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.)

The Cellar Is Back Open, People!

Unlike my last post, I had absolutely nothing to do with this release, but I sure am excited for it!  No Sleep/ Gentleman's Relief Records long running Cellar Sounds series of rare and unreleased Nick Wiz productions is back, with the first new volume in over seven years.  Yeah, we recently had that mix CD, but now the series is really restarting, because to be clear, this is not another reissue or anything; Cellar Sounds Volume 6 is another 2-CD collection of 43 full, rare and unreleased tracks from 1992-2000 (with one 2010 bonus track I was quite happy about).

Let's run through the rarities before we get into the truly unreleased stuff.  The first one I clocked was that both sides of UG's 2000 "Do U Know" 12" from Bronx Science are on here.  We get some more tracks from the very hard to find Lyricist Lounge tapes, including two of the "Cypha Sessions" (it's actually a real treat to get these remastered now), two songs from Pudgee's Angel Dust EP, F.O.D.'s "No More" and "Frontline," Main One's collaborative singles "Main Event" "Droppin' Gramma" & "Bring the Drama" 12"s, Gauge's "Insane," and so on.  The biggest surprise was seeing Shabaam Sahdeeq's Rawkus singles on here, "Arabian Nights" and "Every Rhyme I Write," oh and Mad Skillz' "Nod Factor" remix, because those were relatively major releases.

But even if your collection is 100% thorough, and you dismiss all of those as duplicates (color me impressed), that still leaves 24 unreleased tracks by my count.  Some of these are remixes or "original versions" of released songs, like alternate mixes of N-Tyce's "Sure Ya Right" and Emskee's "Black Boys, Baseball Caps & Beepers."  There's an extended version of Pudgee's indie single "U Ain't Know" with DMX now with a verse by Hostile (his cousin, not to be confused with Hostyle of Screwball - whoops!) that was cut off the release version.  Then most of the rest are demos or songs recorded for unfinished projects, like a Moonie D (of FOD) solo joint or a fun promo song Madhouse recorded for the Wendy Williams Show.  Some of these demos are by guys who never came out, but Nick Wiz is a reliably consistent producer, so they're all tight.

A couple of my personal favorites was a particularly hardcore duet between UG and Main One called "Got Luv" and a hype cut called "Bring It" by the Native Assassins, who you should remember from previous Cellar Sounds.  What will surely be the biggest deal for many fans, and yes also one of my favorites, is an unreleased Rakim track, recorded his Seventh Seal album, but criminally left on the cutting room floor.  And that bonus track I mentioned?  Remember when The Cella Dwellas announced they were reuniting and recording with Nick Wiz again?  I guess nothing more ever came of that, sadly, but that one song is on here, and it's so great to finally have it in our collections.

And once again, Nick Wiz writes liner notes for every single song on the booklet.  This release is limited to 400 copies and is already out now.  GRR has also repressed the long out of print Ran Reed compilation, Nick Wiz Presents: Respect the Architect 1992-1998.  It has all the same tracks as the original 2012 release, so you've got another shot if you missed it the first time.  There's a double-LP on black or blue & orange vinyl coming soon; and the CD with the bonus track, which is out as of this writing.

A Buyer's Guide For Nick Wiz's Cellar

After Debonair P announced the shuttering of his label Gentleman's Relief Records this month, I wanted to make a post in commemoration.  But not a sappy farewell, something practical.  Well, I covered a couple of the early Nick Wiz Cellar Sound compilations that No Sleep started putting out in 2008 (Cellar Sounds Vol 1, Cellar Sounds Vol 2 & Cellar Selections Vol 1, and Cellar Selections Vol 3).  In that last post, written a full decade ago, I worried about the series coming to an end.  Lordy, if I only knew!  No Sleep continued the collections through 2017... in conjunction with GRR as of 2013, and they wound up practically taking over completely, continuing to release new volumes all the way through 2020.

