Archives

#18 – Wow moments

We all love hip-hop, why else would you be listening to this podcast, but there are times when you hear something and go full Black Rob “like, Woah!”

This episode is about all those moments when you’ve been shaken to your core by something so new or so amazing. Those moments change your life and make you see things differently. From albums, tracks, or even just a beat drop, these are the moments that stick with you forever. Sunny and Marcus pick some of their favourite wow moments and explain why it had the impact it did.

Read More

#17 – Hip hop sporting elevens

Nope, this isn’t episode looking at the sporting prowess of athletes turned hip hop stars, this is a weird thought experiment where we try to match the personalities, styles and technical abilities into our imagined hip hop football (soccer) and cricket (like baseball but with more cream teas) XI.

Sunny and Marcus go through their criteria and thoughts to come up with their own XI, and eventually agree on a combined team for both sports. We know the Venn diagram for people who like hip hop, football and cricket is largely a bunch of independent circles, but we enjoyed it.

Who will be our crazy left back? Who will be the star striker? Who will open the batting? Find out in this episode.

Read More

#16: Let’s Get Free – Last Great Album?

In this episode, we take a closer look at one of the most underrated and important albums in hip-hop, dead prez’s 2000 debut ‘Let’s Get Free’. Although the lead single, Hip Hop, is well known – even making it into a VW advert – but the rest of the album is embarrassingly slept-on.

Read More

#14: Small town rap

When we think of hip-hop and rap, it is often inextricably linked to place. Most often, these places are the densely populated urban areas in America; after all, hip-hop was born in those places, and they contain all the ingredients needed to create the environment for hip-hop to report on.

In this episode, we look to those small towns, the ‘other’ places were hip-hop has grown and flourished. We are still limiting ourselves to USA, but we look at a number of artists from smaller towns and analyse their music and their impact.

Read More

#13: Don’t call it a comeback

They fell off, they came back harder. This episode looks at artists whose careers took a turn and celebrates their triumphant return to form/status/notoriety.

In this episode, we try to look beyond the typical examples of Nas, Common and Dr Dre, and focus on some less obvious examples. We hope you enjoy it.

Read More

#12: Second hand love – hidden gems

Remember when you heard that one track, and immediately rushed out to get the album? (Or set about saving your pennies in order to buy it). Well this isn’t an episode about that track. No, this is about the hidden gold on those albums.
First of all, you listen to the big track on repeat until you know every word, you feel every drum beat, and absorb each sample. Then you start exploring the rest of the album, and after a few listens, other tracks catch your attention. As you listen more, you are drawn in, until you realise that it soon becomes your favourite track on the album.

Read More

#11 – ‘Tis not the season to diss content

Apologies for getting all ‘Bardic’ with you. In this episode we follow on to a twitter conversation, where someone claimed Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince was the ultimate summer hip hop track. Others (Dart Adams, et al.) said Fight the Power by Public Enemy was the epitome of Summer.

In this episode, we take a step back, and make some suggestions for the most apt track for each of the four seasons.

Read More

#10: LGA – Mos Def and Talib Kweli are… Black Star

After a discussion about the Fugees’ The Score as a classic album, we started to consider what other albums released afterwards could be deemed as classics. So this is the first in a mini-series we are calling ‘the last great hip hop album’.

When Mos Def and Talib Kweli first appeared on some early Rawkus releases, you could see the talent both held, but ‘Fortified Live’ and the freestyle on Soundbombing didn’t compare with what was to come 29 September, 1998, when their eponymous first (and to this date, only) album dropped.

Read More