LIRR Presents: The Shit Mobile

"Humans in the lobby holding crosses up, I understand the caution, but some of you just wanna see the coffin jump until the coffin jump. Then it's what I call a punk. Didn't even get to where he coughing blood and talk in tongues. Not to mention, once you hassle the hoard, it doesn't matter how much furniture you stack at the door." —Aesop Rock

 

Class A Felony – "The Night Stalker" from Class A Felony CHCL455AFEL01 on Chopped Herring Records; Elucid – "Ghoulie" from I Told Bessie BWZ778 on Backwoodz Studioz; Grym Reaper – "Graveyard Chamber" Excerpt from 6 Feet Deep (Clean Version) PRLP 6853-1 on Gee Street; Eric B. & Rakim – "Lyrics of Fury" from Follow the Leader UNI-3 on UNI Records; Darc Mind – "Rhyme Zone" from Symptomatic of a Greater Ill ABR0063 on Anticon Records; DOOM – "Cellz" from Born Like This LEX069LP on Lex Records; Aesop Rock – "Jumping Coffin" from Spirit World Field Guide RSE0314-1 on Rhymesayers Entertainment; Too Nice – "The Phantom of Hip Hop" from Cold Facts AL85-83 on Arista; Public Enemy – "Night of the Living Baseheads" from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back FC 44303 on Def Jam Recordings; Hyenas in the Desert – "Other Side of Midnight" from Die Laughing C 67655 on Slam Jamz, Columbia; Prodigy – "Shook Ones, Part II" Excerpt from Shook Ones Part II 07863-64315-1 on Loud Records, RCA Records Label, BMG; Roc Marciano – "Wicked Days" ft. Trent Truce from Mt. Marcy FB5205 on Marci Enterprises, Art That Kills; Grandmilly & Shozae – "Pleasant Times" from Adventureland STH2397 on Stones Throw Records

Crack Val - Rap for Ordinary People

Nowadays, everyone's extraordinary. We all have beautiful homes, giant televisions, and luxury vehicles. Or, at least, we can all convince each other that we have these things. But long ago, in the 2000s, we had only our aspirations. This isn't some social critique of influencer anti-culture or late-capitalist lamentation for the American dream. It's a blurb for a mixtape that never was. 

If Crack Killz Vol. 1 ever was released, Crack Val isn't around to tell us about it. The I.G.T. co-founder passed away seven years ago this month. He left online about a dozen solo tracks. Most are about money and women, especially the joys they bring and the fearful pain of losing them. Most have beats with the kind of 2000s mixtape-era magic today's producers yearn to recapture. The beats on here that don't fit that description are still ahead of their time. All of these songs are best described in Crack Val's own immortal words as "rap for ordinary people." I present them to you here in a continuous mix, with the blessing of Val's longtime partner in rhyme, Lagato Shine. Be grateful for everything and everyone in your life, with the understanding that all we ever really have is us.

1. Caviar

2. Bentley

3. Hate Yourself

4. R.O.A.E.

5. She Know

6. Top Notch

7. Rope-a-dope

8. Get Money

9. I Live It

10. Opposite of Found

12. In My Zone

Whirlwind D - Long Island Pioneers Hip Hop Show

Great Britain's affinity for Long Island hip-hop goes back decades, to the 1987 Def Jam tour if not longer. I dare say the connection has roots in the culture's progenitors. Indeed, recent posts here waxed philosophical on genre- and medium-spanning cross-pond collaborations, like Rakim's with Art of Noise or De La Soul's with the Grey Organisation. In our current century, Roc Marciano has produced an entire EP for UK rap duo The Planets and received nothing short of a hero's welcome on English tour stops. I even remember hearing somewhere that the famously purist P Brothers, who'd featured Roc on their 2008 Gas album, held Long Island up beside the Bronx in terms of hip-hop bona fides. I say all of this to say that much like the Germans go nuts for obscure Southern horrorcore and West Coast g-funk, the Brits love them some Long Island rap. Now, Salisbury, UK rapper/DJ Whirlwind D has compiled all that respect and admiration into a multi-decade history lesson of a megamix for the Pioneers Hip Hop Show on England's 103.7 Kane FM. Regular readers will no doubt recognize that Long Island Rap Records postings and musings served as a big source of inspiration for this mix. That said, regular readers may in fact be Whirlwind D and his fellow countrymen, and to them I say cheers, bruv, dun know.

 

Kai Fortyfive - SLUGSMOKE & MIRRORS (LIRR03) Deluxe Edition Cassettes Now Available for Pre-Order

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.

