Freddy Fresh The Rap Records: 2nd Edition Book (2008)

If you're the sort of person that bores your mates to death with old school hip hop trivia down the pub then you should get yourself a copy of his latest book, The Rap Records: 2nd Edition. This edition has all the same as previously but now has doubled in size (743 pages!) and now includes a further time-range (now stomping into the Nineties) as well as including a load of UK 12"s - about time!

In a nutshell it is a kind of database for damn near EVERY rap record that has been released up until the mid-Nineties. And that's no mean feat. When I say database I mean he has catalogued everything including issue numbers, whether they were originals or reissues, information on the run-out groove, the whole darn shizzle. As well as pics of a load of record labels.

There is also a rating system of sorts that Freddy has provided based on a maximum of 5 stars awarded to either rarity (according to eBay bids) or just a damn good record (in Fred's opinion). These stars aren't handed out willy-nilly and I was particularly pleased to see that I have a few rare pieces of vinyl myself; Coldcut "Say Kids What Time Is It?" (4 stars) and Dr Funnkenstein (aka DJ Ca$h Money) "Scratchin To The Funk" (also 4 stars).

I bought mine from the man himself via eBay and got him to sign it, too.

Also worth a mention are two other books that look good, too. The first being The Sampling Dictionary which is a 241-page dictionary of hip hop artists, organised alphabetically by name, track name and the songs sampled for the track. Does this sound good??

The other one is entitled The Re:Sampling Dictionary. Now this is similar to the above book but this time you search under the sampled artist's name rather than the hip hop artist's name. You dig? Again, pure fried gold for the OCD hip hopper.