A quick follow up from the Death Row: Unreleased compilation we dropped a while back. Passed on by our graphics designer extraordinaire dirt_dog from the TROY side of thangz is “Hot One” by OFTB. The Watts trio were signed directly by Suge Knight after impressing with their first album Straight Up Watts and droppin’ a grip of successful underground tapes which spread through South Central in the early 90s. Their Blood affiliations did little to dissuade the nation of Death Row behaving more like a marauding gang than an organized record label, but it eased the tension Suge was having with his own people. In no small part due to the fact that the three biggest acts signed to the boutique were all from Crip neighborhoods, two of whom claimed to be active. This joint was originally featured as a track on the Murder was the Case vinyl sampler, but didn’t make the final cut on the CD platform. A shame as it’s dope as fuck, and in combination with Above the Rim’s “Crack ‘Em” would’ve meant they’d have had a hot joint on each of Death Row’s major releases that year. There’s also the possibility that it was being held over for their Death Row debut, a lost tapes version of which dropped a few years back.
Rugged Man steals yet another track, I can’t think of a single guest appearance he did in the last few years that didn’t end with the same result. Not that Razah does poorly here by any means, he nails his verse. But RA’s paranoid machine-gunned litany of social ills is just too good to beat.
This could’ve been a nice addition to Str8 Killa, maybe replacing that pointless collaboration with Sick Jacken. It might sound sacrilegious but I kinda almost like M$M’s usage of Bumpy’s Lament more than Dre’s take on it. Granted this beat doesn’t bang as hard as the one on Xxplosive but I’m enjoying the looser approach that lets the sample breathe a bit.
Only four weeks of summer left officially, so make sure you bang it out with the sixth installment in the SLS series. Somethin’ for your car, somethin’ for your hangout spot, or just somethin’ for you to chill to. Hella shouts to dirt_dog from TROY for the artwork. Download link, tracklist and links to the rest of the series after the jump.
Los Sospechos are basically The Budos Band with the kind of bold flavor they enjoy in … Albuquerque! Depending on the specific description/press release being offered, this band consists of either members of the Budos Band joined by new faces or is just members of the Budos Band under a different name. The music certainly sounds Budos-ish, albeit there is an extra touch of the White Sands in the mix. Either way, it’s good. The two songs are taken from the Postales soundtrack.
I had to repost this from the venerable Earfuzz due to my huge hard-on for Eddie Hazel. I abbreviated from their more expansive post, but kept the pertinent parts intact out of respect for the original poster.
Billy Bass Nelson, original Funkadelic bass player, has this jam with guitarist Eddie Hazel called ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’. I don’t much about how it came together. Billy Bass handles the lead vocals here. Unfortunately, somebody but bad mutronic bass overdubs on top of Billy’s monster straight ahead sound.
One more from the original Funkadelic crew – including Billy Bass Nelson, Eddie Hazel, Tiki Fulwood and Bernie Worrell of Funkadelic. Here the group does the backing track for JJ Barnes‘ ‘So Called Friends’
El – Why do you even bother anymore? You’ve been phoning in verses for years now. What happened homie? You used to be the future star. You were that ’87 Topps Bo Jackson Future Star at one point. You continued to steal the show and we all rooted for you. Are you bored? Are you uninspired with rap? Are you all disgruntled because the Fat Beats album wasn’t promoted well or that Slum Village is run by snakes? Black Milk deserves better. We the people deserve better. Enough with this bullshit. Don’t waste anymore time talking about T3. Stop with the Nas remake. Get your shit together or just fall the fuck back. And you owe Mic King his $ back for that wack verse too.
The mashup itself is sloppy and fairly mediocre (just my opinion of course, it seemed to have some legs with the internet at large), but the video for it is surprisingly clever and effective. Bonus points for tiny instances of meta-meta-referencing like the stop-motion blunt rolling sequence that mirrors the opening credits of the Ali G show. Actually, bonus points just for making an original video for a goofy internet mashup in the first place.