And it's frickin' complicated to keep track of.  There are multiple numbered series running across dual formats at the same time, with missing tracks, exclusive bonus tracks and more.  I mean, it's great; but I bet even serious fans couldn't say with confidence whether or not you have all the songs if you have all of the CDs but none of the vinyls, right?  Or vice versa?  Or how about even tougher questions, like, do you need the vinyl or CD version of Cellar Extras Vol. 1 if you already owned all the Cellar Selections, but not the Cellar Sounds?  In fact, a big part of the motivation behind this post is that I wasn't sure myself, so I'm working this out for my benefit as much anybody's.  Allow me to share my work.

To start with, there were five double-CD sets of Cellar Sounds, while Cellar Selections was a series of double LPs, 10 in all, that essentially picked favorites to preserve on wax.  You may recall that SOME of the Cellar Selections EP had exclusive tracks.  At least at first.  Let's break all of those down:

Pudgee's "Get Down" was originally a vinyl exclusive on Cellar Selections Vol. 1, but it wound up on the third series, known as Cellar Extras (Vol. 1, the CD), and his "Swing It Like This" was an exclusive on Selections Vol 4, but wound up on Extras Vol. 2.  Shabaam Sahdeeq's "My Words," Madhouse's "For the Hardcore," Ran Reed's "No Games" (w/ UG) and Native Assassins' "Act Like U Know" were all exclusives on Selections 5, but wound up on Extras 2.  Selections 6 had Dizaster's "Infiltrate" and Shadows In the Dark's "The Sequel" as exclusives, but they turned up on Extras 1.  Selections 7 had Emskee's "Bring It," which wound up on Extras 1 and Quannie's "Uplifted," Ran Reed's "Murderous Flow (First Remix)" and Shabaam Sahdeeq's "Knockin' Heads," which were all on Extras 2.  It also has Mad House's "I Know You Want It," which remains an exclusive to this day.

Now Selections 8 had a whole ton of exclusives, at least before the Extras CDs.  There was Shabaam Sahdeeq's "Currency," APB's "No More Games," the Cella Dwellas' "Rhyme No More," Ran Reed's "The Cellar Session," Imperial's "Mine Is Mine," Mad House's "How Deep" and Zoodizoo's "Theme" until they were brought back for Extras 1.  And Dizaster's "Hard Body" Donny Dizzle's "Put 'Em Up High," Emskee's "One By One," Martyse's This Is For the...," Zoodizoo's "Partners In Crime," Pryme Tyme's "Y'all Didn't Know" and LSD's "Flip the Script" were all featured on Extras 2.  Meanwhile, only one of Selections 9's exclusives, Ran Reed's "We Got the Raw," turned up on an Extras CD (vol 1). But it has Ran Reed's "Tell Me," which is still fully exclusive now (at least to the Cellar series).

 And Selections 10 had no exclusives.

Let's summarize, because that turned into more of an overwhelming list than I'd anticipated.  In short, most but not all of the Cellar Selections 2LPs had exclusive tracks not featured on the Cellar Sounds CDs.  But the Cellar Extras scooped most of those up, leaving only one exclusive song on Vol 7 and two on Vol 9.  Meanwhile, despite ten double LPs worth of Selections released over the course of a full decade, that still leaves a whopping 62(!) songs exclusive to the CDs.  Or 61 if you don't Kid Capri's brief intro to Vol 1.

Got it?  Nope, not so fast!  It gets even more complicated, because there's a completely different Cellar Extras vinyl version, with a completely different track-listing.  The official description reads, "10 more totally unreleased 90s gems featuring artists including the Cella Dwellas, Pudgee, Darc Mind and more."  But they're only "totally unreleased" if you don't count the CDs.  The idea is that it basically scoops up all of the additional songs from the two Cellar Extras CDs and puts them on wax, leaving just 54 songs still exclusive to the CDs.  But no, of course it isn't that simple either.  Because first, that still leaves three songs still exclusive to the Cellar Extras CDs, including two Rakims.  Everything on the Cellar Extras LP is on the Extras CDs.

