Darc Mind - The Cellar Session

Darc Mind is my favorite MC-DJ duo. There is nothing else in hip-hop quite like the combination of Web D's beats and Kevroc's rhymes. How curious then that one of their best known songs, indeed their only single ever pressed, wasn't produced by Web D, but by New Jersey's Nick Wiz. When I spoke with the duo about this record, Web said, "Originally on Loud, we had a single deal. They was afraid of us. They didn’t know what to do with us ... They did think our sound was a little rough around the edges, so they sent us to Nick Wiz, and we did the single for them, which was 'Outside Looking In.' They put it out there for radio release. It was almost like a promo. They never released it in the stores or nothing like that. It was mad copies pressed up and they promo’ed the shit out of it."

As so many copies were pressed, the single isn't too hard to find, and in addition to radio and album versions of the song, it contains the instrumental and acapella tracks. Any Kevroc acapella is a thing to behold. Recently, however, it was revealed that these aren't the only versions. In 2025, Nick Wiz included an alternate mix of "Outside Looking In" on his Cellar Selections Volume 11 compilation. When I first heard this, I immediately lost my shit, getting so excited I somehow convinced myself there were actually different lyrics on this version. There aren't, but it's still very dope. Anyway, I'd resolved to do a post about it sometime, and when that time came a few days ago, I went looking for the song again only to find that it's actually not the only Nick Wiz-produced Darc Mind track available. 

In fact, the very first installment of Wiz's Cellar Sounds compilation series, released back in 2008, includes an otherwise unreleased Darc Mind song called "We In This." Additionally, Cellar Sounds Volume 5, released in 2017, has another unreleased track called "Femme Fatale," and Cellar Extras Part 3, from 2019, has an alternate take of that song. While there isn't any information available on these recordings beyond the compilations' limited credits, all of them are dated to 1996, the same year that "Outside Looking In" dropped. So, while Nick Wiz did not immediately respond to a request for comment, we can likely infer that the songs were recorded in or around the same time as one another, perhaps during the same session(s). Could it be that all of these songs were tracked as potential singles, and that a version of "Outside Looking In" was eventually chosen for release? 

If this was the case, I think everyone can agree that out of the three songs, the choice most faithfully represents what we've come to appreciate as the Darc Mind sound. It might not be the darkest of the bunch, but it is the most Darc. As for the others, "We In This" seems to recall the '80s basement parties Kev rocked in his youth, with one of its verses later appearing on "U Da One" off Symptomatic of a Greater Ill, while "Femme Fatale" appears to be a noirish take on "Fine Brown Frame" from Bipolar, with an extra verse and alternate hook. What did Nick Wiz's producorial role entail? How did it align with Web and Kev's vision? We may never know. Regardless, Darc Mind was here.

Darc Mind - Darc Mind Wuz Here

Drafting questions for my bucket-list interview with Darc Mind MC Kevroc and producer X-Ray Da Mindbenda, I briefly considered then quickly dismissed the idea of asking when their next project was coming. After all, 13 years separated the duo's 2nd and 3rd albums. So, you can imagine my surprise when, after I asked at the end of the interview if there was anything else they wanted to talk about, X-Ray volunteered that they had another project, an EP called Darc Mind Wuz Here, nearly completed. 

The coda on a brilliant if abbreviated body of work spanning multiple decades, Darc Mind Wuz Here landed at the top of 2022 true to its name; the writing on a crumbling wall, its section still standing strong even if destined for the rubble pile. Kevroc has one of the most marketable voices in the history of Hip-Hop; that it's never been "successfully" sold as such by the music industry is as much a testament to the genius of his lyrics as a casualty of '90s label politics. Simply put, he's not writing for the masses but for himself and those he might inspire. In liner notes and interviews, he cites as his major influences local MCs who never put out records and whose names virtually nobody else would be able to recognize today except maybe for their former neighbors and collaborators. Widespread recognition is not, has never been the point. 

Darc Mind's catalog is essential rap music, an ever-evolving oral tradition. Thus, even the bitter-sweet finality of this exclamatory installment comes with an unambiguous belly laugh. Its final song-proper is unironically titled "Now That I've Arrived." Its last track, "Phantom of the MLK Center," is not so much a rap song as a spoken-word lamentation, a love-hate letter from artist to art. Even after the tag fades from the broken bricks, after the last rhyme is done and the last boom bapped, this never ends. Its very existence is one of continuous advancement. That's what manifested it. That's what it manifests.

Whether or not there's a document to show for it, Darc Mind Wuz Here. "Cats who lived there will know what I'm talking about."

The 10 Most Viewed Long Island Rap Posts of 2020

Like the title says, these are Long Island Rap Records' 10 most visible posts of 2020, as determined by the little view count icon in the Blogger user interface.

