who named himself after his favourite poison. 40 Water also gives various mentions of his love drank in numerous tracks, not in the least 'Carlos Rossi', a dedication to that top of the line wine off of his 'Federal' album. Cypress Hill's 'Tequila Sunrise' off of their 'IV' release is another track that comes to mind when thinking about drink tracks, the track features Barron Ricks and the single's cover is a picture of a custom made Cypress Hill bottle of tequila. The Coup I'm not even going to bother trying to list all the Chicano rappers and their lines about Corona's, but needless to say there's alot of them.

The promo campaign for Esham's 2003 album 'Repentance' consisted of various iconic alcohol labels (Corona, Jack Daniels, Budweiser etc) customized with his album info on it, with the actual album cover following suit. In terms of Australian hip hop there have been a fair few drinking tracks, mostly yobbo raps about drinking VB's etc, but the one to stand out of the crowd for me is Trials' 'Bottleshop', a remix of 50 Cent's 'Candy Shop' that features on a couple of the BattleHoggs mixes. Back to the US and you have Kansas City's Tech N9ne is known for going on about his love for Caribou Lou, even dedicating a whole track to it on his latest album 'Everready: The Religion', really there are just far too many examples to mention but you get the point. You also have the style of tracks that are just a generally about drinking, and not a beverage in particular, for example C Bo's 'Liquor Sto' off of his 'Gas Chamber' album. Also worth mentioning is the age old tradition of pourin' out some liquor for those who've passed on, not merely just a rap thing but still another affiliation with alcohol and hip hop.

Aside from alcohol you have rappers like Lil Jon brining out their own energy drink, in his case 'Crunk Juice', Nelly has his 'Pimp Juice', Esham and co rapping about chugging down embalming fluid and then you have ICP, who have proudly promoted Faygo soda pop throughout their careers, a cost-efficient soft drink that originated in Detroit. Sprite has used hip hop as a tool to promote its product down the track, with the likes of Crazy Legs, Kid Capri & Afrika Bambaataa (see below for full list) promoting the Coca-Cola company drink. Moving the attention to the southern states of America and you have lean, made famous by people like DJ Screw, Three Six Mafia, UGK, Paul Wall, which is a concoction of cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine that is mixed with one of a number of other liquids to create a slowed down sensation for the consumer. The slow motion effects caused by the purple drank spawned the Screwed-&-Chopped phenomenon that was created by the late DJ Screw who would stop playing his normal DJ set at 3am and switch to the slowed down set which is where the name came from. Although the details of DJ Screws death are still a bit sketchy it's believed he O.D.'d on lean. His legacy keeps growing through his crew the S.U.C. (Screwed Up Click) and many other DJ's and producers who have made millions of dollars off of Screw idea and keep bringing out 'Screwed & Chopped' versions of most albums that are coming out of the south, even alot of the classics have been re-released Screwed-&-Chopped, my knowledge of sizzurp is minimal so I'll just leave it there.

So, to wrap this post up, you can see (and would of already been well aware) that drinks have got a fair share of representation in hip hop, especially when it comes to alcohol. I know that what I've mentioned is really only the tip of the iceberg, so feel free to let me know any of the many things I left out. Below are a few tracks about alcohol for your listening pleasure, enjoy.


MP3's:
E 40 - Carlos Rossi
Eazy E ft BG Knoccout & Dre'sta - Sippin On A 40
The Alkaholiks - Only When I'm Drunk
King Tee ft Ice Cube - King Tee's Beer Stand
Tech N9ne - Caribou Lou
>> DOWNLOAD <<

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Check Out The Flavour (Vinyl Rips)


If only there were more semi-bootleg companies like the Dutch company 'Rapture' that released this gem. It's filled with 20 gangsta tracks all with 'Ichiban' distribution. It features groups like Insane Poetry, DCP, Success N Effect, Black Jack, Huggy, Criminal Nation, Madrok, MC Rod, Detroits Most Wanted, 44 Max, Father Dom, Kilo as well as The Hard Boys, Gangsta Pat and Capital Punishment which are the three MP3's I put up for download. If there are any wax fiends checking this out into the gangsta shit, this record is a must as I'm sure you'd know how hard it is to find some of these tracks on vinyl.



MP3's:

The Hard Boys - Armed Robbery
Gangsta Pat - My Neighbourhood
Capital Punishment - Murder (STRING MIX)
>>DOWNLOAD<<

KRS ONE (1988)


Finally got around to uploading some footage to youtube, fuck I didn't think it was gonna take 5 hours. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what show this was taped from as I got a dub of it but the documentary it's from starts with this footage of KRS One from his BDP days in '88 and also features a short segment about people against the making of 'Colors', some footage of Kool Herc, Bambataa, some graf bits and pieces amongst a heap of other oldschool footage from 1988. I'm not sure how often I wanna be uploading shit to youtube because of the time factor but we'll try and put some more up now and then. Hope you enjoy the few minutes of KRS.