But, it's less simple still!  Because many of those exclusive songs are exclusive to the many Cellar series releases, but have been released elsewhere.  For example, Ran Reed's "Tell Me" from Selections Vol 9 was on his Respect the Architect compilation, which is essentially a sister project No Sleep and GRR put out during all of this.  But Selections 7's Mad House song, "I Know You Want It," is really exclusive.  A lot of the CD exclusives are universal exclusives, but not all.  For example, Rakim's "Man With a Gun" was on No Sleep's Rakim vinyl EP The Cellar (where'd they come up with that title?) from 2008.  And because Sounds Vol. 1 focused on both rare (or even not so rare) and unreleased songs, a bunch of those had been previously available on past releases throughout the 90s.  But that still leaves anywhere from 5-14 exclusives on each Sounds CD, and 2 and 1 on the Extras CDs, respectively.

And oh!  Did I mention that there's even more??  GRR also put out a fourth series: Cellar Instrumentals, compilations of "timeless productions, including instrumental versions of classic 90s material by the likes of Ran Reed, Pudgee, Rakim and Shadowz In da Dark, plus tracks that were never recorded on back then."  There are two double CD volumes and one double LP volume (also in a picture cover), all of which are limited to 250 copies each.  The CDs have 40 tracks each, and the vinyl has 24, all of which are included in that first 80.  That's nine CD and twelve vinyl collections in total.

It's important to note that the Sounds CDs were a little more widely released, but most of the Selections albums, as well as the Extras record, were limited to just 300 copies.  Vol. 1 was even more limited at 250, and for Vol. 6, they did a thing where 100 were printed on purple and orange wax, while the other 200 were on black.  All came in full picture covers, except Selections 1, which was a sticker cover.

 At the end of the day, if you just want a copy of each song and don't care about format, you need all of the CD sets, plus Selections Vol 7 & 9 and the Extras LP.  If you're strictly a vinyl head, you're going to miss out on a lot, but we should be used to that by now.  It's a shame GRR is closing for many reasons, but one is that the Selections series could've continued for a couple more very welcome volumes.  Probably three, not even thinking about all the other instrumentals... and who knows if Nick Wiz has even more left in his vaults after all this?  After all, I doubt any of us envisioned this series ongoing all the way to 2020 when it started 13 years ago.  So the lesson is, you never know what the future still could hold.

Update 8/4/24: Just thought I'd update this post as there's been a minor addition to the catalog.  GRR has repressed the original three double-CD volumes of Cellar Sounds, which have been out of print for basically an entire decade now.  You can tell the difference because the new versions don't have the "For Those Who Slept" logo in the front covers.  But content-wise, they're exactly the same.  Good news for those who missed out, but the reason it's worth updating this post is that, if you order the set of three direct from GRR, you get an exclusive bonus CD: Cellar Megamix.

Like its name suggests, it's a mix, by DJ Debonair P of course, of Nick Wiz tracks from the Cellar series.  Not just Vol 1-3, but I recognized tracks from later volumes as well, even a couple of the Cellar Instrumentals.  I don't think there's anything previously unreleased on here.  That is to say, every song in the mix seems to have been included in previous Cellar releases.  But the mix itself, is of course, new and exclusive.  It's 80 minutes long, kicking off with the untitled 1994 Nautilus track from Vol 1, and is a pretty satisfying, smooth blend with some slick cuts.  And if you're feeling a little overwhelmed having amassed so many volumes of hundreds of songs, it can be a nice way to casually enjoy many of the highlights.  So if you're just gathering all the songs and have every previous release, there's no reason to break yourself copping this.  But it is one more, neat minor addition to the collection.

Nick Wiz Interview

(Fifth in the video interview series conducted by The Custodian of Records and edited by yours truly. Youtube version is here.)

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.

Nick Wiz - UGHH Exclusive?

Nick Wiz is back, with another double CD - 43 full-length tracks - of unreleased goodness from his vaults. Interestingly, Cellar Sounds volume 2: 1992-1998 is a ughh.com exclusive. That's fine with me, because they're a good, reliable store, and if more places carried it, I'd've still probably ordered mine from them. But it does make me worry about the future of this series... if only one website is carrying Volume 3, can we be secure in the hopes for a Volume 4?

