THERE’S MUSIC ALL AROUND ME, CRAZY MUSIC

This one is for my girl NativeSoul, who was looking online for the right version of King Pleasure‘s “I’m In The Mood For Love” but wasn’t getting lucky. Well, finding your way to THAT REAL SCHITT was the thing to do- as DMC might say, your dreams have been fulfilled. For those who don’t know, this particular version of the song was the late WBLS radio personality “Chief Rocker” Frankie Crocker‘s theme song which he ended his show with every day. So if you were a person of color who grew up in the NYC area back in the 70’s and 80’s like me then you pretty much HAD to know this schitt. It’s an example of an old musical genre known as vocalese, which is very interesting- I’m not going to go into detail about the history of vocalese here, but I suggest that you hit up Google for more info on it. Anyway, like NativeSoul I needed to have this in in my catalog and looked around online a couple of years ago, at first having no luck just like her but after applying my super digger skills to the cyber world I found that schitt. F**kin’ viola! So NativeSoul, I hope you check back to THAT REAL SCHITT since you neglected to give me your email addy. James Moody, you can come on in, man, and you can blow now if you want to- we’re through.

KING PLEASURE – I’m In The Mood For Love (The Frankie Crocker Version)

HIP HOP LESSONS 2007 PT. 2: THE XMAS MIRACLE EDITION

The THANKSTAKING DAY Hip Hop Lessons extravaganza last month was such a smash success that I had to give it to ya one more time. I’m just so pleased that here it is, just a few days away from 2008 and there are STILL a lot of cats, young and old, who care about the roots of Hip Hop music and want to learn or just hear more. We do this to pay homage to not only what was done in the past but also what is being done today and what will be done in the future (Hip Hop is NOT dead), and remember that there could be no now and tomorrow without yesterday. It’s a celebration, snitches!

COLD CRUSH 4 – T-Connection 1979 RE-UPPED

This is an early Cold Crush tape with the brothers doing a lot of freestyling and some different routines that aren’t the same as the ones they did on almost every one of their tapes from later in the 80’s.

WHIPPER WHIP DOTA ROCK and EASY AD – freestyling live at South Bronx High School, 1980 RE-UPPED
This short clip is great to me because the mc’s are rhyming to the Norma Jean “High Society” record, which I never heard anybody rhyme to before and it sounds fr-fr-FRESH.

WORLD FAMOUS SUPREME TEAM featuring DR. ROCK & THE FORCE MC’s, June 1982 RE-UPPED
More def schitt from Se’ Devine The Mastermind and Just Allah The Superstar– for this show Staten Island’s Force MCs came through to bless the mic with their harmonic rap schitt. Be sure to check the callers, too… the people calling into the show were one of the best things about it IMO.

BOOGIE BOYS, BUSY BEE STARSKI & DJ AJ, 1981 RE-UPPED – The Boogie Boys, best known for their 80’s records like “Rappin’ Ain’t No Thing” and “A Fly Girl”, are a crew that you don’t hear a lot on the old live tapes (well I haven’t heard many of their tapes, anyway) but they definitely rock it well. Along with the Chief Rocker they get real busy on this one

BIZ MARKIE, BIG DADDY KANE & TJ SWANN at the Masonic Temple in Spring Valley NY, 1986 RE-UPPED –
This clip has already been circulating around the ‘net so you may already have it, but if not you certainly need it. Biz & Kane do a pretty good take off on Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick‘s routines and definitely rock the house for the jazzy young lay-tees.

LISA LEE, RAHIEM & POW WOW at an outdoor jam, 1979 (plus some FUNKY 4 as an extra bonus) RE-UPPED –
It’s always great to hear Hip Hop that predates The Sugar Hill Gang‘s “Rapper’s Delight” and any other rap music on record- totally the definition of THAT REAL SCHITT. And it’s even greater to hear the queen of mc’s Lisa Lee get loose on the mic- when the female pioneers of rap are talked about her name is rarely mentioned but that’s a mistake because she was not only one of the first but also one of the nicest.

RAYVON & JOHNNY WA (and The Magnificent Seven) at Randy’s Place RE-UPPED –
A lot of rappers today boast about being hustlers, but Rayvon was really doin’ it back before a lot of these current rap dudes were even born (and like most cats who really lived the life he’s quick to say that he’s not proud of any of that because those choices he made ultimately messed up his life). Both Rayvon and Johnny Wa went to prison before they had a chance to make any records or do anything big, but folks back in the days know how fly they were on the mic. You can read Rayvon’s story at my man Jayquan’s site The Foundation (required real schitt reading).

