Mr. Smith

Diggers With Gratitude has started to expand from a label specialized only in issuing unreleased hip-hop treasures of decades past to a more traditional label with a small family of artists. You're not just as likely to see another all new 12" by, say, Phill Most Chill, as you are another lost Tragedy track. And it's in the spirit of this newer mode that we're presented with their latest record: The Marc Smith LP by Emskee and The 5th.

Emskee, in case you've forgotten, is a deep-voiced Jersey MC who we first heard on Nick Wiz's Cellar Sounds compilations, who'd also been active in the late 2000s as a member of The Good People. DWG went to work and unearthed all his vaulted material from the early 90s - including a neat collection of radio promos - and now he seems to have found a spot on the DWG family tree. And The 5th? He's the DJ/ producer for Long Island's Sputnik Brown, another group that DWG's been rolling with.

So, this is a coming together usually separate acts under DWG's umbrella, though the focus seems to be on the MC half as Marc Smith is Emskee's real name. The 5th might just need a better agent. ;)  Because despite the title, this isn't a particularly personal album... he makes some reference to coming up in Jersey, but this is no collection of childhood memories, parental odes and tales of failed relationships. Thankfully. Instead, this is just Emskee calmly boasting and talking up his credibility.

It's really all about his voice professionally flowing over The 5th's traditional boom bap beats. Most are slow, deep and Earthy, with the stand outs being the few songs that get a little more high energy or feature especially choice vocal samples being scratched into the hooks... "Annunciate" makes some really fun use of The DOC over a simple but catchy sample.  "Fuck Shit Up" is a bouncy little posse cut. And "I'm Ready" is the liveliest, with some fresh Digable Planets cuts.

There are a couple guests on hand here, including The Good People's Saint, and two unknowns named Benn ILLA and Jesus Mason, who turn up on like three songs. No one really steals the show from Emskee, but they do provide a little variety to keep the album from feeling too monotonous.

If the album's weakness is that it plays things a little too safe, that does make a pretty nice comfort zone for the buyer. You didn't really need to read any reviews or hear any snippets to gather that this was going to be a solid LP, did you? You know you're not gonna be stuck with something poor from DWG. And as this is a new LP, it's not being sold at a "limited" price, but as a standard modern LP. Plus, it comes on a nice heavy wax in a very fresh picture cover. Good deal. 8)

Another Double Dose of Emskee

Diggers With Gratitude is back and clearly reaping the benefits of a good, developed relationship with Emskee.  If you don't remember, Emskee is the hardcore NJ MC from the 90's who most of us first discovered on Nick Wiz's Cellar Sounds compilations on No Sleep. DWG wound up releasing two EPs worth of unreleased material by Emskee, and later put out a 7" with Emskee's new group, the Good People (which is him and Saint).

So, following The Complex Engineer EP, with have The Complex Extras. That title seems a bit dismissive, though... like these tracks might be just half as good, and only worth the time of a die-hard fan who has to have everything. But that's not the case at all. In fact, I wanted to say that Emskee comes even harder on this latest EP release, but then I went back to Engineer and I guess it's about the same - certainly every bit as good as the previous material you've heard and in the same vein. Again, these are all early 90's tracks ('92-'94), produced by Nick Wiz and featuring DJ Slyce on the tables.

And like the previous set of Emskee EPs, this has been released with a partner, too. This time it's brand new, 2012 material, though, by The Good People. It's called the Gone for Good Album Sampler, because this is being released in conjunction with a full-length album called Gone for Good which they're putting out themselves. On CD/ mp3 only. So, this is the vinyl release of the album's highlights... you know, like Fat Beats did it with artists like Roc Marciano and Eternia, or even how No Sleep did it with Nick Wiz's Cellar Selections. Wax heads will be happy to learn they've been rewarded with a vinyl-exclusive track, though (it won't be on the Gone for Good full-length) called "Very M.A.D."

