3/30/16

Rozewood - "Ghxst GxD"

The Winners' names have been buzzing for all the wrong reasons this week. What better to get shit back on track than some vintage Rozewood vibes courtesy of the Arch Druids. Expect this one to be on Roze's upcoming album, Channel 13. Still no word on when, or if, the Arch Druids-produced Roc Marciano LP is coming, but who can forget that song "Poltergeist" they did together? Come to think of it, Druids have a bit of a phantasmic streak going here.

3/29/16

Planet Asia & DJ Concept - Seventy Nine


DJ Concept's a name that's popped up on this site several times, without anyone ever pointing out that he's a native Long Islander. Coming to your speakers from Huntington by way of Lindenhurst, Concept is one of the founding members of the Bash Brothers DJ crew and the Crisis Center collective.

Here, he teams with Cali vet Planet Asia, who you might remember having already achieved greatness in the 1MC/1DJ format on Pain Language, his 2008 collaboration with DJ Muggs. More recently, Asia's been killing tracks as extended fam to Hus & SmooVth's Winners clique. (SmooVth and Marvelous Mag both make appearances here.)

Atomic number Seventy Nine streams below and is available on gold vinyl from Fat Beats.

3/23/16

R.I.P. Phife Dawg


 As tribute to the memory of Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor, here are 11 songs he appeared on alongisde Long Island hip-hop artists De La Soul, L.O.N.S., Truth Enola, and others. Celebrate the music. Honor the legacy.

The UN - As We Know It
(Bootleg Containing 4+ Otherwise Unreleased Tracks)

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a real treat, dug up from the bowels of CD Baby and purchased by yours truly so that I can share it freely with you today. Released in 2009 by a label called Mash Entertainment, As We Know It is a bootleg compilation of UN tracks, some of which appeared on their album UN Or U Out (Fat Beats), some of which appeared on one of their mixtapes, World Domination or Strength and Honor, one of which appeared on Pete Rock's Petestrumentals (BBE), and some of which haven't appeared anywhere else as far as we can tell.

The wholly unreleased songs are "Final Cut," "The UN," "Reefer" and "In The Pocket." [There's also an "Interlude" track that sounds exclusive to this comp, and several songs that appeared elsewhere with different titles: "Win Or Lose" is "For the Love" off UN Or U Out; "Hardcore" is "Hardcore (Revisited)" off World Domination; and "Junkyard" is "Funkyard" off Strength and Honor.]

One song, the Pete Rock-produced "Dope on a Rope," though not on any of the aforementioned releases, was posted to Soundcloud by The UN Manager Jazz in 2015, so it's been floating around. It was also Jazz who confirmed for Long Island Rap Blog that As We Know It is a bootleg and that The UN team is not receiving any money from its online sales, which gave me all the justification I needed to post it, so thank him for that. (Of course, make sure you support The UN by purchasing UN Or U Out on mp3CD or 2xLP if you haven't already done so.)
And then there's "Pop." You might recognize the title of this compilation's last track as a song from Roc Marciano's classic solo debut, Marcberg (Fat Beats). However, as you'll hear, this track is much quieter and dustier than the album version, leading us to believe it's either unmixed or an early demo mix. Either way, this compilation came out in 2009, so it pre-dates the album.

Streaming below for your listening pleasure is the entire As We Know It compilation. If you'd like to download any of the unreleased tracks, you can get them from our Audiomack. If you want to own the rest, purchase UN Or U Out using one of the links above, get "Cake" from iTunes, download Strength and Honor via Long Island Rap Blog and download World Domination via The Lost Tapes.


3/22/16

Aesop Rock - "Untouchable (AR Version)"

Aesop Rock drops gems like "my right hand writing a diary of the dodgy, I do the wrong thing when all the right people are watching, it's a medley of defiance and outfoxing, born in a storm's eye alongside Long Island swamp kings" over the Timbaland-produced "Untouchable" beat.

3/20/16

Doug G - CMPLXCTY

Doug Galiardo aka Doug G is Huntington's half of The Brotherhood, a cross-county duo also featuring Levittown's Bearded Legend. Doug G might not have a name as memorable as his rhyme partner's, but his style is every bit as Beastie, plus he handles much of their production work, including all the beats on this EP, which dropped just 18 days ago. The Brotherhood seem to be on a tear right now, as Bearded Legend just dropped a self-produced EP today. Look for that here in the near future, or if you don't want to wait for it, just head over to The Broterhood Soundcloud to hear all their latest projects in one place.

