Blaktwang – “Kik Off” 12″ (MAGICT23) (2002)

When I lived in Bristol during the dying days of the last century, Banksy art was all around. I was spoiled and, not knowing he was unique, assumed every British city had its own anarcho-daubist. Now you can buy reproductions of his work at TK Maxx and charity shops and the once-provocative style has itself been co-opted by everyone from insurance companies to children’s yoghurt. I’m sure the irony is not lost on the man.

In the meantime, Banksy designs have graced some three score album/singles covers, with most utilising extant images and many unauthorised. While the image used by Blaktwang on his “Kik Off” 12″ is genuine and bespoke, it hits nowhere near as hard much of his work being a fairly standard gansta conceit slightly amped-up with a Molotov cocktail.

The music is a good, stuttering anticipation of wooziness later perfected by Flying Lotus,  et al. Blak’s flow resembles Mos Def and Ty, if not quite so nimble. As for the content, well, someone should tell these so-called rappers that potty mouth bragging is a sign of insecurity and doesn’t really impress anyone.

Tom Tom Club/Mr. Yellow – “Genius of Love” b/w “Yella” (12WIP 6735) (1982)

Charming, much-sampled, hook-filled, proto-rap in its long form from Talking Heads offshoot/loose Compass Point studio aggregation, which I’ve been hopin’ to find for some time, turned up cheap this morn at a very crowded Ashford Boot fair. “Yella”, the B-side credited to Mr. Yellow, is a worthy remix of the A and includes toasting to the effect that, “You’ve got to have a strong heart to live in New York…” Which is true enough.

Wouldn’t mind having the “Wordy Rappinghood” twelve and the debut Lp while I’m about it. And maybe the extended version of “Man With the Four Way Hips” from the second album. That’s enough Tom Tom Club.

– Prince Asbo

Jay-Z – “99 Problems” b/w “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” (Roc-a-Fella 9862393) (2003)

A few years ago, a friend from LA sent a CD-R of mashups including an (as it turns out) illicit DJ TimG remix of “99 Problems” which cleverly utilised Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” as the rhythm track–it was, indeed, a bangin’ mix and, having dismissed Jay-Z previously, my head was turned. When I eventually heard the popular released version on Radio 1 of this humorous catalogue of disasters faced by today’s African-American, not only were the swears very awkwardly and pointlessly erased (I mean, everyone still says the cuss words in their heads, right?), but the riddim was quite different. Yes, the version on this 50p charity shop twelve features a hard rock guitar, but it was Billy Squire’s (I think), not the funky Hendrix one and simply ain’t as good.

As mentioned previously, I don’t have much post-1999 hip hop, but this still gets played by me and the boys when anyone who might be easily offended is out of the house.

Ultramagnetic MCs – Critical Beatdown (FFRR 828137.1) (1988)

This consistently good record isn’t quite as novel as generally more lauded “Golden Age of Hip Hop” Lps by De La Soul, PE, Pete Rock, Gang Starr, etc. It might be a sign of my age that I tend these days not to listen to any Hip Hop recorded after ’97 (the early Rawkus Records stuff being my cut-off point)–or, more likely, that Hip Hop, like rock & roll, psychedelia, boogie-woogie, free jazz and other popular music sub-genres, had a certain shelf-life, which expired around that time. Discuss.

Another excellent find in Hythe, this time at the bootfair on the green

Def Beats – Ten Non-Stop Full Length 12″ Mixes

Released in 1987, this collection promises “the hardest hip-hop in the world direct from New York City” and certainly represents exactly what my 18-year-old self would’ve been playing on the tape deck of my Ford Cortina back in the day.  In fact I bought lots of Hip Hop compilations (on cassette) back then, so its quite surprising I never bought this one.

To be honest, hearing this relentless barrage of beats, scratching, grainy samples and second division MCing now makes me feel terribly old and even gives me a slight headache. No wonder my dad hated this stuff. I still love it in principle, but I’m gonna take it off the deck and put something else on now before I have to take some Neurofen.

Neneh Cherry – Raw Like Sushi (Circa 8)(1989)

LAST NIGHT A RECORD CHANGED MY LIFE 

This week television actor Richard Wilson evinces mad love for Neneh Cherry’s debut Lp

By Richard Wilson

“I don’t believe it!”

