Dr. Octagon - The Instrumentalyst (Octagon Beats)

Not nearly as wild without the lyrics, but great for layering into a set.

Dr. Octagon - 3000 [Instrumentalyst]
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

Dr. Octagon - Earth People [Instrumentalyst]
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

Dr. Octagon - No Awareness [Instrumentalyst]
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers [Instrumentalyst]
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

The Furious Five f/ Cowboy, Melle Mel and Scorpio - "Step Off"

The Furious Five f/ Cowboy, Melle Mel and Scorpio - Step Off | Divshare | YSI

Today's special guest Rap Week contributor is Professor Rockwell. He used to be a DJ in a rap-rock group but he's over that now. He spins records and blogs at Porn 4 Scientolgy.

I came of hip-hop age during the 'golden era' (1985-1995) thanks to my older brother bringing home tapes of his college radio station. This was right around when Run-D.M.C.'s "Raising Hell" dropped, and my bro knew I was starting to get into this 'new' music, so he brought home a copy of the hip hop show one holiday, and this tape was on constant rotation for at least a good year. It was funny, cause the host kept complaining that the mobile DJ crew had taken all the good records so he was playing all this 'old' music. I only clearly remember a Stetsasonic song, a Prince song and this one.

This song just blew my little 12 year old mind at the time. I had just graduated from elementary to middle school and was starting to learn the hard lesson of social cliques and the 'freaks & geeks' vs. 'cool kids' demarcation. I fell into the former group because I was smarter than average, didn't like football (I was a swimmer), and found the nerdy dudes to be way more interesting and hilarious than any small-town, white-trash motherfucker making an ass of himself. That and I was still playing with Transformers. So to make up for my social outcast-ness I immediately identified with anything counter-cultural, and in a small, almost-rural, all white town with a population of around 50,000, hip hop was the way to go.

This was the first rap song I ever memorized and would fast forward and rewind to listen to over and over again, and started a long love affair with this music. It's still one of my favorites, and is one of the only songs I still remember the words to.

Chino XL - Thousands

Chino XL - Thousands | Divshare | YSI

I don't have a lot of insight on Chino, who was near the top of the pile of polysyllabic battle rappers from Cali*** in the mid-90's but who never put out a really good album (stop me if you've heard this one). His two verses on Sway and King Tech's This Or That compilation are bananas ("my new album's Flo Jo's heart, watch it blow up / you're not wack, you're what wack wants to be when it grows up") and what got me to buy Here To Save You All in the first place. And, like I said, the album isn't that great but it has decent production and some good introspective rhymes. "Thousands" is some good ol' head-nod shit. Check it out.

Someone who does have a lot of insight on Chino is Dan Charnas, who writes extensively about Chino's beef with Tupac here. Dan also produced a track or two on Here To Save You All.

***Chino's actually from Jersey but I always associate him with Kutmasta Kurt, the Wake Up Show and other west coast institutions.

Strict Flow - Radio

We used to have a saying back in the late 1990s- "you're the Strict Flow of wherever you're from" (used interchangeably with "you're the Binary Star of wherever you're from"). Essentially, this phrase means that you rose to the top of the heap in your local indie rap market and then failed to advance beyond the "running shit in XYZ-ville" status.

That was what happened to Strict Flow, who stagnated through laurel-resting and the Raw Shack Records bubble. Now that I think about it, Raw Shack consumed a substantial portion of rising hip-hop talent and basically deferred the best work of J-Live and others until years after the "Rawkus Era" lost energy and vitality to the Rapping About Rapping and Emo-Rap downturn that swallowed indie rap whole. It was like the Bear Stearns of its time, only not.

Anyway. Strict Flow was made up of some dudes who were a few years ahead of me in high school, and they were the crew who were always a few steps ahead of us in the game, opening for major tours and such, so naturally we looked up to them. Once I started doing the same kinds of shows, when I was 18-19 years old, that luster faded, but as an impressionable kid, Strict Flow was some heavy shit back then.

People On Lock b/w Radio was their first 12" and with E.Dan and Chad Glick on the boards, Masai and Sied (now Def Jam's "Pittsburgh Slim"... a whole different story) really slay this track. Listening to this makes me feel like smoking some weed and bullshitting with my friends about whether or not Lone Catalysts is going to "really break out this summer... I mean, J Rawls is doing all this production for this record coming out called Black Star..."

