17: First Down - World Service

This is one of the records I own - the time I bought it was an attempt to work through the list in a random order. Again unsuccessful but I gave this one a fair listen. It's another winner from the start, a real gem of a record.

It's a weird one, in that it's pretty long, but keeps things moving and remains fairly urgent throughout. Incredibly lo-fi, from a hip hop perspective, it kept me going almost till I reached West Oakland from Palo Alto. Plenty of samples and scratching to keep you interested. Fairly laid back rhyming but a shit ton of urgency.

It's starting to get surreal on this project - the world of british rap was pretty much closed to me, certainly I never read about this stuff outside of the always reliable Big Daddy mag and now it's starting to open up and become some of the best hip hop I've ever heard, and it's generally as good as the American stuff which I lauded over in the early 2000's. Amy and I went to see The World's End and they included Silver Bullet during one of the fight scenes - I guess it was a big hit at the time but it made me feel like my teenage years were spent with far too much Fall to appreciate the wider world of music.

"Then You Can joke" is the modal First Down track - crashing jump and a simple sample. The rapping is insistent and he leans back on the track and just lets loose. Heavy head nodding throughout - it all feels way too mature for a first album.

Seven Emcees near the end has just that, from all over the place. German included, rapping in German which sounds as strange as it reads - not the best language for lyrical dexterity. They save the best til last though: Jam Warfare Pt 4 starts with a warning, and then into heavy scratching and some top quality rapping - tears through your headphones leaving nothing behind.

When I was depressed, music was always there but it always felt like a motion - like it was a backdrop to my unhappiness but it was hard to engage. But now, in Oakland, music feels more exciting and I think paring down my collection has helped and I realise that it's good to keep a cap on the size of the stuff. I'm falling in love with music again, and like the other loves in my life it's a different kind of love but I love it.

Here's a First Down freestyle. My two take aways are that a) they're young b) they're really good

21: The Demon Boyz - Original Guidance

This the second Demon Boyz album (the first is higher up). It's a tough find and is pretty much unavailable digitally. I have only vague memories of the first LP but with that this sounds like a progression.

The title track sets it off - lightweight sample based production, and some raga style rapping. When the music is tight, for me it works, Outer National Karate being especially good: Living in Society is like Karate? The second half of the album turns up the raga knob: Sweet Jamaica is interesting and loses all the things I liked about the first half of the record. The standout track is Glimity Glamity: A tight guitar hook that runs throughout the tune. For me it's the only track on the record that successfully blends together the raga and rap styles. Otherwise this was a bit too cheesy for me.

And youtube turns up the video to No Hocus Pocus, and this sounds way better than on the album:

22. Black Radical Mk II: The Undiluted Truth

Yep. Felix's not pulling any punches here - this is the undiluted truth, and a Blackman's Leviathan. The track titles follow suit: Ripping up the Industry, Witch Hunt, This Wretched Earth, England is a Bitch.

And the music is also high quality and follows this script: Heavy Public Enemy type sounds, tons of scratching and urgent rhymes, delivered with vitriol. It feels a bit lighter than Public Enemy, and without Flavour's clowning it requires a more vigilant listen. For me, Crossroads was a highlight - lots of samples firing off, some rock records I didn't recognise but it was furious.

So I enjoyed listening to it but, despite the lightness, I found it fairly unmemorable - one of those weird records which is a solid listen but it doesn't have quite enough oomph to have you coming back for more. The itunes version I bought added a couple of single tracks which suggest that there's more to Black Radical than meets the eye.

No live for Black Radical so heres the Crossroads:

20: Various - 1989 Live Hustlers Convention

In 1989 I wasn't really interested in music but I wasn't far off. Everyone else went to the Music of Life Birthday party and got hammered. This is an interesting collection of live turns from said party set around some coherent but drunken shout outs.

Asher D and Daddy Freddy do some ragamuffin stuff - the sort of thing John Peel always used to play and you waited for him to play the latest indie movers instead. And on the sad time when Westwood was ousted from Radio 1, he does his thing over Mark the 45 King cutting up some breaks. Then MC Duke does a fantastic version of I'm Riffin, it sounds incredible and he kills it.

He's then joined by 'Merlin' who pronounces it "Murlin" - he's a saying what he sees type of freestyler. He's second go is weird and veers into homophobia. Then he's off and some bonkers talk:

"Right about now, everybody that's in the place, right, we came here tonight to have a jam with the music of life posse right. But right about now some suckers got on the stage and they want to battle. We didn't come here to battle but they invited us anyway. So we won't have a battle but we'll have a freestyle and you can decide who's best. But no battling"

Then queen latifah tries to break up a fight in an equally incoherent way. Then the Demon Boyz finished everything off with a bit more raga style stuff.

So overall it's worth the entrance fee for the drunkenness and the MC Duke track. But it's a neat document of the time and it's pretty short. And yes, Daddy Freddy does a ton of Frank Bruno impressions....


Here's that MC Duke track: