Beats, Zines and Demos

I’ve got an atypical post for you today about a label you’ve probably never heard of.  But if you stick with me all the way to the end, I think you’ll be looking them up.

We'll start off with Chemtrails, the loose collaboration of Australian producer Luke O'Farrell and his band/ housemates who recorded the beat tape Treason In the Sky back in 2013.  The band played psychedelic rock, but this is a strictly Hip-Hop endeavor: a mix of vinyl samples and live instrumentation made with an Akai MPC2500.  Only 25 copies of the original tape were released on an indie label called Skydreams, but now it's coming back via a newly remastered vinyl LP from his own label, Puff Down Records.

Now, regular readers may recall that I'm not traditionally predisposed to instrumental Hip-Hop, but I'm starting to come around to it.  After all, you can't calculate how much Raw Quartz you need to belt into your Manufacturer to maximize the Crystal Oscillator throughput of your Radio Control Unit line to make Pressure Conversion Tubes in Satisfactory with Kendrick Lamar ordering you to turn your TV off.  I've tried; you absolutely have to pause it.  But Treason In the Sky generates just the right amount of ambiance to get your pretend digital job done while still feeling engaged with what you're hearing.  Because this is definitely meant to be listened to, as opposed to a DJ battle tool or production kit LP.  These aren't just beats waiting for someone to rhyme over them and give them purpose.  Like, the titular horn loop of "Intergalactic War Horns" occupies the space for vocals; it would all sound too busy with an MC.

Puff Down also has its own print magazine, appropriately titled Puff Down.  They hooked me up with issues 2 and 3.  And then I actually got an email update from Hip Hop Enterprise as I was writing this telling me they were now carrying them.  It's a full 12" mag, 48 pages mostly in black and white with a few color inserts.  They feature record reviews, book reviews, and primarily interviews with underground artists like Has-Lo, DJ Rocksteady (of Trauma Center, whose material you might remember Dope Folks releasing early in their run) and DJ OG-S.  That last one makes sense, since they're working with him for their latest release...

OG-S is a name I recognize from doing mixes with labels like Heavy Jewelz, Lost Records (shame what happened there) and PQuest Revivals.  He and his partner Fatcap have been finding and releasing unreleased Hip-Hop demos for a little while now.  The main one that tripped my radar was the Joint Ventures CD a few years ago.  Well, their new release on Puff Down, Smoke Flavors, combines these ventures by mixing an impressive collection of never before (and probably never to be) released demos on both CD and cassette.  It's is a compilation of various artists, most very obscure (one is simply credited to "Unknown Artist Demo, 1992 California").  That's not to say that you shouldn't recognize any names on here, though.  We've got a tight untitled Powerule track from 1992 and a Delinquent Habits song dating years before they came out on LOUD Records.

But most of these names you're not gonna know.  I assume the reason these demos have been collected here and put out simply as a mix is because this is all the dope odds and ends they couldn't make official releases out of: groups you couldn't even track down to pay, who didn't put out enough music to fill a release on their own, and never managed to make the names for themselves to sell if they did.  But it's strong material that deserves to be heard, so this mix is a welcome catch-all of material, ranging from 1992-1996.  There's more New York stuff than anything else, but California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas, Chicago, London and even The Bahamas are represented here.

Their bandcamp listing assures us that these were all preserved "to the best possible quality with the best equipment ... through professional distillation and extraction techniques."  In fact, OG-S goes into quite specific detail on his process and the exact equipment he uses in Puff Down issue 3.  The sound quality is still variant (a song by a crew called Homicide Division sounds particularly rough), but I think we can take it that this is as good as we could've ever hoped for.  Make no mistake though, this is a mix, not a compilation with separated songs and each song allowed to begin and end unsullied.  As one giant CD track, you can't skip to specific songs, and when you don't know who most of these artists are, and song titles aren't even listed, it takes a lot of patience if you want to suss out any one particular joint.  To isolate the Delinquent Habits, I had to work backwards from Cool Mike G song where he helpfully shouts his name in his hook (although, in retrospect, it should've been obvious from the production style which one was them).  At times I was questioning whether the scratching I was hearing was by the original artist or OG-S.  No, the way to enjoy this is like William Hurt said in The Big Chill, "sometimes you just have to let art flow over you:" one 60+ minute tidal wave of scrappy, raw 90s rap you've never heard before.