Memories.



Strict Flow - Radio | Divshare | YSI | 320 kbps

YSI is still fucked up for me, who knows. Multiple file sharing services would have been the fifth element of hip hop if they had existed when I was listening to the aforementioned 12".

Cash Money and Marvelous - Ugly People Be Quiet

I don't exactly know what to say about this other than:

1. CLASSIC!
2. PHILLY!



Cash Money and Marvelous - Ugly People Be Quiet | Divshare | 320 kbps

Sorry, divshare only right now, YSI is being a punkass for some reason.

AMG - Bitch Betta Have My Money

AMG - Bitch Betta Have My Money | Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

I slang dick bitch, nothin more and nothin less...

David Banner - Ain't Got Nothin' (remix)

David Banner f/ Majic and Lil Boosie - Ain't Got Nothin' (rmx)
Divshare | YSI | 192 kbps

David Banner raps about the club, fighting dudes, how much he loves Mississippi and how much he hates George W. Bush. He makes hit records about watching strippers masturbate and testifies in front of congress about race issues in the American media. He's a credible actor and a really dope producer. If you aren't down with David Banner, fuck you.

"Ain't Got Nothin'" was the first (?) single for Certified but this is an awesome remix from the Spare Clips mixtape. Don't know who produced it but it flips the "Funky Drummer" break and some rowdy big band horns. Unfortunately Boosie's verse is cut off, but whatever.

Organized Konfusion - Bring It On (The Lost Remix)

Organized Konfusion - Bring It On (The Lost Remix)
Divshare | YSI | 320 kbps

Today's special guest Rap Week contributor is Burnso. He makes beats and writes tone poems.

It's hotly disputed whether or not this song is rowdier than the original version found on "Stress: The Extinction Agenda." The original sports the hook "BRING IT ON, MUTHAFUCKA, BRING IT ON…" spit by 35 dudes in the studio with a sparse but effective bassline for a beat, affecting all the subtlety of a gun in your mouth. The remix, however, is a sinister swirl of Rhodes and sleighbell (yes!) and some of Buckwild's finest drums, the snare louder than anything on "Word…Life". Pharoahe and Prince Po modulate the hook into a mini verse "…YOU CAN SET MY MODE TO WHATEVA!!!" turning it into more of a challenge than a threat. This remix is the Gambino mastermind to the original's gully stick-up kid. The verses are pure heat: Pharoahe gained weight for this one, dropping science with stylistic twists that demand rewinds. Incidentally, it's this verse that Many Styles got his name from.

Prince Po rocks his verse up and down with vicious aplomb, changing it up slightly from the album cut. Check the "lobby…rob me…hobby…" rhyme scheme that Bigg Jus later used in "Bad Touch Example". Coincidence? Maybe. IMO Organized Konfusion is the greatest rap group ever except for maybe Wu Tang. This song makes me want to break shit. The remix was pressed up by Organized in small batches with a dirty, a clean, inst and acapella tracks.

Big Daddy Kane - Young, Gifted and Black

Big Daddy Kane - Young, Gifted and Black | Divshare | YSI | 320 kbps

Ironically this song does not sample "Young, Gifted and Black."

Also, he doubled up with Naomi Campbell and Madonna back in the 90's. Seriously, check it.

Serengeti - Teenager

Serengeti - Teenager | Divshare | YSI | 170 kbps (VBR)

Today's special guest Rap Week contributor is Ben Westhoff. He's a writer in Hoboken and you can follow his adventures at The Healthiest Man in Park Slope.

I’ve been writing about Chicago rapper Serengeti for years. Nobody cares, nobody listens. Not even Skinny keeps up with his career, and he once made a beat for Serengeti. The guy’s gonna quit, for God’s sake, if you hip hop heads don’t fall in line. But he’s the best. He’s funny and skilled, a rare rapper whose words have made me think differently about my life.

