[Throwback Review] LL's "Mr. Smith" + "No Airplay" [Dirty]

I know a lot of people disagree with me, claiming that just because LL made soft records for the ladies he was never one of the true greats. I call that massive bullshit and history revision, all the way back to the classic "Radio" - one of the first real Hip Hop classics - to "B.A.D.", "Mama Said Knock You Out", "14 Shots to the Dome" (you can read more about my thoughts on why it's a truly great album by clicking the text above) and "Mr. Smith" he damn near had a flawless discography. And he had a style of his own, no other emcee could credibly slaughter emcees like on "Mama Said...", encapsule everything Hip Hop is about on his breakthrough classics "Rock The Bells" and "I Need A Beat" and then make a super saccharine hit like "I Need Love" while mainitaining his street cred, but that's LL for you. When 1995 came around he dropped his last potent disc, though there's been loose bits and pieces as recent as 2013 ("Rocking With The G.O.A.T.", that Marley Marl freestyle over the "Mahogany" sample, etc) but he's definitely a has-been. But from 1985 to 1995 he was a force to be reckoned with and deinitely someone I bought every album from - there was the half-dud that was "Walking Out Of The Panther", that despite some really dope moments ("Fast Peg", "Jack The Ripper", "Going Back to Cali", "Nitro", "It Gets No Rougher") was a cheesy, half-assed album that felt forced and out of touch with Hip Hop in '89

Luckily for him, Marley Marl was the remix king back then and took on the LP single "Jingling Baby" for the 12" B-side which became THE version that blew up and started an amazing relationship that lasted two LP:s. But after those two albums it was time for LL to move on, thank Marley for making his comeback possible and making him a force to be reckoned with and he started recording the "Mr. Smith" album. I know some people dislike this album but to me it's the best album LL ever did as far as balancing the smooth with the hardcore and though it's a little dated now, it's the perfect album to either play when you're with your girl or just chilling by yourself. The transition from one of the raunchiest sex anthems on commercial radio in the '90s ("Doin' It") or the sweet but honest "Hey Lover" featuring Boyz II Men to super hardcore monster cuts like "I Shot Ya " (both the original solo version and the posse remix with Prodigy, Keith Murray and Foxy Brown) should be a little jarrig but somehow it all works very well a s a unified body of work. A good example is the opening cut "Hip Hop" where LL professes his love for Hip Hop over a smooth beat and does it in words and a tone that could almost be a love song but wihout ever coming off as cheesy. This is without a question the last album LL ever did that you could bump front-to-back and even have any kind of urge to do so. "Phenomenon" was one of the wackest albums by a legend ever put out, and only had one, maybe we can stretch it to two two redeeming songs out of ten. And I know a lot of people really like "G.O.A.T." and consider that LL's final solid release, but aside from the excellent opening song (labeled as the "Intro"), "Ill Bomb" (which was already released on a compilation), and the bonus track "Shut 'Em Down" the majority of the album, while it had its moments, felt very forced... 

If LL had never made another record after. "Mr. Smith" nobody could say he was and is a true Hip Hop legend, complete with the whole package as like his previous albums it doesns't feel forced in the least, It's a very well thought out, sequenced and well performed project. And though he left Marley behind, he had the assistance of Rashad Smith, Easy Mo Bee, Trackmasters, Chad Elliot and Chryskillz - all hot producers in the mid-'90s and they gave LL a really cohessive project, much thansk to it being exective produced by Poke and Tone alog with LL and Bay Chris Lighty. So once again from 1985 to 1995, LL dropped five really incredible albums that cemented his legacy in Hip Hop and though he has released more wack albums by this point he ocassionally still comes through with a firey track to remind old time fans what he is still capable of. Why he doesn't do his old fans proud is beyond me, but that's LL for you - like Canibus said, "99% of your fans wear high heels" and as the years has passed he has catered more and more to that demographic. Sadly. But if you ever doubt LL throw on "Radio", "Mama Said Knock You Out" or "Mr. Smith" and know that this was once an extraordinaire artist in full control of his musical output.

One last thing to close this throwback review with a goodie for your headphones. On all of the album versions of "Mr. Smith", both explicit and clean versions, one of the best songs on the LP ("No Airplay") is censored like crazy. Why LL and Def Jam choose to do this is beyond me considering the song is as explicit as can get and the theme is it's raunchy enough to gain no play on the radio, hence it ended up only as an album cut and as the B-side to the promo single of "The Life". Luckily that single is the only way to ge ta hold of the original uncut version and it's an amazing listen without all that jarring edits, a true LL classic. Check it out below straigt from the 12" single and Turn that MOTHERFUCKER up!

