Son of Bazerk, Leaders of the New School, JVC Force members at Long Island Music Hall of Fame, June 11

Hip-Hop, now 50 years old, will be partying like a 50-year-old Long Islander this weekend. Which is to say partying hard at 2 p.m. on a Sunday. There will be performances by Son of Bazerk,  Bomb Squad/Public Enemy DJ Johnny Juice, DJ Jazzy Jay, and Fat Boy MC Kool-Rock Ski. There will be a panel discussion featuring JVC Force MC AJ Rok, Leaders of the New School members Dinco D and Milo In De Dance, and Video Music Box's Ralph McDaniels. The event is "free with admission" to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame at 97 Main Street in Stony Brook: $15 for students with ID, $17 for veterans and seniors, and $19.50 for everyone else. Additional details here. See you there?

the NAIT SIRK - SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY

The dude responsible for one of the dopest beat changes on LongIslandRap.comp Volume 4, the NAIT SIRK has dropped his official debut EP. The self-recorded, -mixed and -mastered SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY is a punch bowl of introspective fun featuring production from Jesepi Kicks, rapsody3000, Waylay Creations, Flousen, SKYE, and Benzine. It's hot non-gender-specific summer music, through good times and bad. As for the rhymes, they're all physical, diaphragmatic, sometimes mushmouthed, yet somehow, someway (!?) cogent, bile-logical if you will. "One standout, "Lying to Myself" is damn near balladry. RUNITUP!

"He's a Caveman, It's Another Time!" R.A. the Rugged Man Puts the Id in Long Island.

Photo by Enkrypt Los Angeles

I didn't plan to bring up the Jive showcase riot. I promise I didn't. I wanted to talk to R.A. the Rugged Man about b-sides like "Smithhaven Mall" and "Even Dwarfs Started Small" and longtime collaborators like Anthony "Capital T" Marotta and Marc Niles. We covered them too, but some stories just have a way of slipping themselves into conversation.

Several times in this interview, R.A. channels the voices of his critics. When I try to ask about his favorite '90s records from rappers who never dropped albums, he becomes his old label. Talking his latest album, All My Heroes Are Dead, I try to ask about the dichotomy between "First Born" (about R.A.'s daughter) and "The Big Snatch" (about a giant vagina). He becomes those who've been telling him to "grow up" since he was a teenager. When I ask if his album titles are in conversation with each other (i.e., is All My Heroes Are Dead a response to Legends Never Die as that was to Die, Rugged Man, Die), he is less certain. Ditto when I commend him for helping fans through tough times.

Few names are more synonymous with Long Island hip-hop than R.A. the Rugged Man, and it occurs to me now that may be partly because he somehow represents the id in this island, its instinct to need, want, react and create. If this drives R.A., it's done well for him, as he's continually recognized by his peers as one of the most gifted lyricists in all of underground hip-hop, and for mutliple decades at that. If not, he also has two lovely kids and legions of adoring fans. And if all else fails, Niles, Cap and Big Earth the Midget Face are still making beats.

Below: Long Island Rap Records humbly presents an extensive discussion with R.A. the Rugged Man, which took place Saturday, June 20, 2020.

Crustified Dibbs - 1994 EPK

Rakim, R.A. the Rugged Man, and ... Rammstein!?

And now for something completely different ... something ... Ra-diculous if you will. The image you see here is of Rakim speaking with none other than Richard Kruspe, the guitarist of Rammstein.

If you don't know who Rammstein is, they're an industrial metal band from Germany that landed a big hit in the U.S. in 1997 with their song "Du Hast." They're also known for having a wild stage show featuring all manner of dangerous pyrotechnics. So, as you might imagine, the pairing of Kruspe and Rakim is an odd one to say the least. The man who made it happen was Aleks de Carvalho, owner of No Mystery Studios. Presumably sometime around 2011, de Carvalho brought together Rakim, Kruspe, singer Shontelle, and fellow L.I. rapper R.A. the Rugged Man for a track called "The Time Is Now."

In fact, someone apparently had the idea to film the studio sessions and use the footage to put together a trailer for something called "TWO WORLDS," which "seeks to capture the moment when artists from vastly diverse musical genres and, as importantly, contrasting life experiences join together to develop and record an original work that bridges all differences they confront," according to the YouTube description. TWO WORLDS never really materialized, as far as I can tell, but the trailer still lives on YouTube, and it's from there that the screen cap above was taken. To be precise, this the moment when Kraspe tells Rakim, "The interesting part of the song is that it's based on a real story, which is the first cannibalism in Germany ... he was eating the penis of the other guy." Ra-diculolous indeed! The trailer, the music video, and an in-studio conversation between R.A. and Rakim stream below.

R.A. The Rugged Man - Stretch & Bobbito Freestyles

R.A. The Rugged Man appeared on the Stretch & Bobbito Show at least three times by my count: May 20, 1993; October 20, 1994; and March 20, 1997 (dates from playlists on Stretch & Bobbito blog.)

As funny as the freestyles are, the on-air banter is equally hilarious, like in '97 when R.A. discussed living with brother-in-law One-Eyed Jake, or in '94 when he (successfully?) propositioned a woman in the studio before leaving.

Stream the '97 & '94 freestyles below. Download all three appearances here.

Reks - "Bitch Slap" ft. R.A. The Rugged Man

"I get better each year 'cause clearly I'm starving / Fans watch my career evolve like theories of Darwin / Oust your prime ministers like Bangkok / With a Bomb Squad like Hank Shock where they bang cock and slang rock / And whores drop drawers every time that Wu-Tang drop / And bitches, instead of images of Christ on they wall, they hang Pac / Title vacate hate fake faith race bait / Culture vulture lame brain Johnny came late."

R.A. The Rugged Man - "Media Midgets"

With the video for "Media Midgets" off his 2014 album Legends Never Die, Rugged Man re-stakes his claim to the title of rap's biggest cinephile, by paying homage to Werner Herzog's absurdist masterpiece Even Dwarfs Started Small in what R.A. describes as his "most ambitious, biggest, most cinematic video so far."

Crustified Dibbs - Bloodshed Hua Hoo CDS

If there's one rapper who best personifies the erratic character of the Long Island weirdo every-man, it's clearly Port Jeff's R.A. the Rugged Man. Rugged's first singles appeared on Jive Records in the mid '90s ahead of the Night of the Bloody Apes album, which ended up getting shelved by the label. There is some ambiguity surrounding this period, as the singles were credited to Crustified Dibbs, who some think is simply another moniker of Rugged Man and some claim is the name of a duo consisting of R.A. and his producer at the time, Marc Niles (of Farmingville and Centereach). Whatever the case, here are the CD single and video for 1994's "Bloodshed Hua Hoo." Download Bloodshed Hua Hoo CDS