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.
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.
Shot from the eye of the hurricane in South Central Los Angeles moments after the Rodney King verdict was announced, Matthew McDaniel’s footage is as raw as it gets. Capturing an open sore, where uprising met opportunism, the documentary is edited into a video nasty melange of sound bites, violent rhetoric and hopeless frustration. However, it’s perhaps more notorious for its sampled use on Dr Dre’s post-King opus The Chronic. “The Day the Niggaz Took Over” and “Lil’ Ghetto Boy” both snatch the soul with a couple of poignant quotes, but to truly experience the sheer anger, it’s best to catch the whole show.
As we continue on into one-a-week territory, lets ignore the back to school ads which usually signal the end of summer with our fifth 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.
As we continue on, our Sounds Like Summer series adds another volume while the humidex/heat index pushes past 100 in the north east. 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.
In hip-hop, and to a degree music in general, there are few record labels as storied as Death Row. Def Jam have the best catalog, some say No Limit were the most innovative, but neither compared to the sheer star power and controversy caused by the crew from Compton. Launched by Harry-O’s drug money, forged by the brute force of Suge Knight and critically acclaimed thanks to the platinum touch of Dr. Dre, the label’s five year run may be the greatest apex in history for any rap boutique. So great that even the soundtracks were classic. But the shit you heard was only half of the deal. The other half? Well, it comes with its own story. Almost a year ago, we dropped a Death Row: Unreleased compilation on our since deleted blogspot page and got some crazy feedback. It’d be a shame not to have it archived on our new site, so we reformatted it, re-wrote it and added five more tracks to the mix. Since it was previously posted, it’s been often imitated, and in some cases, duplicated by mark azz bustaz tryna pass off my work as their own. (if you’re going to copy it to your own blog, at least give some damn credit). But that’s aight though, because the 2.0 version is even better than the original, complete with even the write-ups and pictures packaged together in an XML file for your own collection. This is for the zigganz that was down from day one, welcome to Death Row: Unreleased. Hit the jump for write-ups, tracklisting and the download link. Peace to dirt_dog from TROY for the cover art.
Today marks the one year anniversary of the King of Pop’s passing, so you know we gotta have somethin’. No exclusives or comps on this side, we’ll leave that to YN’s comprehensive mixes which you really need to get familiar with if you haven’t already. I was thinkin’ back to the coverage that began after MJ’s death and remembered a piece I penned for City On My Back after reading one too many ‘MJ was overrated’ stories by some online hack. Check out the link or hit the jump for the full article. One love.
With the release of the damp squib “Under Pressure” last week let’s rewind the clock 15 years or so with one of the most anticipated albums that never was. Fresh out of jail after a 6 month bid, Dr Dre hit the studio to work on two new projects: a collaboration LP with Ice Cube and his sophomore album The Chronic 2 – Poppas Got a Brand New Funk. Notorious for taking his time on production, Dre’s stalling came into conflict with Suge Knight’s policy of taking the best music available for the next album release. In this case, it would be 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me that benefited from songs that were supposed to be on Dre’s projects, namely the first single “California Love” and “U Can’t C Me.” This turned out to be the tipping point for Dre’s decision to depart the label as he soon contacted Jimmy Iovine and in alleged conversation told him “make me a deal and I’ll make you some hits.” Chronic 2 and Helter Skelter were dead in the water, leaving the impressive “My Life” perpetually unreleased. A musical autobiography, the track details Dre’s career from spinning at Eve’s After Dark to spearheading the West Coast revolution with Death Row. I’d hoped that WIDEawake Ent. would give us a remaster of this but that appears unlikely with the current turmoil at the label. In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with these two versions: the original “Smokin’ Weed For Hours” track and the re-tweaked and renamed “My Life.” They’re essentially the same song with a couple of different beat switch-ups. I’ll be putting “My Life” on our Death Row Unreleased compilation launching tomorrow. Two discs, 30 tracks, dedicated for the zigganz that was down from day one.
Time to pick up the pace on our SLS series with a new edition. 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 a re-up of Volume One with proper artwork after the jump.