The Treason In the Sky record is pretty limited, too, to just 100 copies and comes in a picture cover.  It also includes a short 'zine about how the album was recorded, and a sticker of the original 2013 artwork.  The Smoke Flavors CD and tape are limited to 100 copies each, and come with a DJ OG-S sticker.  Treason is also available digitally, and has been since 2013, so you can check it out and see if you're taken with it.  But if you want to hear the demos, you've got to cop a physical copy.  And I strongly recommend it.

When the L Came Back

(The overlooked and underrated return of Larry Larr.  Plus a l'il update on Omniscence and Nick Wiz vinyl.  Youtube version is here.)

From the West To the East, It's Rappin' Mae

Last Halloween, I went on a bit of a tangent, giving a brief overview of the Rappin' Duke catalog in a video on some unrelated records.  Every Hip-Hop fan over a certain age remembers the crazy novelty record where Shawn Brown adopts the persona of John Wayne to bust some silly raps over a surprisingly funky beat.  As Biggie famously reminded us, "remember Rappin' Duke, 'da-ha, da-ha?' Never thought Hip-Hop would take it this far."  Not so many people know there was actually a whole series of Duke records, including a follow-up to his self-titled debut hit, a full-length album, a serious message rap, and an unofficial knock-off by Buzzy Bragg.  Brown also put out another record as Kato-B, as in the sidekick to the Green Hornet as played by Bruce Lee.  But there's one more related record I didn't mention.  And if I'm ever going to cover, today's the day.

"Rappin' Mae" by June East.  I guess you'd call it an answer record, released on Still Rising Records in 1985, shortly after the original "Rappin' Duke."  Yes, it's April Fool's Day, but like I say every year, this is a real record that exists and you can find for your own collections, if you're ever so possessed.  I don't do those April 1st posts where I pull your leg making up nonsense.

So I think the best way to categorize it as an answer record to "Rappin' Duke."  The concept, simply, is that this is a rap record by another former film star, Mae West.  She was known as one of Hollywood's earliest envelope-pushing sex symbols, a little before Wayne's time, in the 1930s (though she occasionally appeared in movies into the 1970s).  If you're thinking she's before you're time and you've no idea who she is, you've still probably seen caricatures and impressions done of her in classic cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Donald Duck and the like.  If you've heard the demure purr, "come up and see me sometime," that's her.

So June East isn't a real person; the name's a play on Mae West, get it?  June, the month after May and East v West.  Ostensibly East is West's sister (sure, they're different last names, but that's already putting too much thought into this premise).  It was actually a trend for artists, mostly novelty/ joke acts, to call themselves "Rappin' ____:"  There was Rappin' Rodney, Rappin' Rabbit, Rappin' Reverend, Rappin' Granny, and so on.  And then real MCs started adopting it, like Rappin' Tate, Rappin' 4-Tay, and Rappin' Ron.  I even titled my short film Rappin' Reno in honor of that tradition.

As soon as you start to spin it, there's no question that this might just be a novelty record with a coincidentally similar gimmick to Rappin' Duke.  It's got a very slow, very similar beat and bassline, albeit with some new harmonica and other instrumental flourishes.  The hook, by a couple uncredited guys, is sung in the tune of the "Rappin' Duke"'s, "she's so-oh bad, so bad, just so-oh-oh-oh bad."  And then June gets on the mic, yes doing a full on Mae West impression, laying down the law for the Duke and another notable rappers of the day, "I'm the baddest rap in this town.  Sorry, Duke, don't mean to put ya down.  And as for rapper Kurtis Blow, sorry Sugar, you'll have to go."

It's not entirely a diss record; she spends more time just dropping gentle innuendos in the spirit of the real Mae West and telling us how to do the Mae West dance.  But she does come back for more at the end, "Sorry, Duke, but you see what I mean.  When it comes to rappin', I'm the real queen.  All those pilgrims you keep referring to?  The Mayflower must've been a real zoo.  You know the Duke's tough, and that's okay; he just better not get in this girl's way.  What the Duke does with muscle, I can do with a feather, because when I'm good I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better."  That last line coming from West's 1933 film I'm No Angel with Cary Grant.

