Original Beats from Real Live MC's

This is one of the handful of songs that got me into hip hop. I was not much older than the kids in the video when I first heard this song. It brings me back to a very difficult time in my life, but listening to this particular song always made it seem better. Concrete Schoolyard epitomized hip hop for me when I was younger and it is still near the top of my list.

VA stand up

Kenn Starr - Middle Fingaz

Been a lot of Virginia artists gettin a lot of play on the ipod lately. This was also the first M=phases beat I heard and I was sold. There will definitely be more southern east coast on the blog in the coming days.

Let Me Tell You

Over the past seven months I have been to six different countries. I have seen the Colosseum in Rome along with the whores and fires on the streets of Naples. I have explored Prague with a nice South Korean girl named Su-Yung and shot an AK-47 with a man who puts Lee Harvey Oswald to shame. I have smoked the finest shisha and got the most horrendous hemorrhoids from a delicious lamb intestine sandwich on the streets of Istanbul. And now I sit in my friend's apartment outside of Haifa, Israel after a day of playing with monkeys and eating the best humus in Israel. The humus was actually mediocre to put it nicely, but I have been a lot of places.

This is one of my favorite songs off Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's third album. The beat is quite nice and something you would play on a nice summer's day or looking out of an airplane window. Notice the clip from James Brown's "The Payback" that Pete Rock introduces the song with. Nicely done Pete Rock.

drivin music

it's funny how money change ya situation

i keep tight family like the kennedy's

The Dating Game

I have been in Barcelona going on seven months and during that time I have tried to keep up on current events as much as possible. I read the LA Times almost daily because I like to stay informed, and probably more than anything else, some juicy shit tends to go down in Los Angeles. Yes, this is a Hip Hop blog, but every once in a while something catches your eye like my main man Rodney Alcala.

Alcala was recently convicted of murdering five women in the 1970's. Big whoop right? What makes this nut job stand out more than any other serial killer you would see profiled on Court TV late at night while you're high and eating a fat bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats? Well before Alcala was convicted of murdering five women, he was known as bachelor #1 on the Dating Game. Naturally, I had to see this maniacal killer lay some game on some poor, unsuspecting dumb bimbo. The five minute clip below is horrifying and quite funny at the same time.

Not knowing any of the contestants names, you think you could pick the psychopath right away. Oh how wrong you are. All three of them look like they're capable of bludgeoning a 12 year old's skull in between going to the gym and returning video tapes. This might be accentuated by the not so subtle vibes that Ms. Bradshaw gives off. Everthing about Cheryl just screams "Kill Me! Kill Me!" And by the end of the clip it takes a lot of restraint not to comply to her wishes.

After two minutes you can start whittling down the psychopaths. The stubby contestant in the middle seems harmless enough and that leaves us with bachelors one and three. Bachelor number three seems like he could be quite familiar with abducting a child and dumping them in a marsh somewhere judging by his ultra creepy "hello." But there are some tell tale signs that bachelor number one is just licking his lips at the prospect of chopping up Cheryl and pouring sulfuric acid down her throat after the tennis lessons. The first give away is his infatuation with the night. "Nighttime is when it really gets good." I bet Rodney, you creepy sadistic fuck. Then watch closely at the 4:44 mark when Rodney gives his dirty old man impression. That about seals the deal. Of course Rodney wins and I don't think it's because Cheryl likes bananas. Rodney just wants it more. Not unlike Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. Never underestimate killer instinct. By all accounts Cheryl is still alive and kicking, a mystery no doubt. Now, if you feel like you need to cleanse your pallet check out Arnold Schwarzenegger on The Dating Game.

Rainy Monday...

Dres - You're so Vain


I've had this song on my computer for a couple of years now and never really listened to it until recently. I don't think I would have appreciated it back when I first got the album though.

I think pretty much everyone can relate to this song, especially the first verse...

