7/31/15

Jazzy Yowa - "She Knew"

Jazzy Yowa has the unique honor of being the first contemporary female artist featured on our site (sorry it took this long, ladies, but send more music), as well as the first artist out of Levittown featured on our site. Even if she wears her influences on her sleeve, going as far as tagging "Drake" and "Yung Money Entertainment" in this Soundcloud post, she does their sound justice.

"She Knew" is the first track off of Dedication To My Ex Pt. 2 dropping this summer. Check out the first Dedication on datPiff and hit Jazzy up if you want to hear more (contact info listed in the pic to the left; click to enlarge).

7/30/15

Public Enemy - Prophets of Rage Documentary

This BBC documentary was directed by James Hale and first aired on December 9, 2011. It covers Public Enemy from the Spectrum City days all the way up to Flavor of Love.

7/27/15

Earwaxx One-Year Anniversary Show


Tomorrow, July 28, 2015, Long Island's premier creative expo, The Earwaxx Sessions, celebrates its one year anniversary at the Amityville Music Hall (198 Broadway, Amityville, NY 11757) with performances by D.A. The Future, Skinny Rapture, Boom Side, Dud Music, Sight Set High, Self Made Fresh, Dane Lawrence and Eli Groves. The event will be co-hosted by Chad Law, Dark Kent, Its Bizkit and The He-Man Woman Haters Club. Barring unforeseen circumstances, LongIslandRap.com will also be in the building. Doors open at 8:00. Follow @TheEarwaxxSessions on Instagram for updates. See you there.

7/23/15

Big Breakfast - "Hit Single"

"Out in Montauk eating a lobster roll ... Neck snapper, Santa Ana to Patchogue ... Breakfast, Mastic's most precious all day." Big Breakfast's "Hit Single" appears on the Smokers Cough 2015 Sampler, which you can stream below the video and download free or cop on CD for just $3 via the label's Bandcamp.

Grand Daddy I.U. - "My Neck Of The Woods"

Filmed on location at Eli's Deli & Grocery (James L.L. Burrell Avenue), Henry Street Warehouse Liquors (Henry Street), Great Wall, Street Gear (Fulton Avenue), and various other locations throughout Hempstead and NYC, "My Neck of the Woods" appears on Paper Is My Priority, which is out now on CD or mp3.

7/21/15

Eternal Intellect - Da Greywolf Series

Released in 2013, Da Greywolf Series showcases Eternal Intellect over famous hip-hop breaks (like Bob James's "Nautilus") and instrumentals (like Kanye West's "Drive Slow"), but if you think that means you're going to hear the type of throw-away freestyles that have become typical of most modern mixtapes, then think again. Eternal Intellect brings it with every single track. In fact, the song he does over the "Drive Slow" beat, which he calls "Elevator Music," is so amazing it almost feels like it's going to waste over a Kanye beat. And that's not at all a diss to Kanye, but a testament to how good the song is. Stream and download this incredible project below, and check out EI's Soundcloud for more.

7/17/15

The Chosen Few - Time Capsule: The Unreleased 1991 Demos

Chopped Herring Records Owner Pro Celebrity Golf clearly puts a great deal of time and effort into curating his label's releases, and over the past few years he's done as much as anyone for Long Island hip-hop, specifically by unearthing previously unheard recordings by JVC Force, DJ Stitches and Eternal Intellect among others. So, I won't get in the way on this one. Read Pro's write-up for The Chosen Few demo, stream the snippets below, and get your pre-order in before this edition of 350 sells out, as it most likely will.


Picture it, Long Island, NY, 1986. The crack epidemic had taken its hold over the hood. In fact there had just been an edition of the popular American news show "60 Minutes" which featured a block in Amityville, soon to be known to some local artists as Horror City, which was suffering from heavy unemployment and the effects of the this new drug crisis. Some Zulu Nation cats had came out to Amityville for a block party. The Crash Crew were battling a local crew called The God Squad, which comprised of Rahmel, Mc Duel & MC Finesse. An underrage Brian Jackson aka B-Nice snuck into the battle. This night was the start of his transformation into an MC.

B-Nice and his boy B-Love aka Lovey Brown had met at Copiague High School through a mutual passion for music. B-Nice played drums in the school chorus and picked up DJ'ing skills from friends of his brother who was 7 years his senior. Nice's grandfather was a close friend of the father of De La Soul's Maseo and the boys had met at an early age. They started to hang out through mutual friend DJ Stitches, reputedly one of the founding members of De La Soul. As you know, De La were a big deal in the late 80's and while writing their [incredible] second album "De La Soul is Dead" they guest-produced and featured on The Chosen Few project to help their boys and fellow Amityville artists. They took the demo to Puffy in 1991 who was then with Uptown, to Lyor Cohen at Rush and to Chrysalis and Virgin among others. They got great feedback, but no deal. As often happens the group disbanded but morphed into a new group Fourty Dogs. The demos were locked away and never heard again.....

