Big Daddy Kane - Mister Cee’s Master Plan
Cappadonna - Splish Splash
EPMD - It’s My Thing
Ice Cube - No Vaseline
NWA - Fuck tha Police
NWA - Sa Prize, Pt 2
Public Enemy - Bring the Noise
Special Ed - 5 Men and a Mic
Big Daddy Kane - DJs Get No Credit
Big Daddy Kane - I’ll Take You There
Big Daddy Kane - Word to the Mother (Land)
Eazy-E - Boyz-N-the-Hood
Ice Cube - Givin’ up the Nappy Dug Out
Lord Finesse - Save That Shit
Naughty by Nature - Ghetto Bastard
Salt-N-Pepa - Let’s Talk about Sex
Steady B - Analogy of a Black
Here we are again folks.
Intelligent Hoodlum “Black And Proud” sampling Wilson Pickett “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9“, today “Quality” is definitely the keyword.
He’s better known as Tragedy Khadafi, and i used to estimate him when i was listening at “The War Report“..nothing but a masterpiece.
Going deeper throughout the years, i found a remarkable emcee, ironic and socially committed, curiously finding he did coin the word “illmatic”, in a guest verse on Marley Marl’s ‘The Rebel’ in 1988.
Tragedy’s debut brings us the chronicles of a young QU soldier, looking out the window like Malcolm, with a pen and a note-pad, ready to blind the minds of 85ers and droppin’ science on the project youth. Tragedy speaks nothing but the truth, this MC is all about build and destroy. All his lyrics revolve around science and mathematics, a testament of his affiliation to the N.O.G.A.E.
Don’t wanna talk about Mr Pickett’s biography, going to talk about those things that made me love his music from the very first listen.
He definetely embodies the essence of soul, in the way i reckon it. he got that drift which makes soul music so passionate and can make crowd goes totally wild.
Starting with “I Found a True Love“, to “634-5789“, his most famous “Mustang Sally” it moves quickly onto “I’m A Midnight Mover” and “Everybody Needs Somebody“. “Land of 1,000 Dances” would make a dead man’s pulse tap to a positively dynamic beat.
He played for many labels, Stax and Atlantic the most famous. Though he was working for Atlantic Records, he recorded his third Atlantic single, “In The Midnight Hour (1965)”, at Stax’s recording studio in Memphis.
This is a odd saw drawn from Wikipedia:
>> The genesis of “In the Midnight Hour” was a recording session on May 12, 1965, in which producer Jerry Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, which also included bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the MG’s, did not play on any of the Pickett studio sessions.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, “Why don’t you pick up on this thing here?” He performed a dance step. Cropper later explained in an interview that Wexler told them that “this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we’d been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like ‘boom dah,’ but here this was a thing that went ‘um-chaw,’ just the reverse as far as the accent goes.”[citation needed] The song that resulted from this encounter established Pickett as a star, and also gave Atlantic Records a bona fide hit. <<
Message for Martini & Jopparelli, do you remember Steve “The Colonel” Cropper on Porretta Stage? He was like possessed.
A soul collection without some Pickett’s tracks is like Martini (i mean the booze ) without olive.
Posted in Hip Hop, Mixtapes on September 20, 2007 by Marty AKA Marty McFly
It’s time to give you another mad old school radio mix.
This time Chuck Chillout is in control and the year is 1986.
Chuck Chillout has been one of the most important pioneers in rap history. He was part of the group The B-Boys withDonald D and Brother B, a Bronx-based group that released the oft-sampled “Rock the House” on Vintertainment in 1983.
Together with Kool Chip he put out an album in 1989 called “The Masters of Rhythm”. Check the video…
He also worked with Run DMC, Public Enemy and is the man behind Who got the props? Yes, I am talking about Black Moon!!!
If discover Black Moon is not enough for you, here another story about Chuck:
At 19, Funkmaster Flex was carrying legendary KISS-FM DJ Chuck Chillout’s crates. One day Chuck was late to work and the program director let Flex spin for 5 minutes, 5 minutes turned into three hours. Flex followed Chuck to WBLS as a full-fledged radio DJ for a year and a half.
