The Wild Style Reunion 2010

Who doesn't want to attend this?
A 2-day event exploring the wonders of the classic hip hop movie, Wild Style.
Just look at the flyer.
DJ Tony Tone & Charlie Chase. 
Rocksteady Crew. 
COPE 2. 
Chief Rocker Busy Bee. 
Double Trouble.
A live Wild Style dedication mural.
And a meet 'n' greet with the man, Charlie Ahearn

Looking For The Perfect Beat - A Hip Hop History

I've ripped this documentary from my own D-120 cassette. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while as it's a really good piece of history.
Hosted by Jeff Young, this hour-long documentary features some interesting chats with people such as Grandmaster Flash, Russell Simmons,  Run DMC, Marley Marl, Ice T, Flavor Flav, Prince Paul and others!
It was broadcast originally on 14/07/1990 on BBC Radio 1 and as far as I'm aware is as rare as rocking horse poo.
It begins in the 1970's and features the "Hunter S. Thompson of Hip Hop", Bonz Malone with some wild tales of the old school. Bam and Arthur Baker talk about Planet Rock and Hip hop historian and ex-Head of Publicity at Def Jam, Bill Adler speaks about Run DMC.

Looking For The Perfect Beat - A Hip Hop History. Grab this one as it's a great bit of history.

RIP Frank Frazetta

Who he?
Well he was an illustrator who painted fantasy landscapes and science fiction fantasy art who sadly died at 82 today.
The reason I'm mentioning him is simple.
Style Wars?
Kase?
Subway station?
The Beastmaster.... Yes?

The legendary one-armed graffiti writer KASE points at a poster for the film The Beastmaster and alludes to the painting being similar to the work of Vaughn Bode and Frank Frazetta.


Look at that eagle.
Word. l said look at that eye. You know where he got that from, right?
From Vaughn Bode and who?  

Frank Frazetta! 

The BEASTMASTER. The letters is breakin out.
'The epic adventures of a new kind of hero! That's what we're gonna be. The extraterrestrial brothers, you know what I'm saying? Extra terrest! Knowin we the best.

Yes I know. This post is very tenuous at best.


Read some more here 

Oh, and check this picture out. This is Frazetta's "Princess of Mars" original painting from which The Beastmaster ripped-off. 

Beat Street....flashback!

I watched Beat Street again the other night. But what was different with this viewing was that I watched the whole thing from start to finish instead of just heading to the battle at The Roxy as is the usual routine.
So here we have the film in pictures with some analytical commentary.

This is a nice shot of the action that's about to occur.
The Beat Street crew (or rather, The New York City Breakers) ready for battle.
Look at Lee's get-up; to paraphrase Prince Vince, he's sporting it fresh, Homes.

Look Ramo. A white one!
And so it was. Gleaming, clean & fresh.
Unfortunately the subsequent burner sprayed by Ramo was anything but fresh.

And here it is. I think even in 1984 we were looking at this and thinking, "Was it Bring Your Daughter To Work Day when they shot this scene?".
Considering Martha Cooper, Michael Holman, Tony Silver, Henry Chalfont, Kool Herc, The NYC Breakers, Rock Steady Crew, Afrika Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay were on board then they should have treated the 4th element of hip hop with just as much respect.

And here we go again. What a waste of Krylon.

Here's Jazzy Jay at The Roxy rocking those shades before Kanye was out of Rusks. Probably.
And proof that someone else other than Mastermind mixed on the GLI.

Richard Sisco. There he is.

With lyrics such as "Often imotated but never duplicated" I'm wondering, like you, why he never reached the dizzy heights of fame that so cruelly passed him by.
He shoulda dropped that Wanda Dee like a bad habit. Then maybe it would've been HIM singing about thongs.

Here is 'The System'.
Now this guy deserves his own show. No, not the Michael Jackson-alike but the yuppy keyboard player on the right.
The way he grooves and gets down throughout the whole song? He was born with music in his bones, this dude!








Now I might be wrong but weren't these two in the beginning of that Arena documentary, Beat This! A Hip Hop History...? They were poppin' on the street in Times Square and peering into the electronics shop watching Mel Brookes on one of the tv's.
They're called Fantastic Duo btw. And they are, rather.

This was an influential scene for me when I was growing up.
I had various sound equipment around my room in homage to Double K's bedroom. Oh happy days.

The man, the myth, the legend. DJ Kool Herc live at the Burning Spear.
While it was good to hear Kenny spinning the cool Tommy Boy ish - well, mixed by Jazzy Jay actually - it would have been even cooler to have Herc on the wheels of steel.
But then again, I dread to think what they would've made him play.






What a shot.
I mean, look at them. You're facing off with Rock Steady!!
If this was my POV I'd be uprocking with cacky pants.