-----until a Hip Hop demo tape collector, Scott Rodkey, copped a large collection of tapes in 2015. Among other obscure artifacts was The Chosen Few demo tape. No one to do with the group had a copy of the tracks and after posting on the excellent DWG forum, word got to Herring HQ and we approached the artists. As no masters remained and as this was SUCH a special collection of tracks, we mastered from the original demo tape, the only source available. The sound is very good, no glitches at all,  but it still has the general feel of a demo [it was never taken into a proper studio and mastered]. We are very proud to present to you the Time Capsule 1991 Demos. ENJOY.....

7/16/15

Public Enemy - "Man Plans God Laughs"

A few fun facts about the new PE song and video:
  • The title comes from a Yiddish proverb: "Der mentsh trakht un got lakht."
  • Much of the video was recorded at Roosevelt High School, which Chuck D attended 1972-1975, and W.T. Clarke High School, which he attended 1975-1978.
  • The song and the rest of the new album from which it's taken were produced by Gary G-Wiz Rinaldo.
  • The female vocalist featured here is Cassandra "Half Pint" Jackson, best known as one-third of Freeport's Son of Bazerk.
  • Lyrics for the song are on Public Enemy's official website.
  • Man Plans God Laughs is streaming via Spotify, downloadable via RCS Music, and will be available on CD and vinyl starting July 25.

Aesop Rock - Music For Earthworms

Recorded in a Manhattan studio called Graebar, Music For Earthworms captures a young Aesop Rock during breaks from Boston University in what is perhaps his rawest musical state. The sessions were engineered by dub-l, who was interning at the studio at the time and also produced 3/4 of the album. It was pressed on CD-R sometime in 1997 and later sold via AesopRock.com until it officially went out of print on November 15, 1999. For an idea of what the site looked like back then, click here. Stream the video for track 1 "Abandon All Hope" below, download a supposedly remastered version of Music For Earthworms here, and for some more perspective, compare this Aesop Rock interview from around January 2001 with this one from May 2015.


7/15/15

NHVL - "Looking For Love" (Premiere)

Representing the Northgate section of Uniondale, NHVL (pronounced Novel) raps and sings, but this is no novelty act. He does both well, with a novelistic depth. Case in point: "Looking For Love," the latest single off NHVL's last project, Dreaming Out Loud, which will be released online in the near future.

Long Island Rap Blog is proud to premiere "Looking for Love" below and encourages you to check out NHVL's numerous Soundcloud pages to hear more of what this uniquely talented artist has to say and sing.

7/7/15

DJ Pr!nce - WSHA 88.9 October 2007 Mix

About a week ago DJ Pr!nce uploaded this mix from his days at North Carolina's Shaw University. The set list features numerous songs du jour, including three DJ Pr!nce originals: "Fresh" (24:04), "Do It Like You" (32:55), and "Facebook Livin' Instrumental" (40:29). Stream above and download at 128 kpbs here.

7/5/15

William Cooper - "Zombie Land" ft. Diabolic prod. BP



When the Fourth of July jingoism ends, it's back to "Zombie Land," where as Diabolic says, "Devil on the palace throne replaced Bill Cooper with provocateurs like Alex Jones." This video is the latest off William Cooper's God's Will, which is fully produced by BP and available on CD or iTunes. You can stream four more songs from it below.

7/1/15

Sage Infinite & QS a.k.a. Quiet Storm - Quiet Stories / Dark Matter Beta

Though Beneath the Mantle was the first Midnite Society-related release posted here, Uniondale producer Shozae's collaborations with New Jersey MC Sage Infinite, Dark Minded and Dark Minded 2, were actually the first to catch our attention. Little did we realize then that these projects were predated by Sage's work with another Midnite Society producer, QS a.k.a. Quiet Storm, also of Uniondale. Below, stream 2007's Quiet Stories and 2011's Dark Matter Beta.

Ace Finesse - "Steph Curry'

If the hook and song title of "Steph Curry" are timely, then lines like "Let me shuffle my cards, I don't trust these dogs / That's why I'm strapped with a duffle of darts / Dipped in Ambien / I'm the Adamantium champion" are timeless. This is the first single off The First Supper, the forthcoming debut album by Central Islip's Ace Finesse, which is due out later this summer. If you want to hear more before then, check out his June 2015 mixtape titled Industrial Ace.