SLUGSMOKE & MIRRORS is Kai Fortyfive’s fourth release and first on cassette. This deluxe edition, limited to just 25 copies, includes the album instrumentals on the-b-side. Tapes are expected to ship in late June 2021. Preview the album below and pre-order now via the LIRR Store (no fees, $ goes direct to LIRR and Kai) or Bandcamp (cards accepted).

LongIslandRap.Comp v4 Out Now on Bandcamp. Pay What You Can. All Proceeds Support LI Food Shares.

 

LongIslandRap.Comp v4 is the fourth installment in a series of compilations showcasing Long Island hip-hop artists and the second release on Long Island Rap Records (LIRR02). It includes 23 new or unreleased tracks, featuring artists such as SmooVth (Hempstead), Rozewood (Amityville), Theravada (Bellmore, Wantagh), Cryptic One (Westbury), Grandmilly & Shozae (Hempstead, Uniondale), Darc Mind (Elmont, Long Beach), AZOMALI (Freeport), Andy Koufax (Wantagh, Massapequa), Lagato Shine (Roosevelt), WiFiOG (Central Islip) and many others.

With this compilation coming together amid a pandemic and economic collapse, which have diproportionately devastated Long Island's low-income communities, Long Island Rap Records decided it only right to make this project a pay-what-you-can benefit release. All proceeds from LongIslandRap.Comp Volume 4 are being donated to Community Solidarity, a nonprofit organizaiton that holds weekly vegetarian food shares in Hempstead, Huntington, Farmingville, Wyandanch and Bedford-Stuyvesant. If you can afford to support this release, please pay what you can; even $1 allows Community Solidarity to share an additional 32.8 pounds of groceries. Each purchase includes the full digital album along with three bonus cuts.

Last but definitely not least, please join Long Island Rap Records in thanking all of the artists who contributed tracks for this release. If you enjoy a song from a particular artist on here, look them up  and support their art in any way you can, be it by purchasing their albums or simply sharing a track on social media. Links for all of the featured artists can be found on the Bandcamp page below, and if you'd like any additional info, just drop a line in the comments.

Andy Koufax - I'm From A Little Place (LIRR01) Streaming Now on Bandcamp, Limited-Edition Cassettes Available in the LIRR Store

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.

Andy Koufax’s I’m From A Little Place is available now for just $14 on limited-edition blue and orange cassette tape with download code, hand-numbered liner notes and autographed baseball card. Downloads are also available ($14 on Bandcamp, $10 direct) and come with complete lyrics sheet. Order now in the LIRR store.

For all press, business or artist inquiries, email longislandrapblog@gmail.com.

Long Island Rap Blog Is Now Long Island Rap Records

I started Long Island Rap Blog in 2014 to document and promote the rap music and hip-hop culture of Long Island, NY, the place where I was born, raised and have lived for most of my life. Which is really just a fancy way of saying I started the site because I wanted it to exist and it didn’t. I wanted there to be a single platform where listeners could enjoy the sounds — and learn about the architects — of Long Island hip-hop's past, present and future. I like to think I have succeeded in that regard.

I now plan to redouble my efforts on LongIslandRap.com, to do more than just post text, audio and video. I still want to bring attention to Long Island rap, but I also want to help bring the music into physical existence, to put it in a form where it can be held, opened, and felt by listeners such as myself. Therefore, I am turning Long Island Rap Blog into Long Island Rap Records.

Moving forward, LongIslandRap.com will continue to function exactly as it has in the past. However, it will also provide a platform to sell physical copies of new and previously unreleased recordings from Long Island artists, namely cassette tapes. This format will enable Long Island Rap Records to materialize quickly and inexpensively. Rest assured, the site’s commitment to quality and originality will be not just upheld but intensified when it comes to the label side.

Long Island Rap Records’ first release will be I’m From a Little Place, the debut solo album from Andy Koufax of Massapequa, NY (by way of Wantagh). Andy previously released the Chin Music EP in 2013. Since then he has appeared alongside Armand Hammer (billy woods & Elucid) on “The Thousand Headed Man” off Willie Green’s Doc Savage and alongside Warren Britt on “We Are Not Afraid” off Britt’s With Laurel.

Additional tape releases from other Long Island artists are currently being planned and will be announced in the months ahead.

To everyone who has ever visited LongIslandRap.com, hit play on a song you found here, shared a post, left a comment, or submitted a release for consideration, thank you for helping this site grow into the platform it is today. I am grateful for every second you have spent here. I hope you dig our forthcoming releases as much as I do.

Peace,
Samuel "$bin♦" Diamond
Founder, Long Island Rap Records