My one contribution to the 50 Years Of HipHip #content nonsense: the t-shirt I got Kool Herc to sign when I saw him DJ Liverpool back in 2000. This was not long after I'd read
Style Writing From The Underground and become obsessed with 1970's New York tags, so it was worth sacrificing a fresh tee for. Herc was much shorter than he looked in
Beat This: A Hip-Hop History and tried to fool us by playing
Fusion Beats Vol 2 and pretending he was doing the mixing on it himself, but he put on a very entertaining show with loadsa classic breaks, and was a convivial raconteur on the mic with anecdotes about his old parties. Mercifully, for such a Real Hip-Hop™ night, we were spared the sight of a buncha annoying breakdancers homoerotically rolling round on the dancefloor together and gurning at each other.
Dan Greenpeace was the support DJ and played a blinder of a set. It woz the night I first heard Spoonie Gee's
Spoonie Is Back, Kev-E-Kev & Ak-B's
Listen To The Man, Mad Skillz'
Ghost Writer and Big Scoob's
Kryptonite. Add some classics like Special Ed's
I Got It Made and The Beatnuts'
Off The Books and
Watch Out Now, and you had an upper-echelon Rap connoisseur experience in a Scouse backstreet bar. Greenpeace also played
the Cage song his Bad Magic label released on 12" which is surely the
only Cage song a DJ could play in such a set. All in all, one of the best No Fakin' club nights alongside
Edan's first Liverpool show in 2002 or 2003.
It was a
What Everyone Wants blank tee Kool Herc tagged for me and I would kill for a plug on that brand's deadstock t-shirts. Best blank tees in British high Street history or wot? Perfect fit for a lanky lithe bastard like me, sold for £2.99 a pop, and came in a multitude of colours.
What Everyone Wants became a citizen of British high street Hades in 2003, but I'd copped so many of their blank tees on my travels that I was still rockin' fresh ones when Sean Price dropped
Onion Head.
That second picture contains about as many women as I would suspect, but it does sound like a killer set. Never even knew about that Kev-E-Kev x Ak-B's "Listen To The Man", like it a lot.
ReplyDeleteContemplating on seeing Rakim live somewhere next year, supposed to a a 25 year anniversary tour of The 18th Letter. You reckon he'll do his classic songs too or should I expect him to specifically tour that album?
I'd hope he'd be savvy enough to do his old songs because the best thing about The 18th Letter was the 2nd disc with all the Eric B. & Rakim songs on it.
ReplyDeleteWas definitely an 85/15 ratio of blokes to birds at the Herc show 😄
Thought When I B On The Mic was on The 18th Letter, turned it was on The Master. I think I only liked 2 songs off The 18th Letter but it has easily been over 10 years since I listened to it.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Chatwins, I wasn't even aware there were What Everyone Wants stores.
ReplyDeleteI've only been in a Chatwins once and the deli counter looked rank as fook.
ReplyDeleteI've probably listened to The 18th Letter first disc less than 10 times. That second disc, however, got endless play - might be the best Best Of disc in rap history.
That was a great night.
ReplyDeleteFew things more real hip hop than European cracker in an army cap as seen in second pic, guaranteed he has made an album W graffiti font title
ReplyDeleteHah. That's semi-famous Scouse skater Howard Cooke. He's not a Real Hip-Hop type, more a Real Sk8er Boi Type.
ReplyDeleteD should have just wrote "Few things more real hip hop than Europeans" and that sentence would have been accurate already.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I have any contribution to that whole 50 years of HH thing. Used to have a picture of me and an ex-girlfried posing with Tek & Steele after I took her to a Smiff'N'Wessun show in 2008 in Paris but I can't find it anywhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
K.I.M, man, K.I.M.
ReplyDelete