There's just the one song on this 12", though there's a Short Version and an Instrumental on the B-side.  As you can see, it was released in a modest sticker cover.  There were never any follow-up June East records, but Still Rising was a legit label that put out some other funk and Hip-Hop stuff, including the early singles by Microphone Prince.  It was produced by Patrick Adams and Ron Mindseed, who did most of Still Rising's stuff.  Adams was also a member of the Golden Flamingo Orchestra, who did music for Lovebug Starski's earliest records, among plenty of other stuff.

So, who was June East really?  Happily, she's around and online to tell us.  June was the persona of stand-up comic Fran Capo, who's probably best known for holding the The Guinness Book of World’s Records' title of fastest talking woman (though she raps quite slow on "Rappin' Mae").  According to her website, she used to do the weather, traffic and movie reviews in the character of June East on the radio.  As she told EPN Spotlight, "I was working at WBLS Radio as a comedy writer and one day was kidding around and said that I could do a really cool Mae West Impression, but that I called the character June East. The DJ [Sergio Dean] flung the weather copy at me and the red tally light in the studio went on, and I did the weather as June East."  That became a regular morning thing and led to her getting signed to make the record and tour along the east coast with LL Cool J and The Fat Boys (man, do I wish I could've caught that!).  You can watch a clip of her on public access television from the time here.  Apparently, she'll still come to an event as "Mae" to this day.

The Sugar Bear Demos

Here's a really nice release that probably slid under many of your radars - it certainly did mine - Sugar Bear's Never Lost: My '99 Demos on Spitslam Records,  Spitslam, if you didn't realize, is Chuck D's label, which you might remember for putting out the Chill Rob G comeback album a few years ago.  They've also been putting out the new Stetsasonic material and a bunch of other interesting projects from old school and new artists.  And Sugar Bear's album, which actually came out last summer, but I just discovered recently, is exactly what its title promises: a preservation of Sugar Bear's previously unreleased demo recordings from 1988.

There are essentially six tracks.  These have been remastered and are pretty clean, but listening closely, I'd guess they're from a retail cassette dub, and they do still sound a little thin.  And admittedly, they're not all on par with his most famous single.  The opening "Get It Together" has a catchy sample, but it's a slower track that's more focused on delivering a message than the hyped up delivery on his Next Plateau material.  And lyrically, frankly, it's a little clunky:

"Some people say
That life is not easy.
Some things out there
Are always not pleasing.
Handle it;
Take one step at a time.
And make it slow,
And maybe you will find
What you've been looking for.
That's important,
Not miscellaneous.
What I'm saying is:
There is a better way.
You gotta find it.
Use your brain
Before you bind it."

Like, contriving phrases like "are always not pleasing" from "are not always pleasing" just sounds awkward; and a lot of those rhymes are pretty basic to also be so forced ("easy" and "pleasing?").  It shows that his heart's in the right place, and again, the instrumental will hook you in, so it's a funky little track, but not on the level of what we've heard before.  It's both dope (especially now that we're not getting any more music like this from that era) and easy to see why it's remained a demo.

The next track, however, is the one.  "Violated" comes hard and fast, using some of the same samples as Eric B and Rakim's "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em," but with its own unique flavor.  Sugar's at his most aggressive, there's a breakdown slicing up Kool G Rap's "Cold Cuts," and they mix in additional unique samples throughout the track.  And had this actually come out in 1988, it would've been first, beating them to the punch by about two years.  I'm not saying it's better than that all-time classic, Rakim is definitely the smoother MC, but it gives it a respectable run for its money.  And again, it's a precursor from the 80s.  It's a real shame this didn't come out at the time; it would've really made a mark.

"Cadence" and "Super Monster" are respectable runners up: two more high energy tracks where the Long Islander comes hard over some strong instrumentals.  I did find myself wishing he was just a little slicker with the wordplay, and it's a bit goofy on the latter track when they do an acapella of the Sugar Crisps theme song.  But overall these are some tight 80's tracks any Hip-Hopper would be delighted to have in their collection.  And "Chillin" is almost on the same level, it's just a little bit slower and looser, with more playful lyrics, a little more MC Rell than Rakim.