Mero - "Meadowbrook Dental Care"

This post is not necessarily an endorsement of Meadowbrook Dental Care, but it is a real place, and Mero does now get free dental care for life, deservedly so.

3/10/16

Earthquake - WKCR Freestyle December 15, 1994

Last month, we (re)introduced readers to Earthquake, a little-known Long Island rapper who used to roll with KMD and later, DOOM. Not much else is known about him, except that DOOM suggested in an interview that he was from Freeport. The song "Checkmate" featuring both rappers, might call this origin into question as Quake shouts out Long Beach numerous times in his verses, but I was willing to take DOOM's word for it, for the time being at least. Mostly, I just wanted to hear more from Earthquake. Which brings us to today and another installment of that sacred radio program, the Stretch and Bobbito show. On the December 15, 1994 show, Stretch and Bob's featured guests were Born Allah and none other than Earthquake, who spent the majority of his airtime rapping live in the studio. It should be noted that he once again shouts out Long Beach extensively, even rapping "born and brewed in Long Beach," though he does give it up to cousins in Freeport as well, so even if DOOM misspoke or was misquoted in the aforementioned interview, it's safe to say Quake reps for both areas. For your listening pleasure, I've clipped the Earthquake freestyle session and uploaded it to Soundcloud (above). Props go out to HipHop-TheGoldenEra blog for uploading the original broadcast, and Serch4Beatz over at the Philaflava forums for passing it along to him. In addition to giving Earthquake some airtime, Stretch and Bob played one of Quake's solo songs later in the show. You can check that tune out below courtesy of YouTuber Senutunes.
 

3/8/16

Marlo DeMore - "Come Again"

Marlo DeMore knows people who listen to Nickelback. It's all good, though. He's still a way better rapper than you.

3/6/16

The UN & Pete Rock - Kiss FM Freestyle 2001

Last night, I posted what was supposedly the first Roc Marciano radio appearance, but something told me there were earlier joints out there, so I asked the heads for help and UK producer Clapa came through with this FIRE. Still, with Roc first appearing on wax in the late '90s, I imagine there are even older radio spots out there. So, again, if you know of any, break us off some.

Bearded Legend - Owl Eyes

From Eminem to Beck, there have been hundreds of artists over the years who've taken cues from the Beastie Boys, but few ever manage to truly capture or recreate the Beastie vibe, that wise-cracking, smarter-but-also-cooler-than-thou sense of self that each of the group's members brought to their craft time and time again. Levittown's Bearded Legend has a name, a tone, a group, and yes, a vibe worthy of comparison. His debut EP, Owl Eyes, dropped last summer and was produced primarily by Huntington's Doug G. Together, the duo is known as The Brotherhood, and you can bet we'll be featuring them in posts to come.

3/5/16

Roc Marciano - WKCR Freestyle August 18, 2004

Clipped this early Roc Marciano freestyle from DJ Sucio Smash's Right On Time mixtape. Smash claims this to be Roc's first radio appearance. If you've got something earlier, please hit me up.

3/4/16

Blaq Kush - unmixed VERY RARE EP

Prepare to have your world destroyed. Blaq Kush combines the uninhibited free-form approach of a Lil B with the the focused vision of a hip-hop auteur, fully embracing conventional mixtape tropes one minute only to toss them out the window the next. "One time for No Child Left Behind."

Grandmilly - "Unleashed"

Grandmilly's the type of MC who's still killing shit even when he's just killing time. Case in point: what he just "Unleashed" over a beat by LA's Iman Omari in anticipation of the 2 Stoopid Dogs EP, another collabo with Midnite Society producer Shozae.

Meditation Chamber Recording Presents: Olympus Monz Full Anthology

Long Island's local hip-hop scene is in a very healthy place right now, with probably enough talented MCs, DJs and producers to create a little hamlet unto itself, but it hasn't always been like this. In the mid '00s, it seemed like there was really only one collective out here that was making a sound that was both unique and united. That is to say, each member of the group had his own sound, but the group itself had its own sound as well. That group was of course Conceptual Elements.

I'm not sure how many members there were at the height of the group, or how many of them remain active today, but much of he group's extensive discography has been posted to member Sargon's bandcamp page. The release above, for example, consists of 261 tracks featuring Bay Shore's Sargon and Copiague's Olympus Monz. Dig in.