The legendary Kuriaki (RIP) and the immortal diss to Powerful Pexter:

Powerful Pexter : You're biters, all your homeboys are biters.
Kuriaki: I ain't never stole no moves from you, your moves ain't worth to be bit. So what's up with that, punk?




This was a great scene in that it tried to convey a sense of authenticity of the hip hop culture.
Like KRS ONE said, "power from the streetlight made the place dark".
We see the guy hooking up the power cable to a streetlight and suddenly the whole room lights up.
US Girls are in the house which is always good. I must admit I had a thing for Lisa Lee. I think it was the haircut.
But check out the turntable. Hmmm, Double K, I don't think Kool Herc would've let you play at the Burning Spear if he'd clocked this. Why and how did the needle get over there?



That's all for now. The next post will feature a 'cut-out-and-keep' guide to the b-boys at The Roxy Battle! So what's up with that, punk?

B-Boy Classics

I've been spending a far-more-than-is-actually-healthy-for-me time on a Facebook group called B-Boy Classics.
Set up by my man Jaz Ford, an ex radio dj and  outta Wellington, New Zealand this is certainly a FB group actually worth checking (as opposed to all hundreds of plain idiotic ones such as "Sucking a cup to your face and then panicking cos it won't come of"*).
The sheer amount of photos on there (619 at this present time) is a delight for the hip hop heads. From record covers to fan photos of artists, there's a lot of good stuff on there.

As well as this, Jaz runs the coldrockdaspot blog, too with some well-written and detailed articles. Again well worth checking out.

This man knows his stuff and as such I'm tentatively considering christening him the NZ version of Waxer. It's all good in the hood.




*This IS a real FB group.

The Bottomless Crates Show

Just a little shoutout to a radio station that might be of interest to you.
The Bottomless Crates Show is broadcast from the NE1 area of Newcastle, UK and features new and old hip hop, funky breaks and other good stuff.
Once you can get into their accents, being that they're Newky Brown drinkers an' all you'll have a blast! ;-)
You can catch the show live in you're in the city on NE1 FM on a Monday night between 10 and 12. Otherwise you can get the show from the blog usually the next few days after in 2 parts.





The Blog

The Website

Thankyou

Just want to say a big shout to everyone who tuned in to my man Waxer's Disco Scratch Radio last night on which I was his guest.
It was broadcast as the complete chat we had a couple of days before. Yes. Unedited! Including my choice of tracks throughout the show it all added up to a hoo-mungous 2 hours and 50 minutes.
I think it should have included a subtitle stating 'Special Trainspotter Edition' as we got nerdy on an unparalleled level. Fortunately as the chatroom rolled on we saw that there was a common geekiness amongst ageing b-boys. Yes, I am not alone.
To those in the chat such as Dan Flan, Ridla, Scenes, Biz-Martski, Eclectro, Monk, CrimesForMinds, Random I hope you enjoyed it. And to anyone wanting to cop it you can find it over here at Waxer's Disco Scratch.

Massive props to the one and only Waxer for organising it.
Your Thursday evenings are now found at Freestyle FM at 9pm. There's tons of guests lined up for upcoming shows from superstars to those behind the scene and fans. Next week, unconfirmed reports of Overlord X in interview.  SCENES14 sooncome.

It rolls like this:

1.Disco Scratch Radio Intro
2. Russell Brothers – Party Scene (Instrumental)

3.Gang Starr – Manifest

4. Gang Starr – GotchU

5. Captain Rock – Cosmic Glide (instrumental)
6. Pieces Of A Dream – Mount Airy Groove (Instrumental)
7. T Ski Valley – Catch The Groove (Instrumental)
8. Disco 4 – Let It Whip (Instrumental)

9. Trouble Funk – Pump Me Up

10. Jonzun Crew – Pac Jam (Look Out For The OVC)
11. Warp 9 – Nunk (Instrumental)
12. C Bank – One More Shot (Instrumental)

13. The VHB – Beethoven’s 5th Street Symphony (Short Version)

14. Fantasy 3 – Biters In The City (Scratch Version)
15. Bobby Broom – Beat Freak (Dub Version)

16. B Boys – Girls Part 2 (Snippet)

17. Fantasy 3 – The Buck Stops Here (Instrumental)
18. Great Peso & Mr Nasty – It’s Time To Rock (Instrumental)
19. Newcleus – Jam On It (Instrumental)
20. Byron Davis – My Hands Are Quicker Than The Eye (Instrumental)
21. Eric B & Rakim – Eric B is President (Dub)
22. Justice – Put That Record Back On (Instrumental)

23. Kid Frost – Terminator

24. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Price – A Touch Of Jazz
25. Kid n Play – Last Night (Dub)
26. Kool G Rap & Polo – Rikers Island (Instrumental)
27. Hijack – The Contract (Instrumental)

28. Hijack – The Badman Is Robbin

29. SL Troopers – Knowledge (remix instrumental)
30. K Solo – Letterman (Instrumental)
31. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Ill Street Blues (Instrumental)
32. A Tribe Called Quest – Award Tour (Instrumental)
33. Beatnuts – No Equal (Instrumental)
34. Diamond D – Sally (Instrumental)
35. Onyx – Throw Ya Gunz (Instrumental)
36. Run DMC – Down With The King (Instrumental)

37. Word Of Mouth & DJ Cheese – King Kut

Those in white are background tracks.