That was my weekly jibber-jabber on TV medical drama One Grave Foot. But I tell you what you best be believin’ is the serious props I be givin’ Raw Like Sushi. Back in the day, when me and the rest of the Wild Bunch crew was all hangin’ at the Dug Out off Park Row near Clifton, you know, jus’ buggin’, gettin’ hassles by Babylon for smokin’ skunk and sellin’ bones to the students, we all had our musics that we liked. I was the reggae kid, Mushroom [Adrian Vowels] was down with the beats, Nellee [Hooper] was like the number one B-Boy, G [Grant Marshall] well knew his reggae, the cats from Portishead listened to fusion and shit, Miles [Johnson] liked all kinds, jazz, soul, funk, hip hop, you name it and Tricky Kid be tuggin’ on everyone shirtsleeves, stoned, askin’ for a riddim to voice.

We was just dossers, really, but Neneh had had a lickle taste of the spotlight in Run Rip + Panic, so when she asked me and Miles out to Japan for some fashion show she was doin’ with some dudes from Face magazine, we thought, you know, “Why not?” When we got there, we was all too cool for school and stood around behind the decks, frownin’, arms folded, shades on (mainly to hide our red eye ‘cos of the weed–ha, ha!). Neneh was like: “Y’all be buggin’ in some kinda Bison Posture.” And I say, “Girl, this more like a Buffalo Stance,” and damn if she didn’t make up a hit rekkid right there.

When her album hit, we be like, man, the Bristol sound be goin’ outernational!  3D [Robert Del Naja] and Mushroom helped out and suddenly them and Nellee be hot property. The whole scene changed. Crazy times. Nowadays, it sound pretty tame, you know, like Don fuckin’ Henley “Boys In Summer” or some old shit, an’ her flow ain’t all that, but back then we thought it was, like, cuttin’ edge.

“I don’t believe it!” is what you say when I tell you I used to fancy Miss Cherry. Yeah, I know I be queer as them three pound note, but that one picture on the back of the Sushi album where  you see the line of hair creepin’ out the top of her leather skirt goin’ up to her belly button, man, that do something to me. She about the only one that could have turned me into a breeder.

Next week Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper explains how Glenn Campbell’s Gentle On My Mind album simply rocked her world.

Mr. T – Mr. T’s Commandments (CBS) (1984)

I think it’s fair to say that I’m less enamoured of kitsch than my fellow Thrifty Vinylese.  However, there are times when my head is turned by “apparently artistic operation[s] which make up for a lack of creative force by stimulating the imagination through particular ingredients [including the] erotic, political, religious [and], sentimental,” as Gillo Dorfles would have it.

I wish I could say that the one-time Laurence Tureaud’s rap foray into self-aggrandisment, fool pitying and didactic positivity lived up to the promise of its creepy cover and was laughably bad. Alas, while T’s familiar gruff flow is predictably poor, the album itself had enough money spent on it (this was CBS, after all) to make it merely mediocre, boring and mainstream sounding.  Not that I would say that to his face.

G-Force – Feel the Force and Masurrati & Huey Harris – Super Duper (Lovin)

A good, but not great, early excursion into electro rap and a decent early 80s funk 12″ I picked up in my local bootfair (Etchinghill) this weekend.  They are also fairly sought after and, as I need cash to subsidise this*, I am obliged to sell here and here, respectively.

*”Won” the on eBay for approximately two-fifths of retail–get in!

Ton Loc – Loc’d After Dark (1989) (Delicious Vinyl)

This is the UK edition, photographed by the same guy responsible for the Go Go Crankin’ record mentioned earlier.  It also has that same cool dull, cardboard finish.  Much preferable to the American sleeve, IMHO.  It was a little bit scritchier than I usually like my rekkids, but it still goes down a treat.  Hythe charity shops givin’ up the funk for only a £1.

Nia – Blackalicious (Mo’ Wax)

I got this double Lp at a great boot fair near St. Michael’s Mount.  The tracks sound kind of unfinished to me, but good enough in a background music, trip hop way.