Last week the hip-hop world celebrated the life of Jay Dee aka J-Dilla. Both his birthday and date of death fell in the same week. I first heard his music in 1996 when he began working with A Tribe Called Quest on their fourth album Beats, Rhymes and Life. He had already been working with his group Slum Village in his hometown of Detroit, and apparently stepped to Q-Tip with a tape while Tribe was in town with Lollapalooza. From that point on, Jay Dee became the “producers producer”. Highly acclaimed he worked with the likes of Pharcyde, Busta Rhymes, De …read more

Beef is a pretty common thing in hip-hop, amongst the biggest are Biggie and 2Pac, MC Shan and KRS, Roxanne Shante and the Real Roxanne. Tonight I was reminded of a pretty down low beef that included Naughty By Nature and a lesser known Jersey cat named Tony D. When Naughty’s debut single OPP dropped in 1991, they blew up pretty fast, that jam was playing everywhere. It Probably took one day for Tony D to hear and and start laughing. See the thing is, Tony made the exact same beat two years prior called Adam’s Nightmare on Sure Shot …read more

Still cold?

Think back to A Long Hot Summer in 2004 and run out to grab this by Masta Ace. The highly acclaimed concept/ follow up album to 2001’s Disposable Arts. Pump this under your hat and instead of walking through a snow storm you’ll be following Ace and Fats Belvedere through Brooklyn in the heat.
Or you can stay in where it’s warm and buy it here.
image: amazon.com

I’ve got the leak off the The Damian Marley and Nas project here for you. From the upcoming Distant Relatives album the track is called Strong Will Continue, listen to it here. The official word on the leak from Dan Dalton of Red Light Management, Marley’s Manager.
“We are extremely happy with the response that we have been receiving from the leaked version of Strong Will Continue, while it is not the initial single we planned to release these things happen. The first track we really want everyone to sink their teeth into is ‘As We Enter.’ This is it, the ball …read more

Well then, a day has passed since I heard the Busta Rhymes version of Snoop Dogg’s single I Wanna Rock (which I am still bumping). The thing is, I came across another one featuring Jay-Z which is the official remix that will be on Snoop’s re-release album entitled More Malice.  Then, after that, I came across A TON of others. It appears many rappers have decided upon themselves to record unofficial tracks with the Doggfather (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  A quick internet search will find versions with Young Jeezy, Fat Joe, Raekwon, Lloyd Banks, Kardinal Offishall, Bow …read more

About a month ago I did an interview with a DJ/ Producer out of Toronto by the name of Lancecape. We talked about Scarborough, burgers, GTA talent and this dirty beat he made for Keith Murray and Canibus on The Undergods EP (check out the interview here). Anyway, if you read it you’ll know that Lancecape is keeping busy and personally I can’t wait to see what he comes out with next. He just hit me up with the lead single for his remix project Second The Best, due to release in mid February. The track title is Plan B “The 2K-TEN” …read more

Over 12 years have passed by since the Pharcyde dropped their debut and classic album Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. Unfortunately, after their sophomore effort things began to fall apart. Not even the J-Dilla production or Spike Jonze direction could keep them together. Fatlip left the group and we didn’t hear a thing from any them between 1995 and 2000.  Since then there have been reunions, solo projects and many collaborations. Today I bring you one of the harder to find gems, All I Want for Christmas, a 2007 Christmas joint featuring Fatlip, Slim Kid Tre and St. Imey of …read more

As I look back on 2009 and think about all the albums that dropped, I realized something unusual. Not only did a lot of my favorite rappers from the 90’s put out records, but they did it by teaming up with one another. Oh you slept on them? Wake up and check these:
Buckshot & KRS-One:  Survival Skills
Del & Tame One: Parallel Uni-Verses
Masta Ace & Ed OG: Arts & Entertainment
OC & AG: Oasis
Yes I’ll admit, some are better than others. Del and Tame One of Artifacts had the strongest effort, but I’d be lying if I said i wasn’t tripping every …read more

I’m coming at you from Hog Town so you know I’m repping Kardi any chance I get. Here’s the new joint from his up-coming album Mr. International. Blaow! Kardinal Offishall – We Gon’ Go Produced by Supa Dave West (De La Soul). Download it right here!
Crazy video is in the works at the moment so stay posted for that too.
image courtesy of: Lo Falcioni

To promote the upcoming album release of Snoop Dogg’s, Malice In Wonderland the label has put out a mixtape hosted by Dj Scream, Whoo Kid and Dj Skee. The tape features a few selected tracks from the D.O. double G himself along with appearances from Ice Cube, Nipsey Hussle, The Dream and Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant whaaaat!). The full album drops on December 8th and I’m definitely going to rush out and grab it. Check out the video for the albums first single titled Gangsta Luv featuring The Dream.