If I never see you again, yo, I'll remember you
I'll remember your smile and all the things that it could do
I remember your touch that could erase all of time
And hold on to memories until I lose all my mind
If we never kiss again I'll remember your toes
Held you in the air every time your eyes closed
It's like I dwell upon nights until I lose all energy
Find it hard to find it factual, the memories
Of one two shared, it was me who was scared
Now it's like we never met and yo, I find it so weird
To be without you, you who told me all time we'd share
Without you, me the only reason that you're not here
Sometimes I find it hard to walk, see you left me no crutch
Never knew love could ever hurt me so fucking much
Friends tell me move on I tell them that I can't forget her
And on the low, I've got to do my next love better

put the ashes on the speaker if they wasn't buried

been out for too long. spring break is over and it's back to full time school and staying up on this blog.

anyway, papoose is one of the few dudes consistently putting out good music that doesn't all sound the same. and it doesn't hurt that he chose to reuse a beat of this caliber

happy monday

Mr. Cheese

So the day has finally come. Method Man is preforming in Barcelona tonight at the three story cigarette that is Razzmatazz. If the night goes as planned he chooses me out of the crowd to go backstage, we share a Dutch Master, and then he offers me an internship. The more likely scenario is that I will get kicked in the face by one of his many stage dives. Regardless I am looking forward to it.

Most people know Method Man as one of the original nine members of Wu-tang Clan, but he has compiled a fairly impressive acting career. Especially compared to other rappers. He has never jumped from skyscraper to skyscraper on a four wheeler like DMX in Cradle 2 the Grave or street raced the dream team of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious, but he has managed to hold his own. Meth played Prop Joe's nephew, Cheese, on HBO's The Wire. In the scene below Cheese is a little out of his league when he encounters Brother Mouzone, who has more bodies on him than chinese cemetery. We will try to bring you the scene when DMX jumps over Figueroa in a four wheeler as soon as possible.

Wendy's Killed Auto-Tune

Every so often we're going to try to bring you tracks that artists have sampled. For the first edition we have elected French film composers Janko Nilovic's and David Sarky's, "In the Space." No I.D. sampled the track for Jay-Z's D.O.A (Death of Auto-tune). The song won Jay-Z a grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance. Jay apparently got inspiration for the song by seeing a Wendy's commercial that used auto-tune. Auto-tune is horrendous no doubt, but i've turned my focus and energy into trying to never hear the Black Eyed Pea's, "I Gotta Feeling" ever again. The song is like the Bubonic Plague and it needs to be eradicated from every speaker. The Bubonic Plague hit Barcelona particularly hard.

$40 Dollars Worth of Brown Sugar

Rappers are getting dumber by the day. One rapper gets out of prison, three go in to take his place. I guess the biggest news is Lil Wayne going to prison this past week. But not to be outdone DMX and D'angelo have both gotten arrested this week. Two weeks ago I heard DMX was giving a benefit concert for some church and now he's going back to prison for having been found with cocaine. D'angelo's case is just kind of depressing. Not too long ago he was singing naked in videos looking like he was sculpted by Hasbro, now dude gets pinched offering $40 to a cop for some of that oral copulation. Man was driving with $12,000 on him. Why don't you just buy three of those high class ho's, the ones that are super model gorgeous with Master Degrees. Here are some tunes that sound best when playing basketball in Pelican Bay or watching a "Lock Up" marathon on MSNBC.

"tell y'all fools it's hella cool how ladies from cali talk..."

Long ago around the beginning of the new millennium, I walked into a Sports Authority and stole the first skate video I ever saw, Logic #6. I took it out of the case and shoved it in the front of my pants, and I almost shit myself thinking of what would happen if an employee saw me slip that VHS tape into my trousers, but I made it out safe. I don't steal anymore and I don't condone it but I'd be lying if I said I regret getting the five-finger discount on this gem.

The first part I really LOVED was the one featured below, an OG San Fran local named Nikhil Thayer. Two things jumped out at me about this part. First of all, the skating was amazing, and second, the song sent chills up my spine like I just had a brush with death.

