There are two salient factoids that we’d like to pass along about the song above: 1) This was the first hip-hop 12-inch we ever purchased, from the Music+ retail store on Ventura Boulevard. (Don’t look for it—much like the Electric Banana, it’s not there anymore.) We were so enamored of the tune that we recorded […]
Apologies, but gonna be a slightly late start today. We’re in the process of helping our great pal from Arunachal Pradesh catch a plan from LaGuardia to Minneapolis, en route to the big Oshkosh air show. So chew on the above Mood Swingaz track for the next hour or so, and we’ll be back at […]
Tags:Arunachal Pradesh·aviation·hip-hop·housekeeping·India·Mood Swingaz·music·travel·Wisconisn
Cramming on a Wired deadline this afternoon, so we’ll outro with yet another track that the essential WEFUNK recently turned us on to. The group itself, Strictly Roots, is mighty obscure—as far as we can tell, they released just one album, back in 1993, before vanishing into the ether. But they were big enough to […]
Tags:Fat Joe·Grand Puba·hip-hop·McCrary Twins·music·Strictly Roots·WEFUNK
Talk about one-hit wonders: the above tune, famously sampled in a couple of hip-hop gems, appears to be the only single ever churned out by Lee Mason & His Orchestra. The group is so obscure, in fact, that it’s often not even credited with “Shady Blues”; the song was apparently re-released in the U.K. under […]
Been meaning to post this Lost Boyz classic for ages, but it took the invention of the Grooveshark widget to provide the necessary technological push. We were definitely latecomers to this whole album, and for years our fandom extended only as far as the remixed version of “The Yearn” (which we actually scooped up on […]
We’ve already expressed our boundless admiration for Madlib’s Beat Konducta in India album, arguably the most perfect slab of sonic creativity we’ve heard over the past five years. Thanks to this new Grooveshark widget, we can now bring you our favorite track off that opus—the song we’ve long imagined as playing over the credit sequence […]
In our never-ending quest to bring you the classic tracks behind our favorite hip-hop cuts, today we bring you the U-Roy and Hopeton Lewis collaboration “Tom Drunk.” It only takes a few seconds’ worth of listening to realize that the song’s best riff was long-ago copped by Reflection Eternal for “Fortified Live,” a tune notable […]
Tags:Grooveshark·hip-hop·Hopeton Lewis·music·Reflection Eternal·U-Roy
This morning’s sumo-related post stirred up memories of another Hawaiian-born legend of the sport: Konishiki, aka “The Dump Truck.” Though he never attained the exalted rank of yokozuna—perhaps due to anti-foreigner prejudice among sumo’s elite—Konishiki never let the disappointment get in the way of his artistic ambitions. As evidenced by the above video, the truly […]
Headed downtown to meet with our trusted rep and discuss that frightening concept known as The Future. So we’re gonna outro with the best track off The Beatnuts debut album. Like all songs by the pride of Corona, Queens, the lyrics are definitely not safe for work, so please do not play within earshot of […]
“Being in that situation made me more humble. I thought there was no way I could ever be off point, and I finally felt what it was to be stifled. I was still studying music theory and trying to make songs though. I didn’t care if she was trying to stab me or throw my […]
Tags:anime·Del the Funky Homosapien·Goku·hip-hop·music·relationships
Right around the time this post goes live, we’ll be handing in Act Three of the Now the Hell Will Start screenplay—yes, the project we’ve been using as an excuse to get away with weak blogging for much of the last month. A momentous occasion, and one we would have toasted with copious pints of […]
Tags:Dirty Dolls Lingerie·Ghostface·hip-hop·housekeeping·music·Now the Hell Will Start·Wu-Tang
Although we realize that gluttony is one of the Seven Sins for a very good reason, we can’t help but be fascinated by the sport of competitive eating. We previously marveled at the gustatory prowess of Juris “Doctor Bigtime” Shibayama, a Tennessee orthopedist who can put away T-bones like nobody’s business. Today our adulatory gaze […]
Tags:Badlands Booker·competitive eating·famine·gluttony·hip-hop·Juris Shibayama·music
We know you’re sick of hearing this excuse, but we’re seriously slammed on the screenplay today; hoping to get a complete rough draft done by end-of-day Friday, so the weekend can be all about Microkhan Jr. So we’re gonna be lazy right this second and just post a great video of yore—the public-access-style promo for […]
Tags:East Flatbush Project·hip-hop·music·prisons·Sergio Leone
That’s a wrap for the work week, as we look forward to a weekend full of goat roasting and screenplayin’. What might you have missed if your Microkhan-ing was sporadic these last few days? So much good stuff, dear reader, so much good stuff. We’re talking hilariously frivolous lawsuits against your humble narrators, the launch […]
Tags:hip-hop·housekeeping·music
With less than two week to go ’til the screenplay’s due, the rest of the afternoon’s gonna be all about tweaking dialogue. But Microkhan will leave you with a special treat: Chubb Rock, a man whose girth is rivaled only by his underratedness. Apologies for the five second commercial at the beginning of the clip; […]
Tags:Chubb Rock·hip-hop·music
With our compadre Ta-Nehisi thinking deep thoughts and WEFUNK providing our daily soundtrack, hip-hop’s been on Microkhan’s brain all week—yes, even more so than usual. And the question we’ve been asking ourselves is what, exactly, separates the wheat from the chaff in the land of lyricism? Is it pure mastery of metaphor? Yeats-like poetic timing? […]
The great downside of music’s move toward digitization is the end of liner notes, the record industry’s equivalent of YouTube’s “Related Videos” feature. Microkhan fondly recalls discovering Donny Hathaway via the notes from The Chronic; half the hooks on that album were copped from the great-and-troubled legend of Chicago soul. Nowadays, alas, you have to […]
I’m off to screenplay for the rest of the afternoon, so I’ll leave y’all with a classic from the Wu-Tang Golden Era. The video is just average shakes up until the part where Ghostface dons the bathrobe. From that point forward, it’s all gravy. (Question: Why are bathrobes generally verboten outside the home? Who will […]
Tags:Ghostface·hip-hop·music·Pete Rock·Raekwon the Chef·Wu-Tang
The Jones Girls were by no means a great group. They too often veered into easy-listening terrain, and committed a cardinal music-biz sin by partnering with Lou Rawls (so famously slammed by The Pharcyde many moons ago). But the Girls also produced a song responsible for one of the greatest hip-hop samples of all time: […]
Tags:hip-hop·music·Royal Flush·Smif-n-Wessun·The Jones Girls·The Pharcyde
Microkhan’s off to the (ugh) dentist, so that’s a wrap for today. But to make up for the bummer nature of the suicide post, we’ll leave you with a sonic treat: “Sally Got a One-Track Mind” by Diamond D & The Psychotic Neurotics, an underrated gem from hip-hop’s Golden Age. Okay, granted, the lyrics aren’t […]
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but it took a tip from a Zurich-based pal to get me into The Rub’s History of Hip-Hop series. I mean, these Rub folks live less than an hour away from my Atlah headquarters. They should be part of the cultural air I breathe. But, oh no, it […]