LL Cool J - "No Airplay" (Dirty, 320) [Download] 

[Throwback Doc] BLACK MOON - "Behnínd The Moon" (2013)

Here's an official documentary put out by Duck Down music in 2013 on the making of Black Moon's classic '92 debut album "Enta Da Stage", celebrating it's 25 year anniversary. I had totally missed this when it first hit the net, and as I'm sure more people than me did just that I wanted to post it since I've been banging some Black Moon recently and yesterday I was watching the amazing Masta Ace doc on "Disposable Arts". Unlike the Ace documentary this actually features footage of recording sessions and live performances from the era along with recent talking heads interviews about the impact of the album. Featuring the entire Boot Camp Clik this is 75 minutes of pure bliss for any true hip fan. You can stream the entire thing via Duck Down's official YouTube channel since last year, but if you want to support the cause grab your DVD at The Duck Down Shop. Enjoy!

KILLAH PRIEST Ft. AGALLAH - "The Elders Gave Us Aura"

As much as a fan of Killah Priest that I am I sometimes feel that he drops a little too much material, instead of saving up his best shit and drop one or two projects a year and discard the rest. For me I'm pretty good with "Heavy Mental" (and the early Sunz Of Man stuff and KP singles leading up to it), "The Offering" and the amazing 2013 double disc "Psychic World Of Walter Reed". Speaking of the latter one of my favorite joints on there was the soulful monster of a jam titled "The Elders Gave Us Aura", produced by Agallah. It was a case of short but sweet, but sometimes you wonder why artist choose to have one of the best songs on the album clock in at like 1:30. Well my homie Antoine turned me on to the truth in this case, "The Elders..." was actually a full collaboration between Priest and Agallah The Don, featuring an entire verse that was omitted from the album version for some reason. So here I present the full version of Killah Priest's "The Elders Gave Us Aura" featuring Agallah. Up top you can see/hear the shortened album version... Crazy why Priest cut this song - perhaps he wanted as few guests as possible but to be perfectly honest a 41 track album wouldn't hurt from some more guest apperances despite the fact that lyrically Priest probably dropped the strongest double disc as a solo artist of all time.  Anyway, enjoy and once again a big thank you to Antoine!

[DJ Mix] K-DEF Homage by Paul Nice and DJ Toast

Veteran DJ, producer and remixer Paul Nice recently started a podcast with fellow DJ Toast. Each week they celebrate an artist they feel is somewhat underrated despite vast body of work and for Episde 84 the spotlight is on one of my all time favorite producers and beat magicians - K-DEF. From his days working with the SP1200 and digging for samples to his 2006-output onwardw where he composes from scratch using computer software and manages to create fuly arranged, compositional masterpieces that puts any producer working with simple loops to shame. 

This two hour pocast, entitled "Grown Man Rap Show", traces the New Jersey born and bred maestro through his days as Marley Marl's right hand boom bap man to Redef Records flagship man with his digital orchestra. Whether or not you're well aquainted or a nw fan of 'Def this is two hours well spent so crank that volume up and get your grown man on!

D.I.T.C. - "It's Cold Outside" [Show & Motif Remix]

To be honest with y'all I wasn't blown away by the new D.I.T.C. album. The Crates is my favorite group in Hip Hop and I expect nothing but the best from them. So with that said the LP was still very good but compared to "Worldwide" and the likes it just didn't bring the same level of freshness to the table that I've come to expect from a crew of this caliber. OC and AG still brought it though and it was great to hear Fat Joe back in the fold again, but it didn't feel quite like the future classic I had my hopes set out for. To be fair though I only listened to the album a couple of times so far and it might very well be a grower.

One track that stood out for me on those early listens were the AG, OC and Fat Joe collaboration "It's Cold Outside" which is now getting the remix treatment courtesy of Showbiz and Motif Alumni. We all know Show is one of the most incredible beat masters around but the singles produced by newcomer Motif Alumni was truly a revelation. I really like how The Crates still give young cats (both producers and emcees) a chance at the spotlight with various D.I.T.C. projects. Titlted "The Test Session Remix" Show and Motif strips down the beat to its bare bones with thumping bass, boom bap drums and the occassional synth effect. Below you'll also find another headnodder that failed to make the final LP cut, "All Of That" - once again produced by Showbiz, this time featuring long-time associate A-Bless and the late, great Tashane. Visit DITC Ent @ Soundcloud for more exclusives and be sure to grab the pre-order of the new D.I.T.C. album from UGHH in your format of choice - 2xLP or CD.