But enough gray skies for now, let's just enjoy what we've got - another excellent collection of 100% previously unreleased songs. All your old favorites are back: Cella Dwellas, Shadowz In da Dark, Ran Reed, Pudgee, N-Tyce, Milkbone. And, like last time, Nick hits us off with brief notes explaining every single song in this comp. One small disappointment is no Lord Have Mercy. I was enjoying the idea of him having one show-stopper at the end of every disc #1. Also, artists we'd only been first introduced to in previous volumes of this series, like The Native Assassins and Tross, are back with more lost demos.

Highlights this go around? Well, UG comes pretty nice on a couple tracks, including the album's opener... It's titled "Intro," but it's a full song. N-Tyce brings a different style than we've heard from her before on "Bet You Didn't Know." Pudgee comes with a tight, but politically incorrect, sex track called "Sex Ghetto Styles." A group called Pure Sinister from North Carolina recorded a fresh, hardcore demo track called "You Know My Style." And my personal favorite is an oldie from Madhouse - Shabaam Sahdeeq/s first group from even before Shadowz In da Dark, called "The Boom Bip" that has the MCs and the producer both going outside of their normal lanes for a really funky, aggressively upbeat track.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't want to oversell this album. Sometimes the formula here can wear a little thin. A lot of the MCs here are good, but wouldn't particularly stand out in a crowded cypher; and they're often hampered by the need to kick a few too many corny 90's punchlines. Plus some of Wiz's lesser tracks can feel a little formulaic, especially if you're listening to this double disc set end-to-end. And while these compilations have taught me to appreciate a couple of these MCs a little more than I did when they were first coming out - cats like Milkbone or N-Tyce, they still fall more than a little short of genius.

But everything here is good, some of it's really good, and there's a lot of stuff here heads have been waiting to get their hands and ears on since the 90's. Plus, two CDs packed with over twenty full-length songs each is a hell of a lot of material for $14.97. I think you'd be really be cheating yourself to pass it up.

So, whither Volume 4? Man, I hope so! I'm still dying to hear those original Cella Dwellas tracks when Lord Have Mercy was a member, and the fact that Wiz keeps hitting us off with tons of material we've never even heard of means you just know he's got a lot more to go from almost these artists. So I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed that "ughh exclusive" isn't a bad sign. And, in the meantime, the liner notes of this set tells us what's on deck from Nick Wiz and No Sleep Records: Nick Wiz Presents Ran Reed "Respect the ARchitect."

The Imaginarium of Nick Wiz

You may remember me blogging about a great compilation of rare and unreleased recordings by underrated producer Nick Wiz a couple years ago called, Cellar Sounds volume one 1992-1998. It was just too bad, in this industry, we'd probably never live to see a volume 2, right? Well, thankfully No Sleep Records has proved us wrong - Cellar Sounds volume 2: 1992-1998 is here! And in many ways, it's even better than the first one!

Like the last volume, this one is a double disc set, giving us a whopping total of 41 full-length songs all produced, as the title would suggest, by Nick Wiz from 1992-1998. Well, except for one song, which was produced in 2000... but it's by Ra-fuckin'-kim, so I think it's safe to say we'll forgive him that. ;)

Now, you may remember in my write-up of the first volume that I was somewhat disappointed to see some previously released, and not necessarily all that rare, songs mixed in with all the treats, taking away space that could've been used for even more unreleased jewels. Granted, songs from Ecko's legendary Underground Airplay tapes are so rare, they're practically unreleased and earn a pass, but records like Main One's "Main Event" weren't remotely rare, much less unreleased. ...Well, volume 2 does away with all that jazz - you won't be rebuying a bunch of songs you already have this time - this collection does feature a handful more from those Ecko tapes (and frankly, I'm happy to see them get a proper, quality CD release), but otherwise it's essentially all 100% unreleased material this time around.

The collection of artists is pretty solid... there's a lot of Ran Reed a.k.a. Hitman, and a lot of Shabaam Sahdeeq and his associate crews: Shadowz In da Dark, Sinister Voicez, and an even earlier group he was in that you've probably never heard of called Mad House. I'm surprised there's no Chino XL (come on, we know there's more O.G. Poison Pen tracks sitting in those vaults!), and there's not as much Cella Dwellas or Pudgee material as you might expect... though there are a couple songs from UG's scrapped solo album and a track that was left off of Pudgee's unreleased King of New York, which is crazy, because it's better than most of the songs that were on there. There's one or two more by Milkbone, N-Tyce, plus some neat surprises by totally unknown, unsigned groups that Nick's worked with.

