Hip Hop — All Formats  

One of the biggest major label hip hop albums of the early 80s – and easily one of the best ever full length sets from Kurtis Blow! There's a straightforward simplicity here that's totally great – a slight elevation of the Sugar Hill groove towards a more mainstream audience – but one that never loses the basic back/forth party rhythms of the old school scene. Kurtis' rhymes aren't going to set the world on fire, but they're also a fair bit more thoughtful at times than some of his contemporaries – and tracks include the classic "The Breaks", plus "Rappin Blow (Part 2)", "Hard Times", "Throughout Your Years", "Takin Care Of Business", and "Way Out West".

Madlib invades Blue Note! He gets free reign of the catalog for this mix of sampler genius and live band interpretations, too, as/with Ahmad Miller, Yesterdays New Quintet, Malcolm Catto, Medaphoar, and others from the Stones Throw camp. This one's truly a conceptual triumph, if there ever was such a thing – one of the greatest hip hop producers alive, given carte blanche with the source beats of the century! Madlib's Blue Note crates are heavily weighed in the mid 60s through mid 70s electric beats that often get the shaft in mainstream jazz round-ups, but floor the beathead world into overdrive. Re-interpretations, remixes, and revisions are spliced seamlessly with the source samples, creating a whole new world where hip hop and late model live funk not only co-exists with classic Blue Note jazz, but it actually draws a linear transition between the 2 genius art forms. Beautiful stuff – if the album isn't the most original idea to come along all of these years into the hip hop & jazz underground, it's certainly one of the most perfectly realized projects of its kind, ever! It's one for the time capsule – pure funky sample wizardry by any standard! Includes Monk Higgins' "Slim's Return" interpreted by Ahmad Miller and DJ Lord Such on cuts, "Donald Byrd's "Distant Land", "Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Bounce", Yesterday's New Quintet's adaptation of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", Madlib Invazion's "Funky Blue Note", the Joe McDuphrey Experience take on Horace Silver's/Herbie Hancock's "Peace/Dolphin Dance" and lots more.

Madlib invades Blue Note! He gets free reign of the catalog for this mix of sampler genius and live band interpretations, too, as/with Ahmad Miller, Yesterdays New Quintet, Malcolm Catto, Medaphoar, and others from the Stones Throw camp. This one's truly a conceptual triumph, if there ever was such a thing – one of the greatest hip hop producers alive, given carte blanche with the source beats of the century! Madlib's Blue Note crates are heavily weighed in the mid 60s through mid 70s electric beats that often get the shaft in mainstream jazz round-ups, but floor the beathead world into overdrive. Re-interpretations, remixes, and revisions are spliced seamlessly with the source samples, creating a whole new world where hip hop and late model live funk not only co-exists with classic Blue Note jazz, but it actually draws a linear transition between the 2 genius art forms. Beautiful stuff – if the album isn't the most original idea to come along all of these years into the hip hop & jazz underground, it's certainly one of the most perfectly realized projects of its kind, ever! It's one for the time capsule – pure funky sample wizardry by any standard! Includes Monk Higgins' "Slim's Return" interpreted by Ahmad Miller and DJ Lord Such on cuts, "Donald Byrd's "Distant Land", "Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Bounce", Yesterday's New Quintet's adaptation of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", Madlib Invazion's "Funky Blue Note", the Joe McDuphrey Experience take on Horace Silver's/Herbie Hancock's "Peace/Dolphin Dance" and lots more.

2LP promo-only instrumental version of this classic from Outkast & Organized Noise! Instrumentals of all the cuts are here, 16 tracks in all: "2 Dope Boyz In A Cadillac", "Atliens", "Wheelz Of Steel", "Jazzy Belle", "Elevators", "Ova Da Wudz", "Babylon", "Wailin", "Mainstream", "Decatur Psalm", "Millennium", "ET", "Growing Old" and "Elevators (ONP89 mix)".

Ta'Raach mixes up a diverse ode to most influential sounds of the Motor City – bridging musical styles and eras – in a mix for Mochilla! Ta'Raach manages to mix bits and pieces of classic and underground Detroit sounds into a unique mold with his own inventive vibe – fusing 60s indie soul to blistering rock, 70s & 80s underground funk to R&B, pop and hop hop. Underground and mainstream sounds share space with otherworldy touches and MC/DJ narration. It's a 55 continuous mix with no tracklist – with recognizable voices and melodies speeding by and colliding with the sounds of the underground!