Those in gold are played in full.

Reminder

THURSDAY....9PM....FREESTYLE FM....DISCO SCRATCH RADIO....

Don't forget that the interview with myself and Waxer of Disco Scratch is being broadcast tomorrow on the interwebs at 9pm.

1.  Click this link which will take you to the front page of Freestyle FM.

2.  Choose your preferred audio player.

3.  Join the chatroom - just hit enter - no password needed - change your username once you're in.

If you can't make it the link will be posted-up on this site afterward.

Guru Passes

Today we have lost a true legend of the mic. Keith Elam aka Guru from Gang Starr has passed away from cancer.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding his death and as such I will reserve judgment and not comment further as there is some seriously grimey behaviour going on by someone in particular.

Please read this statement apparently written by Guru on his deathbed.

I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world. I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options.

I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting.

My loyal best friend, partner and brother, Solar, has been at my side through it all and has been made my health proxy by myself on all matters relating to myself. He has been with me by my side on my many hospital stays, operations, doctors visits and stayed with me at my home and cared for me when I could not care for myself. Solar and his family is my family and I love them dearly and I expect my family, friends, and fans to respect that, regardless to anybody's feelings on the matter. It is my wish that counts. This being said I am survived by the love of my life, my sun KC, who I trust will be looked after by Solar and his family as their own. Any awards or tributes should be accepted, organized approved by Solar on behalf myself and my son until he is of age to except on his own.

I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any use of my name or circumstance for any reason and I have instructed my lawyers to enforce this. I had nothing to do with him in life for over 7 years and want nothing to do with him in death. Solar has my life story and is well informed on my family situation, as well as the real reason for separating from my ex-DJ. As the sole founder of GangStarr, I am very proud of what GangStarr has meant to the music world and fans. I equally am proud of my Jazzmatazz series and as the father of Hip-Hop/Jazz. I am most proud of my leadership and pioneering efforts on Jazzmatazz 4 for reinvigorating the Hip-Hop/Jazz genre in a time when music quality has reached an all time low. Solar and I have toured in places that I have never been before with GangStarr or Jazzmatatazz and we gained a reputation for being the best on the planet at Hip-Hop/Jazz, as well as the biggest and most influential Hip-Hop/Jazz record with Jazzmatazz 4 of the decade to now. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time. And we as a team were not afraid to push the envelope. To me this is what true artists do! As men of honor we stood tall in the face of small mindedness, greed, and ignorance. As we fought for music and integrity at the cost of not earning millions and for this I will always be happy and proud, and would like to thank the million fans who have seen us perform over the years from all over the world. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time and is my most creative and experimental to date. I hope that our music will receive the attention it deserves as it is some of the best work I have done and represents some of the best years of my life.

RIP Guru July 17, 1966 - April 19, 2010


EDIT: Sorry but this is REALLY niggling me. I've read this statement a few times since I posted it and the more I read it the more angry I become.
This does not sound like it came from the mouth of Guru. Not at all. I mean, look at the wording in the last paragraph about he and Solar's work being  "my most creative to date" and "it is some of the best work I have done".
What absolute BOLLOCKS.
Gang Starr's work in the early 90's was the "best" and "most creative". Even my 8-year old daughter knows that.
No. This is that cnut Solar trying to get his name up in the most appalling way possible.
This is so incomprehensibly disrespectful that we, as the hip hop nation need to find this pathetic piece of turd and show him what Guru means to us, the fans.
Up until a month ago I hadn't even heard of Sonar (whatever) so what huge balls he must have to insult the Gang Starr fanbase with such a ludicrous and wholly irrational announcement.

KRS ONE, we need you now.

ABBU! Live in conversation

Make a date in your diary folks. This Thursday (22nd) April at 9pm I will be chatting to the one and only Waxer on Disco Scratch Radio.
Last week in case you missed it was a special guest, namely Blade. So who would be the obvious choice to follow such a UK legend of the hip hop scene......?
Yep. Westwood is 'busy' so you'll have to make do with yours truly.
It's guaranteed to be off the hook, off the chain and more, so tune in at Freestyle FM.
Make sure you join in the fun in the chatroom, too.
As Mike used to say (well for a couple of weeks in 1985 at least) it's gonna be laaaarrrge!