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Kai Fortyfive - SLUGSMOKE & MIRRORS Deluxe Edition Cassette (LIRR03)
Edition of 25 black and white cassette tapes in clear case, with instrumentals on the b-side and download code included, ships within two business days.

$28 USD (includes $3 shipping)
Please send as friend, put address in notes.
International Orders: $38 USD (includes $13 shipping)
Any questions, please email longislandrapblog@gmail.com.


There are few poetic flourishes among SLUGSMOKE & MIRRORS’ breathing details of New York street life, no glitz, glamor, glory, or even grit, just survival or death. In a place where yesterday’s foreign car could be tomorrow’s only home, futures are built on regrets or not at all. With this in mind, Kai Fortyfive speaks plainly and bares souls.

SLUGSMOKE is really just a compilation of stories/memories from not only my life but the lives of my friends,” says the rapper/producer from Elmont, New York. “It was type hard to write this album because mentally I had to go back to a lot of shit I’ve been through. It’s tough to recollect on pain and trauma, but I feel like in order to deliver the album the way I needed to, I had to go back and relive those stories. All in all, this is definitely my most important work I’ve ever done and I’m glad people are in tuned for real.”

Call these criminology bars or worse, reality raps, and severely miss the point. There’s little space here for distinguishing between shadows and ghosts, let alone musical classifications. The rhymes are dope, the beats are hard, and Kai Fortyfive does them all. The only guests are family, Lowcaste LXRD$. The only style the painful truth flickering through fogs of war.




LongIslandRap.Comp Vol. 4 (LIRR02)


LongIslandRap.Comp v4 is the fourth installment in a series of compilations showcasing Long Island hip-hop artists, the first collecting all new or unreleased songs, and the second release on Long Island Rap Records (LIRR02). All proceeds from this compilation (after Bandcamp takes its cut) are being donated to communitysolidarity.org, a nonprofit organization that holds weekly food shares in Hempstead, Huntington, Farmingville, Wyandanch and Bedford-Stuyvesant. According to Community Solidarity, a $1 donation allows the organization to share 32.8 lbs. of vegetarian groceries, and $32 collects enough food to feed one person for an entire year. Purchases include bonus tracks from Theravada, Blaq Kush and Samfl3. Please support the artists, your neighbors and our communities.





Andy Koufax - I'm From A Little Place (LIRR01)


Edition of 100 blue and orange tapes in white case; each cassette includes autographed baseball card with hand-numbered liner note and download code.

$13 USD (includes $3 shipping)
Please send as friend, put address in notes.
International Orders: $23 USD (includes $13 shipping)
Any questions, please email longislandrapblog@gmail.com.


A guy gets off one train just to get on another. A summer is lost like sunken treasure. The phone is left at home, dropping the opportunity of one lifetime just to get on another. Under the right conditions, growth can be achieved literally overnight, said a plant. The pig didn’t sit well, said a lion, mane dripping sick. Three drunks at the Rockville Centre stop argue over whether Townes Van Zandt was a bluesman. Three kids emerge from Twin Lake Preserve smelling like cigarettes and cologne. A cover band singer hears all of his dreams die violently in somebody else’s mythology. A seven-year-old finds God on the Jones Beach boardwalk … with a Walkman on … playing “Waterfalls.” A 30-something puts out a cassette tape and lives forever.

I’m From A Little Place is the debut album by rapper/producer/singer/songwriter Andy Koufax and first release on Long Island Rap Records. Andy wrote, performed and recorded every note and lyric of this autobiographical psychogeography. The titular place — Wantagh, NY, a hamlet best known as the “Gateway to Jones Beach” and briefly the home of best-selling author Amy Fisher — is indeed little. However, the ideas on this album are anything but.

As for those notes, they’re visceral, sprawling, fever pitched. Andy describes I’m From A Little Place as “all my strife, love, pain, joy, and madness exploded out a maze of croons, raps, guitars, samples, synths, drums and magical flout.” To mix and master the project, he recruited maestro Willie Green, whose techno-wizardry helps keep this labyrinth’s multigenre minotaur from devouring all those brave enough to enter. Multigenre who now? Let’s say alternative hip-hop with a touch of grunge and the occasional neo-soul wail, but also, inextricably, Long Island Rap.

Also available in select retail stores: Looney Tunes (West Babylon, NY) | Record Reserve (Northport, NY) | Record Stop (Patchogue, NY) |  Rotten Island Records (New York, NY) | Human Head Records (Brooklyn, NY) |  Barely Brothers Records (Saint Paul, MN)


 


Store FAQ
Q: Do you accept any other forms of payment?
A: Yes, Zelle, Apple Pay, personal check or cash. Email longislandrapblog@gmail.com for details if you'd prefer one of those. Credit cards are also accepted but only for Bandcamp purchases.

Q: I don't have a tape player. Where are the "Rap Records?"
A: For now, I mean records as in recordings. Cassettes are the least expensive physical media for this fledgling label to produce. Also, every tape includes a download code so you can listen on the digital device of your choice. And it's just cool to have and hold.

Q: I'd like to stock these tapes in my store. How can I do so?
A: Long Island Rap Records' releases are available via wholesale purchase and/or consignment agreement. Email longislandrapblog@gmail.com to discuss terms.

Q: Do you have any used vinyl records for sale?
A: As a matter of fact, yes, check out my Discogs. If I decide to put any used Long Island rap records up for sale, they'll be added on this page as well.

Q: Now that Long Island Rap Blog is Long Island Rap Records, is the submission process still the same?
A: Yes and thank you for your interest! The process for submitting songs or albums to be posted on the site is the same as it's always been. At some point, I may also begin accepting demo submissions for label releases, at which time I'll provide additional information on that process, but for now I have the first four or five releases in mind already.