This one's probably been posted somewhere in some form or another, I just can't find it. This is a sick session with Eminem, MC Juice, Akinyele, and Planet Asia on the Wake Up Show. Haven't had a bit of time for this blog but found a few minutes tonight so I hope you enjoy I need to rip some more mixes. Be back soon I promise!
This is a real hot session from I believe the same show I posted with Scienz of Life from earlier. Indie legends in my opinion Siah and Yeshua DapoED. Their EP The Visualz from Fondle Em Records (Bobbito's label if you didn't know) was one of it not my favorite indie release from the era. This is from 1997 at the heyday of the indie scene on Stretch and Bobbito 89.9 - part 3 I'll go ahead and post tomorrow or so from the same show. Lots of great rips coming. Haven't stayed up on the blog as much as I grinded in that first month but get ready for some longer compilations etc... As always thanks for the love!
Scienz of Life were always entertaining on the Stretch and Bobbito show as well as on this effort that I've used for the picture here - Coming Forth By Day...got this shit on wax baby! Conscious NY shit, in my opinion a more advanced Poor Righteous Teachers. This is a great session on WKCR with Stretch and Bobbito. This is part 1 of 3 from the same show back in 1997 which I will be posting the rest of in the next few days. The lineup has changed but my favorite was always Lil Sci - great voice and dope flow. Enjoy!
One of my favorite indie hip hop groups that never blew up has to be Natural Elements. The collective of A-Butta, L-Swift, and Mr Voodoo aka AGU as well as producer for most of their catalog Charlemagne smoked underground radio during the late 90's. They brought the combination of gritty street tracks backed by ill lyrics that was missing from in my opinion most of the similar groups of the time, commercial or underground. This is an 10 minute session from when they were signed to Tommy Boy so I believe this is 1998. I have a lot of other NE stuff to bring you in the future but for now enjoy and try to find their unreleased album you'll be glad you did! I want to elaborate and bring you some more details from the internet but unfortunately beyond some message board stuff there is not much to offer and that's a shame!
This is a funny little segment from the aftermath of an earlier post I did where Mr Hyde disses Ras Kass on the air. Little segment later on in the same show with a caller that I found on a different tape...hilarious. Just ripped some more heat including some Stretch and CM Famalam freestyle compilation 90 minute joints. Much more soon!
Been super busy but I'm not done with this blog yet. Thanks for all the love on the Big L post I have much more from him that I have yet to rip this has been by far my most popular post. Real quick today is a session from Young Zee and Pace Won of the Outsidaz on Halftime radio 89.1. Getting some more stuff ready soon!
Big L really needs no introduction to the heads that visit this blog I'm sure. This is a session from when Stretch and Bobbito were doing Sunday nights on Hot 97 - year is 1998 I believe when he came out with the Size Em Up/Ebonics single. The verses on here can be heard elsewhere but I included some of the banter before the session with Stretch, Bob, and Sear cutting up which I always enjoyed on the tapes. He raps over Pete Rock's "Tru Master" here. I enjoyed hearing the same rhymes when it was done over hot beats, as long as the MC was as dope as L. RIP to one of the greatest, missed for sure!
Part 3 of this dope freestyle session with Mad Skillz, Danja Mowf, Lonnie B (Supafriendz), and Reggie Reg of the legendary Crash Crew on Stretch and Bobbito. More coming real soon!
This is part 2 of this great freestyle session with Supafriendz which were Mad Skillz, Danja Mowf, Lonnie B., and Speedie Toine. Probably the best MCs to ever come out of Virginia. The whole crew destroys their verses. Anything I've heard from Lonnie B especially is fantastic and it's a shame the cat didn't go further but I guess he's DJing mostly now - check his myspace. Part 3 tomorrow!
As I mentioned earlier I had a really busy DJ schedule last week. This week is a bit more toned down but I'm just going to do a quick one for today. This one is Ras Kass on Halftime Radio with DJ Eclipse from 1998 when his 2nd album came out. I'm gonna keep this one short because I know heads on here are gonna know who Ras is and I like to normally do longer bios, etc... I've been ripping some heat so bare with me!
For some reason I can't find any pictures of Stronghold as a collective so this will do for now. I'm DJing 6 times this week so I've been kinda strapped for time but since I put up the Poison Pen vs. Kwest I wanted to share this Stronghold freestyle from the 89.1 Halftime Radio show. I have several more from this show. Halftime in its heyday was DJ Riz and DJ Eclipse. Like the Stretch and Bobbito program they showcased indie MCs as well as more well-known cats. Their show didn't allow cursing but there were plenty of great sessions. Stronghold is coming completely off of the dome from what I can tell. Hope you enjoy!