One track that ought to sound awfully familiar is "I Get Down (Like This)." That's because it's just a slightly different mix of "How I Get Down" from Nick Wiz's second volume of Cellar Sounds. That's a very welcome inclusion, because not only is it a new (new to us, that is) version, but the one on Cellar Sounds was CD-only, so we're finally getting this track on vinyl. If any more Emskee vault raiding is scheduled for the future, I'd remind the guys that "My Skills" from Cellar Sounds. vol. 1 still remains CD-only at this point, too. ;)

I was pleasantly surprised with the Good People EP. Not that I was expecting wackness, but I did expect that, for me, it would just be an after thought paired with the collection of Emskee's 90's stuff.  The production's fuller... Granted, it's less hardcore and more upbeat, which may or may not be your preference, but everything just feels more substantive. There are also a sizable amount of guests on hand here, considering this is just an EP, including J. Sands, Spectac, D-Slim (of the Sputnik Brown crew, which recently had an EP put out by DWG themselves), who actually appears on three different songs, and some guy named Brick Casey.

The Good People EP, which seems to have beaten the LP version to the open market, is limited to 350 copies... 150 of which are pressed on yellow (yellow) wax (the rest on your standard black), and the first 75 of those have been signed by Emskee and Saint. The Emskee EP is even more limited, to 175 copies only. Both come in sticker covers and come with colored press sheets - in other words, exactly the (high) standards we've come to expect from DWG.

Marisco Fever

Another release from DWG? Didn't I just review four releases from them, like, last week? Well, considering they've been pretty much setting the standard for hip-hop releases in the last couple years (a standard very few labels have managed to live up to, even), I'm happy.

This one's being heralded as their first "new" release... that is to say, a release of brand new music, as opposed to their usual vintage gems. Sure, past releases like the Damu or Sputnik Brown records were contemporary hip-hop; but this is the first time the music's been specifically commissioned by DWG for release on the label.

It's an upbeat, perfect-for-summer party jam by a couple artists who could be said to be DWG regulars There's DJ Format, the DJ for their Lungbutters mixtape, who also produced for one or two of their past releases. And he's partnering up with The Good People, the duo of Saint and Emskee. Emskee, of course, released two records on DWG already, and they've already announced their next record to be a Good People EP.

The song's called "Marisco," named after a London Woolacombe nightclub, and it's a fun, ocean-crossing collaboration between a UK hip-hop producer and US (east coast) MCs. The lyrics are smart without being clever; it's not about flexing skills here; it's just a song about going out for a night of good times. Format kills it, not so much on the turntables this time - there is a bit of cutting, but just barely - but as producer. It's got some cracking drums and a funky bassline, but it really comes alive when the horns come in. Remember when people used to describe a record as being "live?" Not literally, like a concert recording, but just as a way of describing that energy captured in a hip-hop track? Well, this record is live.

Flip it over, and The Good People's own Saint takes a stab at a remix. What's cool about it is that it's totally different, using these funky xylophone kinda riffs to capture a totally different vibe. It's gives the proceedings more of a second era Tribe Called Quest feel. For me the original Format mix still wins, but this is a nice alternative when you've started to play the A-side out a little too much.

You might be inclined to pass on this because you've never heard of Marisco's nightclub and therefore this release doesn't "apply" to you, like "oh, it's a local thing." But hey, how many of us Biz fans have been to Albee Square Mall? Most NWA fans have probably never stepped foot anywhere in the city of Compton. And how many of us Egyptian Lover fans have been to The Alezby Inn? Well, I have; and let me tell you. It's weird... but I like it. Wait. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, I'm just saying you don't have to have been to a location to feel the song. Yeah, it's a local thing, and the fun is in letting the song take you there. That's how these things become iconic.

So, am I saying it's another essential must-have DWG event release? Well, no, not compared to The Juice Crew EP or something. But it's good; that's what I'm saying. And it works just as well whether you're from the UK or not.

"Marisco" is a 7", but it comes in a really nice picture cover. It also comes with a poster of Marisco's flyer for their 45th anniversary, when Format and The Good People performed (and where this record debuted). It's limited to 500 copies, which is actually a pretty big run; and as you can see in the photo, it's pressed on cool, blue wax.