Wednesday, February 14, 2007

R.I.P. Nini X

Rest In Peace:
Nini X
(A.K.A. Nina Ross/Bloody Mary)



Real Name: Unknown
Hailing From: Steubenville, OH / Los Angeles, CA
Date Of Birth: Unknown
Date Of Death: 19 November 2006
Cause Of Death: Nini X was riding her motorbike and unintenionally became involved in somebody elses high speed chase. Nini's bike was hit by an Escalade trying to outrun the police, and as a result she was placed into a braindead state and subsequently her life support was pulled.

Nini X released a solo album titled 'She's Dangerous' in 1994 and she was also a part of the 'Bloods & Crips' releases, also featuring on Tweedy Bird Loc's work. Nini also appeared on Assassin's 'Hitworks Vol 1' under the alias Nina Ross/Bloody Mary.

Thanks to 7-11 for bringing this tragedy to our attention, for more info you can check out Assassin's post on Street Hop and Nini X's myspace page.



MP3's:
Tweedy Bird Loc ft Nini X - A Hoe Is A Bitch
Bloody Mary AKA Nina Ross - Nine Double M.M. / 9MM
>> DOWNLOAD <<


Saturday, February 10, 2007

Hard To Obtain Vol 4 (Vinyl Rips)

Although I grew up on alot of the typical east coast stuff like Run DMC, Public Enemy, Moe Dee, Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Donald D, Masta Ace, Schoolly, Eric B & Rakim etc etc, over the 90's when most people went crazy over Premiere production and all the "classics", I was mainly listening to west and south beats and I know most hip hop heads will disagree with me, alot of those head nodding east beats from the mid 90's put me to sleep. I still love all those old school artists I grew up on, some 90's artists and alot of the new stuff coming out now like Q Strange and Thirstin Howl the 3rd but just can't seem to get anything out of alot of the stuff most people love. Anyway, seems not to much east stuff gets put on here I have decided to chuck up a couple of rips from this compilation on 'Vibe' Records called 'Hard To Obtain Vol 4' that I picked up on wax a while back.

I have no idea what so ever if these tracks are "Hard To Obtain", or if every blog and site have these for download all the time? I'll be curious to know though if anyone wants to enlighten me.



MP3's:
Tragedy, King Tee, Grand Puba, Def Jef, Chubb Rock - Keep Control
Red Hot Lover Tone ft Notorious BIG, Pharoah Monch, MOP - This Is For My Niggaz
Lord Finesse ft Big L - Yes You May (REMIX)
>>DOWNLOAD<<

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

For Your Bitch.... With Love


With Valentines Day only days away, we thought we'd put up a few romantic tracks for you to download, burn and put on when you and your special lady are alone on the 14th. Nothing will get your bitch in the mood like a Q Strange cut. No thanks needed guys..... we do what we can.

MP3's:
Q Strange - Smack That Hoe
Poison Clan - The Bitch That I Hate
Esham - Ex-Girlfriend
Insane Poetry - Til Death Do Us Part
Bushwick Bill - Dirty Bitch
>> DOWNLOAD <<

Saturday, February 03, 2007

MC Mr Tink - Quest For Survival (Vinyl Rip)

I have absolutely no doubt that you can't judge the quality of an album by it's cover alone but when your digging through crates at a record store you can sort of tell what style of hip hop something is by the cover. For instance, if there is a couple of guys on the cover holding gats and the track listing looks pretty gangsta you don't have to be a genius to work out that there is a large body count tally over the dozen tracks. This doesn't mean it's gonna be a quality album but fuck it, I love that gangsta shit and will definately be trying it out. That's exactly what happened a couple of years ago when I was sussing ebay out for a rare record and came accross this interesting cover......

I bookmarked it and waited until the last second to put in my sniper bid and won the auction for a sweet fuck all. I had no idea what to expect from this album but when I finally got it and put it on it was definately worth tripple what I paid. I have never heard this guy mentioned anywhere before or after I grabbed it and I know absolutely nothing about MC Mr Tink except he's from Compton and apparently he's a part of the "Dirt Clan", whoever the fuck they are?



MC Mr Tink Vinyl Rip MP3's:
Victim Of The System
Rhymes Over Flowin'
Ball Yo Ass To The Grave
>>DOWNLOAD<<