[Concert Review] PETE ROCK & CL SMOOTH in Coepnhagen

When it came to my knoweledge that one of my all time favorite groups of all time, Pete Rock and CL Smooth was about to put on a show in the intimate Copenhagen club Rust it was a no-brainer to show up and pay my respects and hear some true hip hop classics. The only set back was waiting around in this small crowded and hot club for at least 2.5 hours while the house DJ spun records loud enough to make small talk impossible. I even had thoughts of leaving the club prematurely, because three hours is damn long time to wait around for anybody. Anyway, I'm glad I stayed because as soon Pete Rock entered behind the turntables you could hear a sigh of relief from the aduience. Anybody familiar with Pete's body of work knows that he's not only an A-grade producer but also an excellent DJ so it was appropriate that the concert started with a short but sweet DJ set from the #1 Soul Brother. Staying away from hip hop he was playing a nice medley of soul and jazz classics before transitioning to a vintage P.R. beat which played while C.L. made his entrance like a boxer entering the ring. What suprised me the most is that CL sounds pretty much exactly like he does on record; some rappers sound horrible live - not the case here. With both wearing T-Shirts with the Mecca & The Soul Brother emblem it was slightly surreal to actually see these two brothers share the stage in a great mode, playing classic after classic and really engaing with the aduiece.

Given that they have a rather small discography as a duo they still managed to cram loads of music within the 75 minutes they performed. As I recall they didn't perform anything from the "All Souled Out" EP, neither any of the stuff from Pete's "Soul Survivor" albums. So aside from a hard hittng apperance of their Run DMC collaboration "Down With the King" it was all about "Mecca & The Soul Brother" and "The Main Ingredient": Together this makes for a very dope set, considering how the former mainly focuses on the ruff and rugged sounds of the group and the latter constitues the smoother, more laid-back vibe the duo perfected within the realms of hardcore hip hop. They probably performed around twenty songs all in all and their soulution to the lenght of such a performance was to for many songs perform only the first verse, hook, scratches, and sometimes second verse. Both Pete and CL clearly love the classic Soul of the '70s that they grew up on, and a beautiful thing that further showed Pete's power as a DJ was that he often started a jam by playing 30-60 seconds of the orginal sample before transforming it to the track we knew of from the Mecca & Soul Brother album. This had the crowd go nuts each and every time, and was a beautiful trick. They were both great with the audience, Pete speaking with his hands and CL inviting the crowd to hang on his every word. One of many highlights of the night came with the entire packed room singing every word to the chorus of "Take You There" while Pete turned down the volume of the beat to a whisper. Amazing stuff!

The night was full of highlights, but en early rendition of "Mecca & The Soul Brother", "For Pete's Sake", "Lots Of Lovin'" (another crowd paritcipation endeveaor), "The Basement", "One in a Million", "Sun Won't Come Out" "I Got A Love", "All The Places"; the aforemetioned "Down With The King", "Carmel City".... Fuck it, the whole night was a highlight in itself, and once "If It Aint' Ruff, It Ain't Right" faded out Pete and CL took a deep bow, shouted their thank yous to us for coming out ad telling us how much they loved Copenhaen. People gave polite applaus and cheers while most of us was left scratching out heads. Any dedicated fan knew that something was missing, no matter how good the concert had been they had stayed awya from "T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You)" - that's like Wu-Tang doing everything but "C.R.E.A.M." or Biggie skipping "Juicy" in his heyday. So as the duo started walking towards the scene exit I was htinking to mysef like "this can't really be it - can it?". Of course it was a little joke on the audience as they qucikly turned back asking the crowd if maybe they had missed doing a song - but if so, what could that be? So after loud cheers for "T.R.O.Y." the famous intro loop started blasting through the club and the crowd just went nuts. And when that classic saxophone hook and bassline hit it was just over with excitement. 

But this was far from just doing the track and then leaving, this was a full part engagement between Pete, CL and the entire audience. After about half of CL's first verse, Pete cut the track to complete silence before rewinding the joint to the beginning again. That infectious soprano saxophone melody was actually sung along with by the entire audience and Pete Rock creating a true party atmosphere that made CL's biographical verses even more potent. At about seven minutes in length "T.R.O.Y." was not only a splendid encore, it was cathartic, and a fitting sumation of the entire evening. Standing there, looking up at that stage and seeing the amazing chemistry that these two Mount Vernon brothers sharted with each other it's hard not to imagine that these guys are bound to hit the studio and record that long-awaited third solo album sooner than later. All in all an excellent concert that proved that age ain't nothing but a number. At least when you got a material of this caliber.

