Wild Style Mashup

By definition if you are a regular reader of this blog then you must hold the movie Wild Style extremely close to your heart.
Have a look at this mashup video courtesy of Stuart Warren Hill & Robin Brunson who make up the Ninja Tune duo, Hexstatic.
I particularly like what they've done to D.St's 'Good Times' scratch. Love it.

DIY Graffiti Trains

I want me one of these! It's a plastic, white model train and it comes with hundreds of graffiti transfers to put on the train to your own design.

Check here to buy one at Amazon

Ice-T - Rhyme Pays (1987)

Remember ICE-T in "Breakin..."? He was the only cool person on that. Obviously it goes without saying that JC gets props (Van-Damme), too.

Unfortunately Reckless never made it to his debut album (or The Coldest Rap, for that matter) but instead we got the brilliant, punctuating synths of 6 N The Morning which is the 2nd track and my personal favourite. This track was inspired by Schoolly D's PSK (which can be found further down this blog) as Ice-T has often been quoted.

West Coast lays it's mark right here. By an OG named Tracy Lauren.

Download Ice-T - Rhyme Pays (1987) here.

The password to unpack this album once you've downloaded it is def-momentum.blogspot.com. Thanks to my man Def D for the blood and sweat.

This is some WTF graf!!

I don't tend to use a lot of internet abbreviations such as LOL, ROFLMAO and the like. You should see my phone texts - I will spell each word correctly and won't substitute numbers for letters either ('m8'). Sure it takes a while longer to create but, hey, I'm old school.
Which is really to say that this video below makes me lose any of my own rules and forces me to say, WTF!It's very awe-inspiring and must've taken a long time.
Check it out.



MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

My baby tagger

My 2 year old daughter, Evie, got hold of a pen and tagged all over my bedroom today.
It was in her best interests to be as cool, calm and collected as possible about putting her art up and thus not arousing my suspicion. She would've gotten away with it too had I not heard her cries of, "This is it! This is it!"
I told her that it was 'never-forgive' action.

Some old bits of hip hop history

I've just come back after a stay at my folks' place and came away with a car full of crap as always. Some gems were found after going through my various files as you can see.

I was always a bit geeky/obsessive in my youth about collecting various pieces of information be it from newspaper or magazine cuttings or recording a quick piece of hip hop-related features off the tv.

I'm currently converting some old hip hop documentaries to dvd which I recorded in the early 1990s such as Bombin', Beat This!-A Hip Hop History, Looking For The Perfect Beat (a South Bank Show special), The Hip Hop Years (a Channel 4 three-parter) as well as little bits and doodads.

I haven't the means to upload video via my pc so they'll stay on dvd for the time being. I will however be putting them on ebay when I'm done - probably £5/$10 for a 4-hour dvd.

Tell you what I would love to see again and that's Bad Meaning Good, the Westwood-produced documentary which was shown on BBC around 1987. I used to have it until some skank never returned it. Blood wars baby, blood wars!

As regards to the images above; the first one is an official Westwood N-Sign Radio beatbox sticker (see previous Westwood post); the second is a cutting from Radio Times magazine about Roger Johnson, inaugural winner of DMC 1985 and -ex dj to ex-hip hop dj, Dave Pearce; the third is a cutting from Echoes (I think?) for a Sindecut event; and the last one is a treat. It's a typical scaremongering feature from the never-unpredictable UK tabloid The Daily Mail about the scourge of graffiti writers in England (who are all black, apparently). The reporting here is worthy of a Nobel Prize. Just click on the pics to view them in lovely large-o-vision.

Ultimate Breaks & Beats 26??

Up until 2 years ago, Ultimate Breaks and Beats vol 25 was the last ever in it's series of breakbeat compilation albums.

For those of you who know, the story of volume 26 is a tragedy - Volume 26 was scheduled for release in 1991 but the untimely death of Lenny 'Breakbeat' Roberts, the founder of Street Beat Records and a tireless collector of original breaks meant that the UB&B series came to an untimely end and the next volume in the series was shelved, until, in 2006. The master tapes of Luis Flores edits were found and as a tribute to the late Lenny and Luis, the 26th release in the series came out as a very limted edition.

Unfortunately I haven't got the mp3 to put up. But being the avid/ anorak UBB collector that I am I will no doubt be purchasing this on vinyl just to add to my collection.

If anyone's got it digitally and they wouldn't mind sharing then please send a copy to me.

Tracklisting

A1. Joe Tex - You Said A Bad Word

2. Johnny Taylor - Ever Ready

3. Coalkitchen - Keep On Pushing

4. Graham Central Station - The Jam (Remixed)

B.1. Trouble Funk - Lets Get Small

2. Tony Alvon - Sexy Coffee Pot

3. Hank Carbo - Hot Pants (part 2) (Remixed)

Westwood - N Sign Radio

Did anyone used to stay up til 2-3am on a Friday night to watch Tim Westwood's amateurish but essential hip hop video show back in 1988 on ITV? It was shown in the South East of England as part of a night time show called Night Network and within that was Westwood's half-hour show called N-Sign Radio (if you know of why it was named that please spread the knowledge). This was when rap videos were scarcely shown on the box so this show was heaven for the younger b-boy.
I can remember live performances from Biz Markie, Demon Boyz, Cash Money & Marvelous and Derek B.

The first video below is a full show, actually it's the very first one so Tim is a little flustered (see how he fluffs his lines - not very gangsta) at times but there's some great videos shown from Eric B and Rakim, Kool Moe Dee, Heavy D, Salt n Pepa, Mantronix and Bomb the Bass (if you're quick you'll spot Groove Records as well as Fulham's Hall Of Fame).

Much props go out to Rich over at mastermix.org from whom this video comes from. You should check his site here for more early Westwood-related mp3's as well as other old school treasures with a slant on the London scene.












This one below is a live set from Cash Money & MC Marvelous in the middle of one of the N Sign Radio shows. If you want to hear more then check out this linkage which is an mp3 of the full set.









This next one below is just for the intro by Westwood and his co-host only. Watch beyond that at your peril.








Lastly we have a video for UK artist Merlin with Born Free. Unfortunately it runs out before we see KRS-ONE.

Hmmm, Do You Like This?

I want you to have a listen to this remix of the classic break, The Champ by some people called Bladerunners. I'm not sure if I like it or not. I mean it's not as if the record was dying for a remix, was it?

You might love it. Me? I'm still reserving judgment.

Listen to Bladerunners Champ

Steinski meets Coldcut

As promised, here is the Kiss 100FM interview with Steinski on Coldcut's Solid Steel Show. This dates back to 29th March 1992 and features all Steinski's tracks plus some extra goodies.

Enjoy.

Download here