Kwest the Madd Lad vs. A.L.

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!

Kwest the Madd Lad vs. A.L. - 88 hip hop battle #3

Kwest freestyle and vs. Koran

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!

Kwest the Madd Lad - Freestyle on 88 Hip Hop

Kwest the Madd Lad - vs. Koran on 88 Hip Hop

Kwest the Madd Lad - 88 Hip Hop battles #1

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!

Kwest the Madd Lad - 88 Hip Hop battle #1 vs. Neuk

DJs Rob Swift and Mista Sinista Live on Stretch and Bobbito

This is the final installment of routines from the Stretch and Bobbito show on 8-21-97. This one features 2 other members of the X-Ecutioners: DJs Rob Swift and Mista Sinista. I've had the pleasure of opening for Rob twice here in Tulsa and he has one of the smoothest styles of mixing and doing routines that I've ever seen. His turntablist compostition albums are very dope as well so you should check those out. He just dropped a new dvd called "As the Technics spin" that you should look into as well as his other releases here on his site. This is a 6+ minute routine using LL Cool J's "Rock the Bells" and more.

DJ Mista Sinista is known for his wild antics during his routines. He has produced some of the more classic mixtapes that I've ever gotten from New York. While some turntablists mixes can get a little boring or employ too much technical skill for my taste, he always had a nice balance of both. He left the X-Ecutioners several years back but still rocks parties all over the world. Here is a great article on him. I'll be back tomorrow with the Kwest the Madd Lad 88 Hip Hop freestyle battles so stay tuned!

DJ Rob Swift - Live on Stretch and Bobbito - 8-21-97

DJ Mista Sinista - Live on Stretch and Bobbito - 8-21-97

DJ A-Trak on Stretch and Bobbito

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.

He landed the gig of a lifetime becoming the tour DJ for Kanye West a few years back after he was spotted doing an in-store routine overseas. In the last few years A-Trak has laid back on the battle-type stylings that took him all over the world and broadened his horizons musically. He started his own label Fools Gold Records which has become immensely popular in the thriving new electro/hipster scene. I left some of the intro moments which are one of the best things about the Stretch and Bobbito show. Probably post the rest of these routines tomorrow. I'm archiving a lot of things lately so stay tuned!

DJ A-Trak - Live on Stretch and Bobbito - 8-21-97

DJ Total Eclipse routine - Stretch and Bobbito

As promised another part of the Stretch and Bobbito program from 8-21-07. I have found a couple of video clips of this online but just segments as I think the show was featured on BET's Rap City show with Big Lez. This is a session with DJ Total Eclipse of the X-Men and later the X-Ecutioners and now Ill Insanity. This dude is one of the kings of beat juggling and this is a really ill display of some of his best work. Tomorrow I'll probably post the rest DJs with A-Trak, Rob Swift and more from the same show.

DJ Total Eclipse - Live on Stretch and Bobbito - 8-21-97