And finally there's the token love song, "My Girl" with its sung chorus and cheesy lyrics, "the moment that I laid/ my eyes on you/ for you to be my girl/ it can only be true/ you carry yourself/ with no suspicion/ the thought of you/ makes me wonder why I'm missin'/ you, my girl/ there can never be another/ the patter of my heart/ makes it sound like thunder."  It's a bit silly; but it's still fun to uncover a vintage track like that.

Those six demos are it, but he's also re-recorded a new 2024 version of "Get It Together."  It's the same lyrics and instrumental, just a fresh recording of it.  And comparing the two versions, you can appreciate that even though the remastered demos removed the hiss and any other possible issues, the new version definitely sounds deeper and warmer.  Bear's voice is also a little deeper now that he's older, but he does a good job matching his original delivery.  It sounds a little different, but he basically manages to recapture the magic, and it probably helps that none of us grew up with the originals, so we won't be put off by any slight variation.  I kinda wish he remade "Violated," too.

So that's the meat of the album, I guess you'd say EP.  But besides the demos, Never Lost is packed with bonus tracks, including both cuts from the 1988 12" that made him famous, his 1989 song from Richie Rich's album and some kind of Greek electro-dance remix of "Don't Scandalize Mine" from 2015, which they kindly put at the end of the album so you can just turn it off before that track starts.  The only things they didn't include are his 2018 single "I'm Hot" and some guest spots he recorded for a few R&B artists throughout the years.

The only bummer is it's CD only.  CD-R to be precise, which is how Spitslam releases most of their music.  On the one hand, it's cheap and absolutely 100% worth it.  But it would be sweet if they teamed up with another label, like Chopped Herring, Dope Folks or whoever's more experienced in pressing up this kind of stuff on wax.  I know they've done that once or twice before, like with Schoolly D's new album (which I'm also interested in picking up myself), so maybe there's still hope.  But if not, you can find a whole bunch of CD-R only projects from them that would come to the same price as one LP from a lot of other places.

DJ War B

We took a look back at the oeuvre of DJ Raw B a couple years ago, and now he's back with a brand new album called The Fog of War.  Raw B first appeared on my radar for his collaborations with Luke Sick and that whole extended Sacred Hoop family of artists.  They did a whole album together in 2019, but otherwise most of B's albums have been largely instrumental.  So I was already heartened to see that this one is comprised mostly of full vocal songs, gathering together an ensemble of guest MCs to create one consistent work of art.

Is Luke Sick one of those guest MCs, and did I immediately jump to his song as soon as I popped off the shrink-wrap?  Sure, and he does have one of the best tracks on here ("Shogun's Decapitator").  But here's the interesting thing I discovered about this album: it's stronger played straight through from the beginning to the end.  Hip-Hop's had a lot of producer albums over the years, and usually they feel like compilations to be jumped around and picked apart.  Like In Control vol. 2 - how many of us are playing the Nexx Phase or Portia songs as much as "The Symphony Part 2?"  Not that this is a Deltron-like "concept album" or anything; it's not that conjoined.  But I started out needle dropping, and when I jumped to the On Tilt song (at this point, regular readers should not need to be told that On Tilt is the duo of Luke Sick and QM), I was disappointed.  I didn't think it was bad, just not as effective as I usually find them to be.  Maybe it just needed a catchier beat.

But when I finally played the whole album through, I liked their song better in context.  And I found that to be true of a lot of this, especially in the production, so let's take The Fog Of War as a cohesive album.  Instrumentally, it isn't super dark and moody, but it is gritty.  I didn't know a lot of these artists.  Googling around, several of them seem to be from Chicago, one's from Atlanta... The first MC, Infinite, I only know from having one of the tighter tracks on the prior Raw B album, Uncorrupted.  He comes off nice here, too, impressively flipping between a variety of styles; and Raw B lays down a really fresh collection of samples for him.  It's a good opener to pull you in, but it's track 2 where this album really takes off.