And, once again, there's a killer vintage Lord Have Mercy song at the end of disc 1 that's in the vein of the classic Cella Dwellas material. Are there more songs like this? Is he just going to slowly eek them out to us one song at a time... ahh! Driving me crazy! lol

Also, like the last volume, the insert opens up to brief notes by Nick on every single song, for example, "The Native Assassins were Black Sun and another MC named Fatal. This was before Shadowz In da Dark. We worked on a few records for this group before the Shadowz thing evolved." First class release all the way. It's just too bad none of this is on vinyl...

Oh wait! No Sleep also released a double LP called Cellar Selections 1. It's comprised more of songs from Cellar Sounds volume 1 than 2 (though there are a couple from 2 as well), and thankfully it focuses exclusively on the songs that haven't already been released on vinyl. So, no Ran Reed "Enough"s but plenty of Darc Mind "We In This"s. And best of all, it has an exclusive unreleased song by Pudgee called "Get Down." The 2xLP is limited to 250 copies, so you may have to work a little to find a copy, but believe me, it's worth it.

The music is great; the sound quality is great; the releases are top-notch all around... Let's just hope there are Cellar Sounds volume 3 and Cellar Selections 2 pending!

No Sleeping In Nick Wiz's Cellar

Nick Wiz has long been an underrated, east coast producer, but true to their name, No Sleep Records isn't sleeping on this man's talents. They've just a 42-song (not including two "Intro" skits), double CD set of rare and unreleased songs from the 90's, entitled Cellar Sounds volume one 1992-1998.

The nice thing here is the vast majority of these tracks fall under the "unreleased" rather than the "rare" category. The previously released joints are some Pudgee white label tracks, one of the Rakim remixes from his recent, limited The Cellar EP (also on No Sleep), three or four tracks from the very rare Lyricist Lounge/ Echo Underground Airplay tapes and (kind of an odd, not-so-rare choice) Main One's "Main Event" single. I'd say ten or under are previously released, which gives you about 35 completely unreleased gems on this compilation.

So, what's on this compilation? Unreleased joints by Nick Wiz's regulars like The Cella Dwellas (two tracks left off of their second album, plus an unreleased remix of "Good Dwellas") Shabaam Sahdeeq/Shadows In the Dark, Milkbone (yeah, I was a little surprised by that, too - apparently Wiz worked on his Milkcrate album), Ran Reed, Chino XL, and a whole bunch of production and remixes he did for other artists. There's a joint from Pudgee's unreleased King of New York album (not counting the white label stuff that's on here, too) and a remix of "On the Regular." There's a short but hot Chubb Rock track, an unused remix of Red Hot Lover Tone's "4 My Peeps" posse cut, another Rakim remix, a Channel Live track, a song that was left off of Darc Mind's LOUD/Anticon album and a surpriingly fresh Lady Luck track. There's also a bunch of demos and stuff he cut with several underground New Jersey artists (LSD, Mister Fit, Ill Mentatlity, Nautilus, Emskee and Tross). It's hard to pick a favorite when there's so many tracks to absorb here; but a pre-Flipmode joint by Lord Have Mercy is a clear stand-out for me.

The price is right ($13 for the double CD set), and it has some great liner notes. Nick Wiz writes a brief explanation/history for all 42 tracks! Example: "Shabaam Sahdeeq feat. Baybe - 'Sexy' - 1994 - While we were working on Shabaam's demo, Guru from Gang Starr brought Baybe down to the studio to work on her project. She jumped on the hook for this song, and actually she also sang the hook for The Cella Dwellas' single 'Perfect Match'." This is a must-have for those who've come to appreciate Nick Wiz's production and the artists he's worked with. You can order it direct from his or No Sleep's myspaces. Oh, and one of the nicest things about this release? The Volume One in the title implies a second volume in the future. :-D