10. Thoughts on a couple semi-obscure De La songs from 1993 and their legacy
It warms the heart to see this post squeaking onto here, as it’s easily one of my quirkiest in recent memory, connecting Tony Touch mixtapes to Buhloone Mindstate-era b-sides to my all-time favorite album, Stakes Is High to Ras Kass’s foray into the East-West beef. Also, my lady bought me the Ego Trippin’ (Part 3) VLS for Xmas (imported from Japan no less).

9. Hus “Wavo” Kingpin – The Threesome EP
Hus never takes years off, but 2020 was an especially prolific one for him. This being arguably his strongest project of the year, and a very early post on Cognac Spaceship being the fourth most viewed post in site history, it’s fitting that Wavo should find himself on this list. Shout out the Internet Archive for being a place where you can still find Madonna’s Sex book online.

8. Lil Pharo – “F4mous” / “Hendi”
Artists and managers who hit the submission page: good things come to those who wait and also to those who share these posts across their social media channels. There was about a month between submission and follow-up here, so obviously I’m not in the practice of premiering hit singles ahead of pay-to-play sites, but I’m happy to provide a platform for those who do their due diligence.

7. “He’s a Caveman, It’s Another Time.” R.A. the Rugged Man Puts the Id in Long Island.
R.A. the Rugged Man is known as both a crazy motherfucker and a devout hip-hop head, and this interview shows why. His antics are legendary, but for me it was most fun hearing R.A. talk about his roots in the mid- to late-1980s LI hip-hop culture. I learned a lot from our discussion. Trust I’m still trying to find the Latino freestyle single that provided his first appearance on wax.

6. Andy Koufax – I’m From A Little Place
Fun fact: the original promo for this album compared it in a roundabout way with a pineal gland cyst and was attributed to Jesus Christ. Side note: the Long Island Rap Record Store page that also launched with this release brought in more views than the top two posts on this list combined. If one-twelfth of those visitors bought a tape, they’d be sold out. If you buy one, I’ll be super grateful.

5. “It's a dirty game of chess or checkers. Get paid or be left naked and desperate. I lit a candle and played Jamaican records, prayed and rested next to my favorite weapons, saved my bread up and then made my exit. I'm going back and forth with the thoughts of quitting like table tennis, but what's the game if the players ain't in it? Every pen ran out of ink on the day this was written.”

4. Roc Marciano: The Flipmode Era
The only surprising thing about Roc Marciano having two of the year’s top 10 posts is that neither of them is in the top 3. This post was basically me cataloging an afternoon spent listening to Flipmode Squad songs from 1999-2001. In the immortal words of Busta Rhymes, “So then they said, ‘Oh, so that mean we gon’, you gon’ switch it on em?’ I said, ‘Yeah, Flipmode. Flipmode is the greatest.’”

3. Dreddy Kruger Spotlights LI Talent on Think Differently Two: The Audio Film
Dreddy hit me after seeing DJ Booth’s feature on I’m From A Little Place. This led to me doing a feature on his latest project, which is a great listen, and DJ Booth doing a feature on the man himself, which is a great read. Definitely check all that out if you haven’t and look out for more Think Differently-related posts coming in 2021.

2. Darc Mind Was Here: Kevroc & X-Ray Reflect on 30 Years “Going Through It”
The possible opportunity to some day do this very interview was one of the main reasons I started writing about music in the first place, so you’ll have to understand when I say that this is easily my favorite post in the site’s history and the one I’ve gone back to most throughout 2020. With so many threads to follow from here, I expect to continue returning to it for many years to come.

1. An oral history of IGT, the Ill Got Team.
A post on IGT was long overdue, to the point where I felt the only way to do it justice would be to include a little bit of everything I could find on them. To organize it, I used the same tactic I’d adopted for my post on Rakim’s early years (the site’s second most viewed ever). I’m happy to report this ended up connecting me directly with IGT’s Lagato Shine, who was nice enough to submit some tracks for LongIslandRap.comp v4 and who will no doubt be featured here again in the future.

Darc Mind Was Here: Kevroc & X-Ray Reflect on 30 Years "Going Through It"

"Darc Mind was the theme, the thrust and the emphasis..." -Kevroc

Darc Mind has never been a household name, but if there’s ever been a time to get familiar it’s right now, when darkness abounds and mindfulness is needed like never before. Long Beach producer GM Web D aka X-Ray da Mindbenda and Elmont MC Kevroc have been making music together since the late ‘80s. Despite that, until the mid-00s, Darc Mind’s commercial discography consisted of one radio single and two soundtrack appearances. Over the past 15 years, however, the group has been rediscovered, their previously unheard works remastered and released. Still, as for public appearances, there have only been a couple interviews and a few photos. The duo didn’t put out a music video until 2019. If MF Doom is hip-hop’s masked supervillain, Darc Mind are The Watchers, cosmic beings surveying the universe from above, an unseen omnipresence inextricably woven into the culture’s quantum fabric.

