[Video] 38 Special / Styles P - "Support"

The first official set of visuals from .38 Special's forthcoming debut album, "Time Served", is here and it's a pretty sick vid with cameos from emcees, DJ:s and actors. The track in question is the Pete Rock and Styles P assisted banger, "Support".

Show & AG - "That Nigga Crazy" [Remix]

Following Showbiz & AG's superb free LP, "MugshotMusic: PRELOADED", Show releases this tight remix of "That Nigga Crazy". If you're banging your head to this, you can show your support by copping a few cuts of the Deluxe Version, or check out Showbiz's latest instrumental tape; "Still Diggin': Vol. 1".

SHOW & AG - "THAT NIGGA CRAZY" [SHOW REMIX]

[Tracklist] Alchemist - "Russian Roulette"

After releasing this year's brilliant "Vodka & Ayahuasca", Alchemist and Oh No are both taking time off from Gangrene in order to deliver respective solo projects. ALC's latest creation is called "Russian Roulette" and will, as expected, be heavy on interesting guest features. July 17 is the day, so save up!

1. Soundcheck
2. Apollo’s Last Stand f. AG Da Coroner
3. Crushed Kremlin f. Meyhem Lauren
4. Decisions Over Veal Orloff f. Action Bronson
5. Learned By Listening
6. Training Montage: Getting Stronger
7. Ivan’s Workout Plan
8. Never Grow Up f. Evidence
9. The Turning Point f. Roc Marciano
10. Live From Dynamo Stadium 2
11. Don Seymour’s Theme f. Midaz
12. Before The Fight Prelude
13. Adrian’s Words: Champion Song
14. Flight Of The Bumblebee
15. Kalashnekov Guns f. Guilty Simpson
16. Fight Confirmation f. Danny Brown & Schoolboy Q
17. Press Conference Prelude
18. Freakish Strength
19. Junkyard Fight Scene f. DRDC
20. Oleg’s Flight f. Fashawn
21. Moscow Mornings: Sunrise
22. Moscow Evenings: Sunset
23. The Kosmos pt. 1: Liftoff f. Chuuwee
24. The Kosmos pt. 2: Power Glove f. Boldy James
25. The Kosmos pt. 3: In Orbit
26. The Kosmos pt. 4: Moon Probe f. Big Twinz
27. The Kosmos pt. 5: 1st Contact: The Chase
28. The Kosmos pt. 6: Life On Another Planet f. Willie The Kid
29. The Kosmos pt. 7: The Explanation f. Mr. MFN eXquire
30. The Kosmos pt. 8: Return To Earth Outro

Lewis Parker x Sadat X x Shabaam Sahdeeq

UK producer Lewis Parker has blown me away on several occassions, like his brilliant debut album "Masquerades & Silhouettes" and his excellent work with Ghostface. Now it's time again, as Parker is gearing up for the release of a new solo album, "The Glass Ceiling", later this year on his own Dusty Vinyl imprint. For the single "Walking On A Razor", Parker has enlisted two New York giants in the form of Sadat X and Shabaam Sahdeeq... And the results is just as good as expected.

Rhettmatic - "Excerpts From the SP1200"

DJ Rhettmatic of the legendary Beat Junkies lets loose of his latest mixtape, titled "Excerpts From The SP1200". Included are thirteen fat instrumentals originally conducted by Rhettmatic on his SP1200 between 1994 and 1998. You can stream all the songs, with the option to purchase for any price you think is fair game. Check it out here, where you'll also see a message from Rhettmatic explaining the project.

[CLASSIC CLIPS] '92 Showbiz & AG Interview

It's been a long, long time since I posted any Classic Clips on The Lost Tapes, but with "Preloaded" and "Still Diggin' Vol. 1" getting plenty of plays the last few weeks and seeing this, I had to revisit the concept. There's certainly not many Show & A interviews from the "Runaway Slave" era, which to me is one of the 5-10 best hip-hop albums ever released. There's lots of interesting stuff revealed in this BET interview, such as Show being the man behind most of the song concepts back then, their take on the difference between rap music and hip-hop music and much more (including a great quote by Show right at the end). In other words this shit is pure GOLD, so make sure to press play all y'all D.I. heads.

.38 Special / Styles P - "Support Remix"

"Time Served" is the debut album by New York artist .38 Special, that's coming out latert this year.  In the video above, you can see him chilling over in the HeadQcourterz Studios with Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Green Lantern who are all contributing to the project. Pete Rock had production duties on the first single, "Support", which is now getting the remix treatment with a Styles P verse to boot. I have a feeling this will end up being the album version.