As promised this is the finale of the Kwest the Madd Lad vs. battle on 88 Hip Hop, this is all I have at least. If there were any more than this or as I said before if anyone has info on these battles please post it in the comments. Poison Pen is a very talented member of the NYC collective of MCs known as Stronghold who I have some ill freestyle sessions of and will post later on. The group includes C-Rayz Walz, Breez Evahflowin, LIFE Long, and more. I believe Immortal Technique is also a member of the crew. All the sessions I have from them are off the top of the dome. This is a great battle between friends and as I said the last of these battles I have. I hope you have enjoyed them!
I have no idea who the MC Kwest is battling on this session but he goes by Broadcast. Getting some more stuff ripped today for probably the best of all the battles tomorrow. Enjoy!
I have 5 more of these 88 hip hop battles with Kwest the Madd Lad. Here are 2 more with MC's Absolut and a guy simply known as Ed. Hope you are enjoying this series the battles seem to get better and better as the weeks go by. I can just picture these cats just waiting in line to get a piece of Kwest.
I'm having a hard time finding much on the rapper Kwest is battling in this session A.L. Skillz. He made appearances on the Eddie Ill and D.L. tapes as well as guested on several tracks in the heyday of indie hip hop of the late 90's. I have a ridiculous session with A.L. that I'm trying to find for later on but for now peep this one. This is a great battle and I'm just getting started...more feedback is appreciated!
Round 2 is here! Part one of this post is Kwest doing a solo freestyle on 88 hip hop. Dope flow etc... The second part is him battling MC Koran (if anyone has further info on this guy let me know - I remember the name but not the crew he used to roll with). This is a much better battle than the first one vs. Neuk. I've finally ripped the rest of them so we'll be going through these in the next week or so. Thanks for all the feedback so far I'm quite literally just getting started!
I've already posted a dope Kwest the Madd Lad freestyle but since I let the cat out of the bag that I have the infamous 88 hip hop freestyle battles I've been getting bombarded with requests for them. I'm gonna do these in sections, possibly just one or two at a time. Not sure of the origin or why Kwest was on there serving fools. I am having a hard time getting any details so if you can fill in the blanks on the cbox or comments please feel free to do so. I've yet to see any of these battles on the net. I have done my best to clean these up to be listenable and boost the levels, so I hope you enjoy. These are in order of how I received them on the tape I have. This is Kwest vs. Neuk (nuke??? the joy of tape trading is grammar or misspellings on tape covers/labels). I will say that Kwest sons almost all of these rappers - this was one of my most prized possessions in the tape trading game for some time!
I've decided to split all of these turntablism routines up for the most part because they're around 10 minutes each and I don't want to lump them all together and bore you. This next one comes from one of my favorites past and present DJ A-Trak. The Montreal native exploded onto the battle scene in 1997, winning the DMC world championship at the age of 15. Here is that winning routine. Shortly after the win he became a member of the Invisible Skratch Piklz and then started his own crew with some of the best new battle djs in the world with The Allies. They changed the battle game and won many titles worldwide. I put him as one of the top 5 turntablists all time.
I use the term freestyle pretty loosely on this site just because it is an easy way to convey that these are basically sessions of people rhyming, mostly on the radio. If I wanted to get super intricate and tell you that this person on a session or that person wasn't truly "freestyling" or coming off of the top of their head I feel it would be a waste of time because I think the people that are into what I am posting can tell the difference.
I have several sessions from a Philly radio show hosted by Bahamadia called B-sides radio that I will try to post in the future. This is a hot one I am thinking around 1998 with Wordsworth, FT, Big Bob, and Matt Fingaz. Wordsworth and Matt Fingaz are definitely the most interesting on this session. Words was always one of my favorites off the top of the head. I have a lot of video footage of him as well in rhyme ciphers on the streets of New York that I will one day try to get converted and on Youtube.
Couldn't find any images of Rok One for this post but this is a freestyle from 1998 with him and the very ill Kwest tha Madd Lad on the CM Famalam radio program with Bobbito and Lord Sear. 13 minutes out of the tapes collection. When I am ripping these to mp3 I am doing some EQing on the Rane 56 mixer to try to make these sound as good as possible. I haven't seen this particular session posted, which will remain the theme for this blog - to give you some exclusives from the stash. Rok One dropped a dope 12" on Fondle Em records back in the indie heyday of the late 90's and keeps up with Kwest pretty well on this session. If you never checked out Kwest tha Madd Lad you're sleeping and you must immediately find "This Is My First Album" before you get your hip hop pass revoked. More to come soon I've been having a bit of fun with this.
Posts
All Comments
