Don With Gratitude

OK; this is another rarity. Only 150 hand-numbered copies were pressed (plus test-pressings, ey?), and they all sold out before they shipped. So I apologize for posting another record most of ya's won't be able to get their hands on (especially since it's dope, and you'll want it); but, hey - it's still not as rare as his "Stuck Off the Realness" 12". ;)

Godfather Don recorded these songs exclusively for the Stretch and Bobbito radio show in the mid-90's, giving them the only DAT copies. A few of these songs have circulated among tape traders (and more recently file sharers), recorded off the radio. I had a couple of them, and the quality sounded like they were pressed on steel wool.

Well, this year, DWG (who are they? Man, check my links column to the right, already) got in touch with Don, tracked down the original tapes straight from the hands of Bobbito, and pressed up a top quality, mastered vinyl EP of six of those songs.

Don's style is straight New York, hardcore rhymes over great, self-produced beats (you won't recognize any familiar, sampled loops in his catalog); And the songs on this EP are just as good as anything he's ever done (none might quite replace "Seeds of Hate" as my favorite, but they're all on that level). Check the style he kicks on "Inverted," one of his more playfully, lyrically complex joints:

"Rappers get chopped like cheddar.
Let a cannibal test ta
Damaga ya vest.
A Hannibal Lector ravager,
Lyrically savager;
Necks are cut from the crazier,
Above the trachea,
For being lazier.
My raz-i-ah
Inside my Av-i-ah,
To surgically remove wackness..."

Sadly, it seems DWG destroys their masters(!) to all their releases, and so there's no hope this will ever be legitimately repressed. :( As for what he's up to now, I don't have an official website or myspace to link ya, but there's a great, new interview with him on the DWG site, and an interview you won't want to miss with the president of Hydra Records on Unkut (that's also in my links... why aren't you checking my links!?). Apparently, Don has plenty of other unreleased jewels tucked away (indeed, I've heard a few other taped-off-the-radios), so hopefully those will eventually wind up seeing the light of day as well.