.38 SPECIAL x STYLES P - "SUPPORT" 

OC - "Who Run It "[Damu Remix]

A lot of Ocee on The Lost Tapes lately, which almost alwayss equals interesting music, both from a lyrcail and musical standpoint. I hold his 2003 album "Starchild" as a true classic, and I consider myself very lucky to have gotten a copy of the CD since it's not out of print. The featured song "Who Run It", gets the remix treatment by Damu the Fudgemenk, who does a  great job transforming the sound of Locsmif's more laid-back original to incorporate hardhitting, bass heavy rhythm with aggressive drums, and a very jazz-esque sample chop reminiscent of the Diggin' sound, which of course fits O' perfect. Damu's new take right away connects and compliments the emcee's flow on the cut. I love both versions, but I might very well prefer this over the album version.

Back to "Starchild", Ocee's fourth solo album, released in a very limited pressing on CD in Japan and some European countreis, in a very limited pressing. For vinyl, most of the songs were released on two equally limited vinyl EPs; "The Funk Star", and "The Soul Star". The album was released on Grit Records, a small hip-hop label that had some success around this time with great releases by KRS-One and Soul Supreme along with OC. From there, it was said that "Starchild" would get a proper retail release, but a completely remixed take. Some of y'all might remember that it was originally Pete Rock who were said to remix the entire project, as "Soulchild", later we heard that the remixes would be handled by Beat Fanatic Productions. In 2011, however, the good folks over at Redefinition Records released a White Label 12" with Damu the Fudgemunk's remix, and now that Redef uploaded it to Soundcloud, it now says this was also for a "Starchild" remix project. It seems most likely that they were working on a remix album, with some Pete beats, some Beat Fanatic beats as well as some outside producers. What I know, is that I would fucking love to hear the project in full. You can check out a gang of those remixes in this previous post on the subject.

Revisited; MOBB DEEP - "Murda Muzik" [Advance]

Many would argue that Mobb Deep's last truly great album was "Murda Muzik", and although the thugged out Queensbridge duo has released plenty of good music since, I would have to agree that they have never come close to those "first" three albums. It also remains their best selling album ever, which should have made them realize that their biggest successes come from sticking to their script, rather than watering down their albums with super lame cuts like "Handcuffs". Released in 1999, it was the time of Napster, as in the time where digital downloads and bootlegged albums rapidly become a reality. This caused serveral projects leaking way ahead of time, resulting in the artists going back in to the studio to try and "freshen" up their projects, deleting some of the old and throwing on something new. That was most of the time a rush job due to deadlines, which often resulted in the final product not behing at all as dope as originally intended. The most talked about, and widespread bootlegs, at the time were Nas' "I Am... The Autobiography", Jay-Z's "Vol. 3: The Life & Times of S. Carter", Inspectah Deck's "Uncontrolled Substance" and, of course, The M-O-B-B's Murderous Music.

When I first posted this about a year ago, I had gathered all the songs from that promo tracklist and put them together in the correct sequence. Luckily, the good man Fritz was nice enough to send me the real deal; the actual promo CD, a group rip straight from the source, which means that all tracks are now heard in good quality, and are exactly the way magazine reviewers got to hear the album before its release. The only downside is that most of the tracks are watermarked with that girl early bootleggers will remember so well - "For press release only...." haha. Besides the quality, the differences from the one I have posted before are that there's no Nas on "U.S.A. (Aight Then)", the original "Quiet Storm" is only two minutes and so is the original "Streets Raised Me". You can still check out the version I originally posted to get those songs.