Before Roc Marciano and The U.N., before I.G.T., Darc Mind was the first Long Island rap group to sign with Loud Records. In 1996, they were label mates of Wu-Tang and Mobb Deep, with rhymes equally cerebral to the former and beats damn near dustier than the latter. In the early to mid-2000s, when another longtime collaborator of X-Ray da Mindbenda, the aforementioned supervillain MF Doom, became the world's most popular underground rapper virtually overnight, and when his and X-Ray’s Monsta Island Czars crew released an album on Rhymesayers followed by a seemingly never-ending string of solo efforts, MC Kevroc remained on the “Outside Looking In,” his unmistakable bass vocals reserved almost exclusively for Darc Mind, album or no.

I first heard Darc Mind sometime shortly after their previously unreleased ‘90s sessions were issued on LP by Anticon Records in 2006 as Symptomatic of a Greater Ill. It immediately became one of my favorite Long Island rap records (hence one of my favorite albums in general) and has maintained that standing since. In fact, as I’ve aged, the duo’s music has taken on greater significance for me as a listener, the depth of Kevroc’s pitch exceeded by the depth of emotional resonance and lived meaning in his lyrics. Likewise, as more and more Darc Mind records have been unearthed over the years, it’s become increasingly apparent that X-Ray reserved some of his most progressive beats for Kev, that this MC could push this producer’s sound further than could any of the myriad talents in their shared cipher.

Now, a pandemic has engulfed the globe. We’re all inside looking out. Darc Mind has a new album. What Happened to the Art? is a rhetorical question posed by quietly prolific surveyors, as much an overview of the current post-cultural mileu as a retrospect of the moments leading up to this penultimate hour. It’s also their first collection of wholly new material in over a decade. The world might be about to end, but if it must, it first has to know: Darc Mind was here. Let it be known then.

Below: Long Island Rap Records humbly presents an extensive discussion with Darc Mind MC Kevroc and producer X-Ray da Mindbenda, which took place Saturday, March 21, 2020.

Fuck a List 2019

Roc Marciano - Marcielago

Theravada - Xennis Rodman

Lisaan'dro - M.A.D.E. (My Allies Died Early)

Elucid - Every Egg I Cracked Today Was Double Yolked

Josh Alias - Growing Pains

Azomali - Guayaba


WiFiOG - Disrupt

Darc Mind - What Happened to the Art?

Christ Kenneth - The Abomination of Desolation

AM - self.

Darc Mind - Outside Looking In 12"

Released on Loud Records in 1996, Outside Looking In was the first and only single Kevroc and X-Ray Da Mindbenda put out under the name Darc Mind. It's also the only Darc Mind song that isn't produced by Ray "X-Ray Da Mindbenda" Davis — Nick Wiz is credited as producer, mixer and engineer. Perhaps most notably, it contains the only known Kevroc acappella track, which is a jewel unto itself by virtue of the MC's vocal range. Stream that below and download the Outside Looking In 12" here.

***Update 5/7/26**

Above I'd mistakenly stated that "Outside Looking In" is the only Darc Mind song not produced by X-Ray da Mindbenda. Clearly, at this point, I hadn't heard the Nick Wiz-produced "We In This," which dropped in 2008 but was recorded around the same time as "Outside Looking In," perhaps even during the same session(s). In the years since this post went up, Nick Wiz has put out yet another Darc Mind song as well as alternate version of it. Read more about all of this in my recent post, "Darc Mind - The Cellar Session."

Darc Mind - Antediluvian Vol. 2

Antediluvian Vol. 2 is Dope Folks Records' third release to feature the talents  of Kevroc and X-Ray Da Mindbenda, following Antediluvian Vol. 1 and the Legion of D.U.M.E. '94 D.U.M.E. EP, both of which are all sold out. Limited to just 300 copies, this one is likely to do the same, so get yours now while you still can. All six songs on here, four of which are from '96 and two of which are from '93, can be streamed below via Dope Folks' YouTube channel. Respect due to Darc Mind for archiving all this material and allowing it to see the light of day decades later, to Justin Perkins for remastering it, and to Dope Folks Records for continuing to put out previously unreleased hip-hop of the highest caliber.

Darc Mind - Symptomatic of a Greater Ill

Symptomatic of a Greater Ill by Long Beach's Webb D (a.k.a. X-Ray Da Mindbenda a.k.a. King Cesar) and Elmont's Kevroc is one of the greatest albums in Long Island hip-hop history. Recorded between 1995 and 1997 for Loud Records, it didn't end up getting released until Anticon put it out in 2006. And thank the rap gods they did. I honestly feel that this album could be ranked up there with the likes of Paid In Full and It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. An unheralded classic that has only recently begun to get the recognition it deserves, it can be streamed in its entirety below and purchased via X-Ray's Bandcamp.