Ok, I think you got it now. Having Flex carry your crates it’s not ordinary!
I had to add up R’nB among music genres embraced by Martini&Jopparelli. When you say R’nB you mean the Reverend Al Green, then you mean love.
The ecstatic good will with which Green’s voice overflowed couldn’t be neatly categorized; it contained the sacred, the erotic, and the just plain old friendly. Similarly smooth and rough vocal tones were, for him, equally valuable devices with which to seduce the listener, and his fluid technique was matched by Hi Records producer Willie Mitchell. Sheathing raw soul within velveteen strings, the Hi sound didn’t so much combine elements of Stax gutbucket and Philly International suavity as meld the styles whole.
Al Green has one of the most soulful voices of all time and his talent for interpreting other artist’s songs and making them his own is simply stunning
I had to make a huge effort to get this album complete, but listening it now is definetely paying me off.
Why should you get this fully?
Simple, cause he has a killer voice, full of grit, sweetness, and sacredness, he is smooth the way he sang love songs.
Ok, “It Was Written” cannot reach the almighty “Illmatic”, but this is an outstanding album as well..i got no doubt about that. this is a journey into the mind of one of the most prolific lyricists hip hop has ever known, “The next Coming Of Rakim”.
If i recall the first day i listened to it, i cannot say anything but bearing out that those were golden years. QB at its finest, you got the original Firm ensemble, Nas, AZ, Foxy and Cormega… rhyming skills raise to the top.
Dope production (Poke & Tone) and dope lyrics…almost 4 mics to me.
Posted in Our Mixes on September 13, 2007 by Marty AKA Marty McFly
To celebrate the good work of my mates martini & jopparelli (and ozzino & il mago obviously) , 200000 hits for this blog and the nearly 1 year anniversary, I’ve finally managed to put together a funk 45’s mix only, with some originals and some reissues, plus some new funk from new funk bands.
The mix starts with two brilliant reggae cover of two very famous breaks (get out of my life woman and hot pants), then it’ll get more into funk .
I’ve tried to keep the reissues at a minimum, but I still have to pay the rent and I can’t afford a “trespasser”….still managed to play some rarities (third guitar “down to the river”…which not a lot people play…American of 68”come on mama” …and some others…you guys probably know better than me….) and some doubles like iron leg and hook & sling.
The sounds quality is not the best…..so put it in your stereo and play it very loud!!!
The picture you see above was taken in Brighton: when James Brown(r.i.p) died they put up this massive graffiti…anyway on the right you see a shop with “across” written on it…that’s one of the best record shop here (thanks for the guys there…especially the old one for selling me bob smith & the boo-kou’s for a mere 3 £…nice one!!!!)…it’s not really revealing a secret spot because everybody goes there already.
The next mix will be straight up 90’s hip hop…so the mixing will be much better(you cant do much with 45’s unless you are cut chemist or dj shadow!)
Posted in Jazz Music on September 10, 2007 by Marty AKA Marty McFly
I want to pay my small and in a certain way superficial tribute to Michelangelo Antonioni who passed away on July 30 2007. I am not an expert but I am smart enough to catch the difference between a movie like Blow Up or Zabriskie Point and an American blockbuster. Antonioni has been a great filmmaker and the rest is history. Plus is Italian, so we are proud of him. We talk all the time about foreign artists so let me be “jingoistic” this time. Being not an expert of cinema makes me take Antonioni from a music point of view. This is musicselections after all.
Antonioni hes been a visionary director who always paid attention to the relationship between music and image. In the early days he used to work with the Italian composer Giovanni Fusco. Then, when he “blew up” as one of the most talented and skilled filmmaker of the sixties and seventies, he had a chance to work with some great musicians such as Herbie Hancock (Blow Up), Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia from Grateful Dead (Zabriskie Point), Giorgio Gaslini (La Notte) among others.
The match between this musicians and the great Antonioni is simply perfect. Herbie Hancock does not need any presentation.
