Olas un Bekons

Digital Cratediggin' With OuB [Day 7]

Added 2020-11-15 11:41:29 +0000 UTC

Today we got a solid selection of digital goodies. I will try to point 3 main recommendations out of this batch.

+ MC Overlord is widely considered as the best rapper ever to come out of Austin, Texas. He is also the pioneer of Austin's hip-hop scene. His career had spanned solid three decades and produced solid albums and tracks. However, while having a great recognition among local Texas communities, he remained obscure to nationwide and international audiences. His records might get into g-funk discussion to some extent, but I like to consider a part Overlord's music as a mixture of elements characteristic to Westside and Southern rap scene; whereas, another part has taken the not so frequent set of instrumentation and added into the mix (such as guitar). Unfortunately, the legend passed away on September 13, 2018 but his messages live on.

+ Mikey D and The L.A. Posse was a dope hip-hop hop trio from Laurelton (yeah, that's why the L.A.) in Queens consisting of Mikey D, Quest and Paul C. Latter is more known as the innovative hip-hop engineer and producer. Sadly, he died too young in uncertain circumstances, and many rumors have been floating around about his unfortunate death. While Paul C might be the most recognized from the trio, Mikey D also had several projects before and after his time with the group. Most notable being mid 80's work with The Symbolic Three on their parody single mimicking Doug E. Fresh 'The Show' [I will put up my vinyl of it soon]. After the work with L.A. Posse he joined Main Source on their 2nd album after the Large Professor left. Overall, they dropped 3 singles in 1987-88. In 2006, the compilation CD (one of the entries in this batch) was released to honor the memory of Paul C.

To those who love to dive more into the 80's hip hop topics here's some insight into how talented Mikey D really was in the 80's, and how he had this special friendship/rivalry with another Queens aspiring young rapper Todd Smith aka J-Ski. Later Todd created the alter ego LL Cool J (with some help of Mikey D), signed with Def Jam and went to become one of the most successful hip-hop artists of all time while Mikey battled his personal demons. Fortunately, they sorted things out few years ago.

+ Tuff Crew Early Sessions from 85-86 is a dope record of previously unreleased gems from the legendary Philly crew. They released 4 albums between '87 and '91 including many great bangers (my favorite is their 3rd btw). But this dope Chopped Herring release throws us back to where it started. A dope rekkid. Got to mention that they released DJ Too Tuff's lost archives on vinyl (1992-1993 gems). A must have, a must get. Check their page if you into rare underground goodies.

This was my top3 selection of today. But there are much more into this. Dope Knucklehedz single 12'', Einstein (UK emcee) single, the Wild Boyz album (maybe not the best hip-hop album you will hear, but still an obscurity). Also some old school jams including funk and electro. And 2 releases of Instrumental hip-hop (Pharcyde's debut instros + Romanian rare instro hip-hop album).

Preview tracks included as always, full ones might be found here -