“Teenager,” one of the new songs from his retooled "Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action)" album, captures the ecstasy and inconvenience of youth. It’s the story of two youngsters, one a girl whose parents catch her swearing and take away her cell phone and B2K concert tickets, and the other a guy tooling around with his friend Ox Oxley, a half-Cuban lad whose mother has great tits. “His moms used to say, ‘What the fuck is ya’ll monkeys doin’?’ Nothing Miss Ma’am, I’m just tryin’ to figure out who the fuck I really am.” That line is killer, as is this couplet, which incorporates slang and poor grammar to stunning effect: “One thing’s for certain, remember when you do that party everybody started Smurfin’. And you can ask Extra Credit, things tend to get out of hand if you let it.” The song doesn’t just make you reminisce about being a kid, it makes you feel alive as an adult.

Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action) is available on iTunes. Go buy it, because ‘Geti has a kid. I’m talking to you, Skinny.

Ray Cash - Cash Rules

Ray Cash - Cash Rules | Divshare | YSI | 135 kbps (VBR)

As much as I hate to admit it, I kinda like Cleveland, if only because it's a pillar of a Pittsburgh-grown existance. Every city has a city they look down on, and ours is Cleveland. Without it, we'd have a really hard time artificially generating appropriate levels of civic self-esteem. Skinny and I went to a Browns bar to watch a Steelers-Browns game last season and it was like being in a room full of Steelers fans from an alternate, failure-driven universe. Cleveland kind of feels the same way about us. We're two sides of the same coin, except you know, our side is shinier.

Which brings us to Ray Cash. Ray Cash is easily one of my favorite rappers out there in the game right now, and yes, he's from Cleveland. But the first time I heard Ray and the first time I heard Fat Al it was on WAMO driving back to see my folks from Philly. Something about Cleveland, it just produces real rap that's equal parts gully and thoughtful.

Cash Rules is a track off the Clangin and Swangin Mixtape, which dropped in '06. The tape is just sick all the way through and producers the Kickdrums have some really great flips of classic material, including Cash Rules. You can grab the tape here. Get it? "C.R.E.A.M." and his name is Ray Cash? Cash rules? Ray Cash? Gotta wonder how long dude had wanted to do that... but:

I AIN'T A RAPPER I JUST OFFER YOU GOOD COVERSATION

Beat that.

Mood - Aiming to Blow

Mood - Aiming to Blow | Divshare | YSI 320 kbps

If you know Cincinnati's Mood at all, it's probably because they were Hi-Tek's first group before he linked up with Kweli and, eventually, G-Unit. But the trio of Main Flow, Dante and Jahson basically didn't make a bad record in the 90s. "Karma" was reasonably large and "Secrets of the Sand" landed an early (and really dope) Dilla remix. Lyrically, Mood borrowed heavily from the Wu: street tales, hints of mysticism and Illuminati talk (their first album was called "Doom" and had a Star of David on the cover), and flows reminiscent of Raekwon or Inspectah Deck.

"Aiming to Blow" -- which may actually be called "OH-10" because the art on the record is kind of vague -- is the first single off a compilation that Jahson put out on his Mission Control label. It's mopey as hell and therefore great.

Green Paranoia

This shit is sick. My freshman year of college I got very lucky (in more ways than one) and became the Hip Hop director at the Shippensburg college radio station. I played anything I wanted and bugged out on countless freestyle sessions. I also got to interview Doodle Bug of the Digable Planets and later on performed and recorded with him. A lot of good things came from being the director which included getting first dibbs on countless promotional music. One of my favorite promos was a cassette tape from Non Phixion from Matador Records. It was a mixtape with a green cover mixed by DJ Eclipse, they called it "The Green Tape". I dipped around hard to that tape and was in the conspiracy, anti-government, blunt zone. This paticular track was not on the tape but later released on the "Green CD" that came with a DVD from Non Phixion. Enjoy. I can't explain this insaness...
Non Phixion - Info Junkies
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

RAP WEEK.

This Sunday 4/6, Philadelphyinz are gettin it in like it's 1998 at Silk City in Philly with the All Rap Bar Mitzvah. And to get everyone in the mood, we're rolling out Rap Week at Dollar Bin Jams.

New rap, old, rap, rare rap, played-out rap, European rap, freestyles, bootlegs, remixes, whatever. Rap for days. Get excited.