The long term effects of viewing this as a young lad were:

1. It planted the seed that would eventually blossom into my two year stay in San Francisco and...

2. This song has received continuous play over the past decade; in the shower, in the car, while skating, in class, you name it. I even sang along during sex once.

Anyway, here is Nikhil Thayer's part below, and below that is just the song by itself if you aren't a fan of skateboarding.


Logic 6 - Nikhil Thayer


MF Doom - Doomsday

Chicken Noodle Soup for Guru

Keith Elam, better known as Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal (Guru) burst onto the scene as one half of the group Gangstarr with DJ Premier, and released they're first album No More Mr. Nice Guy in 1989. Guru has always been known as an insightful MC that could give you a better tongue lashing than your mother while at the same time imparting knowledge on you. He suffered from a heart attack on February 28, 2010. He had surgery and was apparently in a coma. He has since awoken from his coma and is recovering. In light of this we have composed a ten track helping of lyrical chicken noodle soup to aide him in his recovery.


10. One of my favorite tracks from Guru as of late. This one's off a Gangstarr Rarities CD I came upon. To sum it up Guru's reminding MC's they're sweet like fructose and he got no serial numbers on his toast. I just rhymed.


9. Guru - Take Cover
First heard this track in Shorty's GUILTY video. So, as usual, got another great song from a skatevideo.

"The one part, that y'all bitches missed/ is how a hardcore thug could switch up and slit his wrists"


8. Ex girl to the next girl, yea easier said than done. While I have never had a gold diggin' chick, the video does remind me of the times I stand with thirty heads on a fire escape in Brooklyn and tell them of my girl troubles while they all bob their heads.


7. Choice of Weapons
"The game is money, but what about inner-wealth?
the mental, the spiritual, and physical health"


6. One of my favorite Gangstarr tracks of all time. I don't particularly care for the weird futuristic video, but the song is still great. The man is 44 years old and still tours. I saw him in Barcelona in November and when he played this the crowd went nuts.


5. Guru - the Medicine
Red eyes, I got red eyessssss


4. This song runs deep. "Actions have reactions, don't be quick to judge, you may not know the hardships people don't speak of."


3. Gangstarr - The Militia (Pete Rock Remix)
This choice comes from the beat more than Guru's rhymes, but goddammit this song is perfect for every occasion you can possibly think of.


2. This is the track that turned me onto Gangstarr. I remember listening to this in a taxi when I was really young, just listening to the story Guru was reciting, and thinking to myself, "Damn, this is some ice cold shit."


1. GangStarr - Just to Get a Rep
This song was on Thrasher: Skate and Destroy and I think I've listened to it a couple hundred, if not thousands of times. The message in the song is right on and the beat gets my head rockin

Get Well Guru! This world still needs you!

Check the Batter... Ill Biskits

In many ways you could call Ill Biskits the Len Bias of Hip Hop. The famed Terrapin basketball star was drafted second by the Boston Celtics in the 1986 NBA Draft, only to drop dead two days later from a cocaine overdose. They had the same promise and potential of Bias, and like Bias their career was cut short before it even started. But it wasn’t a cocaine induced seizure that sent Ill Biskits career down the drain, rather some scrotal wart big wig at Atlantic Records.
In 1996 Ill Biskits were slated to release their first album, Chronicle of Two Losers: First Edition, until Atlantic Records decided to shelve the record the night before it was supposed to be released. Atlantic’s decision not to release the record is a mystery and it goes up there with Stonehenge. Thankfully for the rest of us, the bright people at Khari Entertainment released the album in 2007. For anyone who just happened to stumble upon the album, not knowing anything about the group like myself, it was like stepping into a DeLorean with Doc Brown and going back in time.