A pretty great follow up to the previous hits package Retrospective – this one with many of the Tribe's OTHER hits, plus 2 previously unreleased nuggets! Alternate mixes, out of print soundtrack and 12-inch cuts, plus album tracks that weren't ingrained into the mainstream consciousness – cuts like "Oh My God", "Award Tour", "Can I Kick It?", "One, Two, S&!t" with Busta Rhymes, "Peace, Prosperity, and Paper" and "Glamour & Glitz". Of course, you also get the better known tracks like " I Left My Wallet In El Segundo", "Check The Rhyme", "Buggin' Out", "Scenario", "Jazz (We've Got)" and the rest. 2 rare unreleased cuts made it on: "Mr. Incognito" and "The Night He Got Caught". Now if the BMG folks would only be so kind as to release Q-Tip's lost Kamal The Abstract. . .

Hip hop's reigning kings of longevity The Roots deliver another great album with Undun – we'd have to think it's entirely uncompromising and they're doing exactly what they want to do on this album – if you thought their day (eh, latenight) job would would bring their album work into more of a mainstream style. . .hell no! Undun is a serious, soul searching and boldly creative album length character study inspired by a Sufjan Stephens song (!!!) – ambition is not something this group lacks – and it's stunning. An album that's in the upper tier of Roots albums in quality – there's certainly no chart bait here. Includes "Dun", "Sleep", "Make My" feat Big KRIT & Dice Raw, "One Time" feat Phonte & Dice Raw, "Stomp" feat Greg Porn, "I Remember", "Time The Scale" feat Dice Raw, the four part "Redford" suite and more.

Timbaland goes straight for the mainstream on this disc full of pop crossover numbers, though his signature percolating beats keep the whole affair bubbling. 17 tracks in all, with more than a few you'll be hearing al over the radio, including "Oh Timbaland", "Give It To Me", "Release", "The Way I Are", "Bounce", "Come & Get Me", "Kill Yourself", "Board Meeting", "Miscommunication", "Bombay", "Throw ItOn Me", "One & Only" and "2 Man Show".

The Beasties' masterpiece – and one of the original nightmares for sampling opponents everywhere – the cut & paste hip hop classic Paul's Boutique! The Dust Brothers unapologetic way of weaving very famous samples with soul, funk and film score obscurities would steal the show if not for the infectious, boisterous rhymes of the Beastie Boys – they couldn't possibly have cared less about alienating the massive frat boy fan base built with License To Ill, and it's a joy to behold. It's one of those mindblowing pop transformations on par with the Beatles (who the Beasties and Dust Brothers were so brazen to sample several times on this album) and the Beach Boys on the pop maturation scale from earlier hits to later artistry – even if the wild lyrics and deft back & forth rhymes by the Beasties are the antithesis of maturity. From classic rock dinosaurs to soul and disco classics, from the Jaws score to "Dueling Banjos", it all finds it's way into the beatcraft – and both mainstream pop and underground hip hop are better now because of this record. Tracks include "Hey Ladies", "Shake Your Rump", "High Plains Drifter", "Shadrach", "Johnny Ryall", "Eggman", "Car Thief", "What Comes Around", the "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" suite and more.

Madlib invades Blue Note! He gets free reign of the catalog for this mix of sampler genius and live band interpretations, too, as/with Ahmad Miller, Yesterdays New Quintet, Malcolm Catto, Medaphoar, and others from the Stones Throw camp. This one's truly a conceptual triumph, if there ever was such a thing – one of the greatest hip hop producers alive, given carte blanche with the source beats of the century! Madlib's Blue Note crates are heavily weighed in the mid 60s through mid 70s electric beats that often get the shaft in mainstream jazz round-ups, but floor the beathead world into overdrive. Re-interpretations, remixes, and revisions are spliced seamlessly with the source samples, creating a whole new world where hip hop and late model live funk not only co-exists with classic Blue Note jazz, but it actually draws a linear transition between the 2 genius art forms. Beautiful stuff – if the album isn't the most original idea to come along all of these years into the hip hop & jazz underground, it's certainly one of the most perfectly realized projects of its kind, ever! It's one for the time capsule – easily Madlib's masterpiece, and pure funky sample wizardry by any standard! Includes Monk Higgins' "Slim's Return" interpreted by Ahmad Miller and DJ Lord Such on cuts, "Donald Byrd's "Distant Land", "Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Bounce", Yesterday's New Quintet's adaptation of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", Madlib Invazion's "Funky Blue Note", the Joe McDuphrey Experience take on Horace Silver's/Herbie Hancock's "Peace/Dolphin Dance" and lots more.