Herbie Hancock, something of a progidy in the jazz world in ‘66, and still considered one of the best jazz musicians around, did the soundtrack for Blow-Up. He was disappointed that Antonioni kept the volume low in most of the film. Antonioni was a great fan of Hancock’s music and sought him out for the making of Blow-Up. When the two met for the first time, Hancock was taken aback to discover how much Antonioni knew about jazz.
Many of these songs are great examples of the 60’s Blue Note jazz style, which could include hard-driving numbers as in “End Title (Blow-Up)” and “Bring Down the Birds,” bluesy sounds as in the Verushka episode, and more cool ones as in “The Naked Camera.” The modal feel of this latter piece gives it a meditative, cerebral quality appropriate for some parts of Blow-Up, and it recalls “Maiden Voyage,” a tune that helped make Hancock famous. A young Joe Henderson plays tenor on this piece, showing us how he got to be one of the finest saxophonists in the world.
Talking about Pink Floyd to me is like bring me back to my childhood. I remember when I was 14 years old and I was mad about their psychedelic period. Live in Pompei was in heavy rotation in my vhs-player.
Watch this video, this is the last scene of Zabriskie Point.
From Wikipedia: The song was originally released as the B-side of their single “Point Me at the Sky“. Pink Floyd re-recorded the track for Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s film, Zabriskie Point. The song is retiled “Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up” on the soundtrack album for the film. The music consists of a light organ based jam (using the “Egyptian” style organ that is so common of Rick Wright in this period), and an accompanying bass guitar playing just a tone and the same tone an octave above with a segue into the song’s only lyrics: the title of the song whispered menacingly, and various screams by Roger Waters. In the heavier parts and later in the quieter parts as well David Gilmour can be heard with guitar and scat vocals. The song’s performance on the “Live at Pompeii” includes the whispered words: “Down, down. Down, down. The star is screaming. Beneath the lies. Lie, lie. Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Eugene. The stars are screaming loud.”
We’ve been running this blog for about a year and i’ve not posted anything by Trevor Jackson yet. If you run a blog about funky music, house music, hip hop and electro you cannot leave Mr. Trevor Jackson out your selections.
Trevor Jackson started as a graphic designer, designing cd covers. He made sleeves for hip hop artists such as Eric B & Rakim and the Jungle Brothers. Then, he turned to production and became a mainstream remixer with the name of Underdog. Playgroup was his first solo project. Playgroup has released a nice album (nothing special in my opinion, i bought the CD but i’m thinkin about re-sellin it: anyone wants it? ), a beautiful electro mix for the K7 DJ Kicks series, a bunch of remixes for different artists, and the superb mix we’re talkin about here, called Partymix.
He is one of the creators of the new electro sound that is burning out the dancefloors worldwide. The word “electro” has seen a new life and commercial success in the latest years. In fact nowadays that word is over-used (and often abused) to describe music that has nothing to do with electro. In Partymix, he shows us where the real roots of that sound are.
Let’s make things clear: this mix is more than 200 classic disco-funk tunes (mostly from the late 70’s - first 80’s) all played in 60 minutes. Thus, it’ less than 20 seconds for each track. If you don’t like this kind of stuff, let me say i understand your reasons, because sometimes fast mixtapes like this might be too schizophrenic to listen to. But in this case i think it really flows well, resulting in a very enjoyable set. Most of the songs in this partymix were sampled in hip hop, especially old school. Playgroup learned very well the Steinski Lessons, understanding the true essence of the old school.
I think most of the positive energy that old school hip hop had was because of the dance music inprint. Back in the days, producers used to sample disco tracks, giving hip hop that party sound, that happy feeling that was lost later on. This is another reason why Partymix is an appropriate name in this case.
This mix makes also a fun trivia game: listen it with your friends and let’s see who gets more titles! (a game which is equivalent to: let’s see who is the biggest nerd )
I'm leaving for holidays but let me give you a very nice Podcast for your summer: check out DJ Skream playing what he really likes! (besides Dubstep of course!) A lot of Disco, Funk, early House Music and of course a lot of style... Have a nice summer everybody! Peace. Jopparelli.
) without olive.