Raw B starts off juggling up vocal samples from "The Message" and "Mind Playing Tricks," which tells you all you need to know.  Low, rumbling bass and air raid sirens kick in as somebody named Fable Angelo really sets off a series of tragic narrative raps.  The vibes are like early Paris, documenting the failure of the American project, "I seen the young dude approachin' me with his crew.  They stood right in front of me and wouldn't let me move; said the color of my laces was disrespectful and rude; but today was my lucky day, he gonna let me choose.  He said I could take off my shoes or I could be the next one dead on the news.  Hold up, this dude tryin' to punk me?  I punched him in his face, yeah, they jumped me.  I walked home barefooted and bloody, but I know where my momma keeps her gun and her money.  I'll be right back."  Damn.

Whoever this guy is, he just stole the show from my favorite rappers on here.  Although, with that said, approaching their song after all this bleaker Art of War material, I appreciated hearing On Tilt pop up when they did: a distorted party jam that only makes sense in a war zone.

It's fourteen tracks total.  Eleven full vocal songs with three instrumentals floating in between.  The only other MC I know on here is Gennessee, Raw B's old mate from Double Life (along with L'Roneous da Versifier), who you might best remember from that "Sucker MCs 2000" record with Masta Ace.  The variety of styles on here, brought together by a singular production style, helps keep this engaging and smooths over any bumps along the way to the end.  Maybe I wouldn't be feeling some of these guys so much if I dug into their Spotify pages, but mixed together in this soup, it all works.  And anyway, B's scratch hooks are the real stars in this sky.

This is available digitally wherever, but the limited edition CD can be ordered direct from his site or on Bandcamp.  A nice bonus there is that the track-listing, on the case and online, lists 14 tracks; but when you pop the disc in, there's 24.  That's because he's added the instrumentals for nine of the vocal songs (skipping "Bad Wreck" and "Flowing," for the record) as uncredited bonus tracks, which I believe are only available on the physical release.

It Only Took Thirty Years... The Almighty Arrogant Album!

(I'm beyond excited for this one - the long lost Almighty Arrogant Perspective album from 1996 is finally getting released, on triple vinyl, double CD and tape! Youtube version is here.)

The Bottom Of the Father MC Barrel

We've finally hit it, folks!  Today's post will probably have most vinyl heads, even those with deep Father MC collections, saying, "hmm, I don't have that."  And then, "hmm, I don't want that."  But, in all fairness, it's not because the people who made the music are necessarily terrible, so much as it's just not what we want here at Werner's: a proper Hip-Hop record.  Or even a Hip-Hop record at all.  Yes, today we'll be examining "Alright" by Jazzed Up, co-written by Father.

Don't worry, I'm not going to string out the suspense here.  "Alright" is a 1996 remix of Father MC's 1992 hit single, "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" featuring Jodeci.  It's a UK club dance thing, and none of Father's rapping is included, so he's got a writing credit but his voice isn't on here at all.  Prince Markie Dee and The Soul Convention's and other Mark are also credited as "originally produced by," but this uses virtually (entirely?) none of their instrumental either.  All it takes is Jodeci's hook.  They play different pieces of it at different times, laying it down over a very bouncy, late 90s house kinda track.  The vocals aren't quite "chipmunk soul," but they're pitched up enough that you might mistake them for female vocalists if you didn't recognize the source.

Jazzed Up is a one-off alias for a guy named Mark Truman, who's produced a whole ton of clubby dance records I'd never listen to under different alias and with different groups over the years.  I guess he's best known for being a part of Hybrid, who've put out a bunch of albums and been featured on the soundtracks for several movies and video games.

It comes in a picture cover from a small label called Final Phase Records, but it has connections going all the way up to Warner Bros, who probably had to pay a decent amount to clear Father's record, so this was presumably a decent payday for him, or at least Puffy and Uptown Records.  Father would've been off Uptown for several years by this point.

There are three mixes of the song, but they're all pretty similar stuff and use roughly the same amount of Jodeci, and none of Father.  One's credited to Hybrid and another is credited to The Solid Collective, which is another one of Truman's side groups.  They're both extended a bit.  The Hybrid version is a bit moodier with deeper bass notes while the Solid Collective mix has more of an electro flavor and has a tonal keyboard riff midway through that doesn't really jel with the rest of the music.

It's the kind of record I wouldn't ordinarily bother to write about if I weren't bent on ultimately covering every Father MC record ever.  So we may be scrapping the bottom, but it's it's an interesting bit of trivia for the Father MC fan who thinks he has everything.