"Speaking of what we see in the photo," you might now be thinking to yourself, "what's that other record back there?" Well, you're being silly. There is no other other record; this is a single vinyl release. "Yes there is. See that 12" hiding behind all the other stuff on the right-hand side." Alright, you got me. That's the show vinyl. If you don't know what "show vinyl" is, it's the very limited wax that is pressed up specifically for the artists themselves to tour with. A lot of times, artists will have show vinyl pressed up with exclusive instrumental mixes and stuff, just for their own use... as is the case here. This 12" features vocal and instrumental mixes for both versions of the song, and as you can see DWG even made it a sticker cover (the first sticker cover show vinyl ever?). If you were quick, you could order the extra copies of this direct from the DWG site, but it's too late for that now, so it's really just a bit of a collector's item.  But the 7" is still readily available all over, and it'll be a nice companion piece for that Good People EP they're about to drop any minute now.

Jersey Engineering

The latest release from DWG is finally here, and this time it's... Emskee The Complex Engineer? Who's that? Well, if you've been picking up the Nick Wiz double-CD compilations (and if not, you should be), he's already been introduced to you, "this was my first artist I produced for when I started making beats." On volumes 1 and 2 (Emskee isn't on #3), the Emskee tracks were demos they recorded together for Emskee, who was looking to get a deal. ...But it turns out those tracks weren't the the sum of his demo material.

DWG has unearthed a whole boatload of additional, vintage material from Emskee, Nick Wiz (then going by the name of Kayzee the White Soul), and their DJ, Slyce. And the first record they pressed up is DWG011, The Complex Engineer EP - six killer demo tracks (none of which repeat the tracks from the Nick Wiz albums... even though that would've been welcome, anyway, just so we could have them on vinyl, too). Most are produced by Wiz, but one or two are actually by Kid Capri... See, Emskee was hired to ghostwrite for Capri's second album on Cold Chillin'. But that album wound up getting shelved, so he used that material for his own rhymes (these were just demo tapes, after all, so it's not like he was screwing over Capri or anything).

So, here's what you'll notice as soon as you lay this on your deck. First, Emskee has a direct, forceful flow. Not that he's all Waka Flocka on here; but he has a distinctly tough way of enunciating every syllable. And the other thing you'll notice is that the beats here sound busier than Wiz's usual, minimalist tracks, where he seems to boil everything down to one smooth loop and a drum track. Here shit's always happening, and it goes a long way in keeping the tracks energetic and alive.

So that's DWG011, which is limited to your standard (these days) 300 copies. It comes in a sticker cover and, as always, comes with an informative press sheet. Naturally, I recommend it. ;)

But that's not the whole story here. For the more hardcore collectors, they also released DWG012 at the same time. This one's extra-limited (175 copies), is pressed on dope, marbleized dark blue vinyl, and also comes in a sticker cover. This one was off the market already even before it was released, so you'll have to go a little further out of your way to track it down now, but it's cool.

DWG012 doesn't consist of more demo tracks, exactly. It's actually eight radio promos that he recorded for different hip-hip DJ shows. There are demos for Funkmaster Flex, Stretch Armstrong, Doo Wop, etc. And they're not just radio drops or anything, but full, proper songs recorded for (and about) the shows... like Ultramagnetics' "Chuck Chillout" or those classic, exclusive cuts on Red Alert's albums. Again, it's all produced by Nick Wiz (one beat is even kinda recycled here), and while these maybe aren't quite as objectively good, uniquely written songs as the ones on The Complex Engineer EP (and a lot of time is spent on redundant, name-dropping shout-outs on every track), The Radio Promos EP is kinda more fun. I mean, if you're only going to get one release, The Complex Engineer EP is the way to go (which is surely why DWG gave it the wider release); but this is a neat little treasure for collectors.

By the way, the Nick Wiz CDs and these new 12" EPs aren't the only releases from Emskee... in more recent years, he put out an indie album and 12" on Goon Trax; and he's also one half of a group called The Good People, who got my attention back in 2006 for doing an EP featuring guys like Kool Kim and Cadence. So, if you've been bitten by the Emskee bug, you'll surely want to track all that material down as well - he still sounds the same.