The changes you'll hear include an alternative verison of "Quiet Storm", a track originally intended for "H.N.I.C.". "Mobb Coming Thru" is an underground Mobb classic sometimes known as "Perfect Plot". Next new song is the track "Fuck Her (Sheisty)" which to me is not one of the better songs on the album although it's definitely okay.  "Feel My Gat Blow" is a true Mobb masterpiece, which really makes you wonder why they left that off the final product; it did however appear on the first "Violator" compilation. "Nobody Likes Me" is a similiar, dark joint that's overall simply terrific. One of the real gems, however, comes in the form of "Pile Raps", an unbelivably dope and powerful Prodigy solo, where he rhymes straight through, no hook or breakdowns. Havoc's somber but hard hitting beats really works very close to perfection. and are further proof of why Hav and P always made best music together those days. Luckily, the track didn't go to complete waste, since the Mobb revisited it for the "QB Finest" compilaion as "Power Raps", although with a brand new beat. On "Murda Muzik", Havoc's production was still dark and sinister, with some of the tightest rhythm in the game at the time and his inovative use of samples made the musical aspect of the LP both raw and rugged, yet more polished than the two previous LPs. On top of that, P totally spazzed out on the entire disc. There's so many quotables all over this, like "This is Heavy Metal for the black people, it's rock and roll but it's hip-hop though/ my drug music, thereaputic to the user - you SLAM DANCE to it" just to name one.  And that aside, his delivery/flow here were close to unbeatable, and for me "HNIC" and this might be the last two Prodigy apperances as one of the greatest emcees in the game. It's also good to hear Big Noyd deliver three crazy verses on this advance, Make sure to grab this while you still can and give it a thorough listen and feel free to drop a comment ob your opinion, e.g.which version you prefer, and why. Enjoy and TURN IT UP!!!

01. "Quiet Storm"
02. "Allostrous"
03. "Mobb Comin' Thru" (Ft. Big Noyd)
04. "Guns, Money, Pussy (Adrenaline)"
05. "The Realest" (Ft. Kool G Rao)
06. "Fuck That Bitch" (Ft. Big Noyd)
07. "Feel My Gat Blow"
08. "Where Ya Heart At?"
09. "How You Want It? (What's Ya Poison)" (Ft. Cormega)
10. "Murda Muzik"
11. "Streets Raised Me" [OG Mix] (Ft. Big Noyd & Chinky)
12. "Pile Raps"
13. "Nobody Likes Me"
14. "Hoe Gonna Be A Hoe"
15. "U.S.A. (Aiight Then)"
16. "Where Ya From" (Ft. 8-Ball)
17. "Thug Muzik"

MOBB DEEP - "MURDA MUZIK" [ADVANCE]

[Compilation] OC - "The Inventor"

Those of you who have followed the blog for a while are aware that OC is an emcee I hold in the highest regards. Although he doesn't always get the props he deserves, he's got an amazing catalouge with classics like "Word...Life", "Jewelz", and "Starchild". Of course, he just dropped another supreme LP, in the form of his collaboration with Apollo Brown on "Trophies". But as is the case with basically any of our rhyming heroes, OC has also built his rep through guest apperances, cameos on soundtracks and compilations and underground singles. As usual, that's where The Lost Tapes come in with another banging compilation!

"The Inventor" features 17 choice cuts from O's career, stretching back to 1995 with "Return Of The Crooklyn Dodgers", to last year's boom bap renaissance - "Free Ya Mind", produced by Blastah Beatz. Over the next 70 minutes, you'll hear OC flex his lyrical muscle over hard hitting beats provided by Large Professor, Lord Finesse, DJ Premier, Ogee, Marco Polo, J-Love, Show, Soul Supreme and more. I deliberately did not include any of his work with his original main producer; Buckwild. The reason? Many of those were previously collected on an earlier compilation - "Ex-O-Cises". So if you feel up for more than an hour of sample-infested hip-hop with the focus on knocking drums, grooving basslines, and only the finest lyricism, don't sleep on this tape... And if you're feeling it, support real artists and pick up "Trophies" if you haven't already.

01. "O' Lord: Intro"
02. "The Inventor"
03. "Free Ya Mind" [Blastah Beatz Golden Era Remix]
04. "Return Of The Crooklyn Dodgers" (w. Chubb Rock & Jeru the Damaja)
05. "Conquer Mentality Remix" (w. Presto, Large Professor & Sadat X)
06. "Lyrical Tyrants: From Local to Global" (w. DJ Muro)
07. "Ya Better Recognize" (w. Lord Finesse & Rell)
08. "Lake Of Fire" (w. Lordz Of Brooklyn & Lord Finesse)
09. "Worst Nightmare" (Ft. Kai)
10. "Straight No Chaser"
11. "Maquee"
12. "Journey Remix" (w. Cormega, Sadat X & Large Professor)
13. "Metal Thangz" (w. Street Smartz & Pharoahe Monch)
14. "Showtime"
15. "Return to the Terrordome: R.A.W." (w. EZD)
16. "Food For Thoughts" (w. Cradle Orchestra)
17. "Life" (w. DJ JS-1)

OC - "THE INVENTOR"