[comp] PETE ROCK - "This is the NEW Shit"

Since I first heard ".T.R.O.Y.", "Shut 'Em Down", Pete's take on "Jump Around", "Nighttrain" and so many more, I've heald Pete as one of the holy trinity of Hip-Hop production. There's of course plenty of great rducers out there, but Pete reallt walked the extra mile putting together and layering something rottally original. This was the early '90s and songs like "T.R.OY", "The Basement" and basically the whole LP, there never was a qiuestion Pete Rock still got it. Simple as that. His sound might have changed quite a bit since the classic SP1200 days with CL Smooth and "Letterman" but though the man is still cranking out bangers on a semi-regular basis, he sure as hess stillgot,. In the last couple of years he served Hip Hop heads with serious dopeness on his full-length collaboration with Smif-N-Wessun ("Monumental"), brought out the ill instrumental grooves on "Petestrumentals II" and released two free digital mixtapes with Camp Lo that featured enough hot exclusives to make up a nice little album. One of the joys of being a dedicated Pete Rock fan, however, is not only checking for his LP releases and special projects but of course to keep eyes and ears open for whatever singles he's invited to produce or remix. While his work in the 2010s might not be as consistantly mindblowing as his early '90s years there's been plenty of Pete Rock heatrocks released on various albums over the last three years or so. Ron Carter was a bassic that Miles wanTed in his badn fot quote time -and thereS unodubtedly weak homes. "There Will Be Blood" is undoubtddly one of the best children's 

Last week I saw a GREAT concert performance by Pete Rock and CL Smooth in Copenhagen which really got me in a Soul Brother listening mode. Hence I dug up this compilation I made a while back for personal listening, but why not share the goods, right? This comp is basically an overlook of Stank for other artists between 2012 and 2016. I've tried to find all joints in the best possible quality as far as Mp3 goes (320 kbps) but a few of the songs is in lower bitrate as that was how they hit the internet in the case of some of these digital loosies. Either way it's a pretty cool front-to-back listen for anyone who still considers himself a Pete Rock fan... Check it out!

01. Torae - "Get Down"

02. Edo G - "Let Da Horns Blow"

03. Ill Bill - "Truth"

04. .38 Spesh - "Gone" (Ft. Sean Hayes)

05. Mack Wilds - "Duck Sauce"

06. Mac Miller - "Melt" (Ft. Schoolboy Q)
07. Robert Glasper Experiment - "Black Radio" RMX (Ft. Yasiin Bey)

08. Panda Bear - "Crosswords" RMX

09. NORE - "Vitamins" (Ft. Pete Rock)

10. Styles P - "Children" (Ft. Pharoahe Monch)

11. .38 Spesh - "Support" (Ft. Styles P)

12. Blu - "The Clean Hand"
13. Edo G - "2 Turntables & A Mic"
14. Ill Bill - "When I Die" RMX
15. Mack Wilds - "The Art Of Falling"
16. Smoke DZA - "Achieve"

 PETE ROCK - "THIS IS THE NEW SHIT"

WAX TAILOR Ft. GHOSTFACE KILLAH - "Worldwide"

Damn this is a smooth track right here, really feeling this one - from Ghostface's vintage verses to the laid back beat, the Cuts and overall smooth hip hop vibe of it all. I don't know too much about Wax Tailor but i gather that he's a relatively new DJ / producer working on a long player called "By Any Means Necessary". I believe this is the first single from the project, and it certainly shows potential for the album (which drops October 14). Ghost comes through as always, so be sure to pump up that volume.

KRONDON Ft. MITCHY SLICK - "Free Freddie Gibbs" [prod. MADLIB]

Strong Arm Steady's Krondon hooks up with fellow Strong Arm Steady member Mitchy Slick slick for this smooth plea for the pligt of Freddie Gibbs and his recent troubles with the law. As is only fitting the joint is produced by Madlib who of course produced the entirey of Gibb's best album, "Pinata", but also the illest Strong Arm joint in "In Search Of Stoney Jackson". Short but sweet...

G.HUFF Ft. VICE SOULETRIC - "Bills!" [prod. PETE ROCK]

To be honest I don't have a clue who G. Huff and Vice Souletric are but considering their single is produced by one of the all time great hip hop producers/DJ it warrants a post for sure. Especially since I will hit you up with a Pete Rock compilation (focusing on his work from between 2012 and 2016) later today, when I get back home. Unfortunately I am at work right now and can only hear this joint through super wack laptop speakers so it's hard to judge the song, but it sounds like Pete brought out his signature soul for this session. Check it out...