ZULU NATION 1980 RE-UPPED – This tape may not be the greatest you’ve ever heard, but it is a great example of how eclectic the musical selection of Afrika Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation dj’s was. Some of you may have seen the famous list of Bambaataa’s all time favorite records that came out in various publications back in the 80’s and said “no WAY was he actually playing some of this stuff at parties in the Bronx, was he?” Oh, yes he was! I won’t even tell you what you’re gonna hear, just bust it for yourself.

JAZZY 5 live RE-UPPED –
another short but so-so fresh clip with the Jazzy 5 and DJ Jazzy Jay KILLIN’ IT.

KING BOYS- live in Greenwich Connecticut, 1983 RE-UPPED –
Now I’m hittin’ y’all with some of that “third unheard” schitt… the King Boys were a crew that I went to high school with back in the town I grew up in, Norwalk, Connecticut. I designed party flyers for them as well as another local crew called THG (Town Heights Gangsters) and also a crew from out of nearby White Plains NY known as the Collins Brothers. Terry Tuff what up, b!

CRASH CREW the infamous shoot out on stage RE-UPPED –
Schitt gets no realer than this, homepiss. Before the Crash can even get into their show real good the shots ring out and the mics get dropped! OHHHH SNAP!

AFRIKA ISLAM- Zulu Beats show on WHBI, 1983 RE-UPPED – Another one that’s been floating around for a minute, but if you don’t already own it you need to get it now.

MC RICKY D- practicing over CHILL WILL’s crib, 1984 RE-UPPED –
A small clip of a young Slick Rick kickin’ that fly schitt as only he can do it back in his Kangol Crew days.

A-ight, that’s it… hope y’all appreciate all this dope schitt (FREE dope schitt at that!). I ain’t doin’ this again until next Thanksgiving (if I ever do it again at all), so enjoy it in the name of true school preservation. PEACE OUT.

PEACE… ALLAH… AND JUSSSTICE, AND JU-USTICE, JUSTICE

To all my real schitters out there, stand up and give yourselves an ovation- I asked for 20-30 comments on that Thankstaking Day post I dropped on your domes a couple of weeks ago and as of this moment I’ve received a hair short of 50 comments! All the regulars came through as did some big dudes. I even got a great comment from someone who was thinking about selling their p***y in celebration of my Hip Hop Lessons! You have truly outdone yourselves, my friends. I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do it again for X-mas / Kwanzaa / New Years, but it looks like I’m gonna have to now. Maybe some early EARLY MC Ricky D practicing over Chill Will‘s crib? Should I even drop the Biz Markie and Pop (aka Kid Wizard aka RAKIM) live at Wyandanch High School tape? Possibly the “Freestylin’ With Phill Most” acetate that I still haven’t put out in it’s entirety yet? Well, I can’t promise anything for certain but I WILL promise that I’ll drop something for y’all.
Between now and Santa Claus day, though, I’ll sprinkle a few other little things if I have the time. Today I’m gonna make up for an error in that Hip Hop Lessons post- when I originally put up the World Famous Supreme Team audio it was a bad clip, so I replaced it with another clip that did play properly- unfortunately it was the wrong clip. The MP3 I put up has already been floating pretty freely around the internets, so I wanted to hit y’all with a different World Famous show. Se’ Devine The Mastermind and Just Allah The Superstar (not “Just Alotta Superstar” as I’ve seen some people state it) were true originals and true innovators in Hip Hop, droppin’ that Five Percent science waaaaay before it became prominent in the rap world thanks to rappers like Rakim and Brand Nubian. And speaking of Brand Nubian, you will notice where they got one of their joints from when you listen to the clip I’m hittin’ you with here. Brings back great memories of me as a kid staying up into the wee hours of the morning trying to pick up WHBI on my little portable radio, antennae hanging out the window with aluminum foil on it (I lived in Connecticut so that schitt was hard to get). It was worth the trouble, though… there had never been anything on the airwaves like this before, and a young b-boy like myself was fiending to hear schitt like this on the radio.
And BTW, if anybody from back in the days can hip me on what was up with the “Na-na Na-na’s”- the people with the antennaes on their heads on Broadway- I sure would appreciate it.

WORLD FAMOUS SUPREME TEAM – June 1982