The 21 track album knocks you upside the head and brings you back to a better time in Hip Hop when people didn’t purchase ringtones and Notorious B.I.G. was certified as the best rapper alive. As soon as I popped in the album, it instantly reminded me of Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s, The Main Ingredient, from the mellowed out almost underwater like beats to the clean delivery and message of MC’s Deeda and Kleph. Coming out of the unlikely locale of Petersburg, Virginia, the duo have a unique rhyme style. They rarely curse, and for anyone who’s tried rhyming, take fuck, shit, and nigga out of your vocabulary, and it becomes increasingly more difficult.



Unlike the most successful rap duo out of Virginia, The Clipse, Ill Biskits rapped about the simpler things in life, something the average man can relate to. Toiling through menial jobs, chasing girls, and the all time favorite, smoking blunts with the crew. Admittedly I’m a Clipse fan, but I struggle identifying with them. I’ve never fucked up my mothers Pyrex pots cooking crack, or had to pick between my Ferrari F430 in indigo blue or burgundy, or go through the predicament of deciding which top tier bitch I want to bring down to the Bahamas this weekend. I have however had my fair share of shitty low paying jobs, chased countless women to no avail, and smoked the occasional blunt with the crew.

Bias was drafted by the defending NBA Champs and going to play alongside two of the greatest players at their respective positions, Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. Ill Biskits were entering the rap game with the same kind of good fortune, featuring production from two heavyweights behind the boards, Lord Finesse and Buckwild. Lord Finesse is a legendary producer who’s not too shabby on the mic either. He’s produced for Notorius B.I.G., much of Big L’s debut album, and even Dr. Dre. Not to mention, he formed rap’s first super group, The Diggin’ In The Crates Crew (D.I.T.C). Hip Hop’s version of the Traveling Wilbury’s. Buckwild was no slouch when it came to laying down tracks. Also part of the D.I.T.C., Buckwild produced much of O.C.’s debut album, Word…Life, AZ’s critically acclaimed single, “Ho Happy Jackie”, and perhaps his most famous work was for Black Rob’s hit, “Whoa.”



Ill Biskits path to rap stardom was almost as guaranteed as Bruce Willis saying, “Yippie-ki-yay Motherfucker!” while killing another East German. But listening to their album today is kind of sad. Many of their songs revolve around poverty, struggling and overcoming those hardships. Through the speakers their voices convey an almost triumphant, “We made it” tone, but as a listener you’re almost forced to grimace and shake your head. While Atlantic Records may have swept their career under the rug, I hope Ill Biskits are finally enjoying some royalties off their decade old debut album.

i'm down to earth and i'm close to ground

50 degrees outside right now, gettin hyped for spring time and this song has always been a summertime blunt cruise classic. definitely an outdoor tune.

'Nuff Said

If you're part of the camp of ignoramuses that believe Hip Hop is dead, I suggest you hold your tongue if you find yourself in the presence of Guilty Simpson. The Stone's Throw signed MC out of Detroit can seriously rhyme. Guilty Simpson and super producer Madlib (Otis Jackson) are releasing a joint project, OJ Simpson, dropping May 18. Some of the rumored tracks are "White Bronco, So fast, So Smooth", "Glove Don't Fit, Must Acquit", and "R.I.P. Johnny C...I Owe You." Needless to say I'm looking forward to it.

...as long as there's that *tick tick* followed by that *bump*

Classic Outkast joint. For some reason this song seems to get looked over by a lot of people, but once they hear it once in the car, it quickly becomes a favorite.

To All My Butter Pecan Ricans

In anticipation for Ghost, Rae, and Meth's upcoming album, Wu Massacre, we're going back to '94 to bring you this classic cut. Between the honeys decked out in chocolate deluxe and caramel sundae shirts and Method Man on top of an ice cream truck swinging a cane where can you go wrong? Umm... how bout the girl Ghostface talking to. This leads me to believe Ghost was completely shithoused or that's the directors sister. There's 600 people in the video, and that's the video vixen you chose? I'm not calling her as ugly as the kid in Kazam, but come on you're Ghost Face Killah!

give credit where credit is due...