Can Trust F.O.T.S

File this under ‘Friends Of The Show’.

Back when I dropped that best of Fam-Lay compilation last week, SE from RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA (this post > every think piece you've ever written) swung through and suggested the universe's cosmic unconsciousness must be currently set to Star Trak b-listers because he was in the process of assembling some sort of Rosco P. Coldchain retrospective. The man also known as the rap internet's foremost K Kutta expert posted the fruits of his labour yesterday and it's a double header of Rosco like that Dukes Of Hazard episode where James Best played the two different characters. Bravo, old bean.

Fuck a TIDAL, Team Rap Compilation Zippyshares is takin' over in 2015. Shout outs to SE, EttelThun, Hot Box and Ackbar.

Billy found the mystery dancehall banger with the Samsung whistle sample!

See: previously for details. This is reality rap reggae, we all go through it:

"Lord God is a next gyal
That say she nuh have no credit
But she inna a Wi-Fi spot
She can't SMS only can WhatsApp
KMRT a that mi type back"

Busy Signal - #Text Message
(From t'internet; 2015)




^^ Me IRL right now ^^

Ayo ppl who are up on modern dancehall

(*Edit* Forget that new Boosie single where he presents a compelling argument for the release for Max B, C-Murder and Vybz Kartel for now.)

Does anybody know what the dancehall song with the Samsung message notification whistle is? Heard it at the Nicki Minaj show in Manchester last night but couldn't Shazam that shit in time and Google is just turning up red herrings today.

Not sure why Samsung whistle samples have yet to catch on in rap when whistling was all the rage a decade ago and helped propel Flo Rida's Whistle and B.o.B's Headband into the global pop stratosphere in more recent years. Maybe Steve Jobs' brain is being kept alive somewhere deep within the bowels of Apple HQ so its immense power can be harnessed to secretly control the entire rap trade into staying loyal to their iPhones?

Best thing about seeing Nicki on The Pinkprint tour was getting to hear Feeling Myself without Beyonce's foghorn warbling all over it. Very apt right now because the only demographic worse than Apple fanboys are Beyonce stans.

Why does KanYe West say "we want Fetty Wap" in Gold Digger?

Audio Push are one of those rap groups I always root for even though they've rarely dropped anything that's soundtracked my IRL exploits. Since hookin' up with Hit Boy a couple of years back they've either tended come up with the goods on Hit Boy's own shit or had their own hot shit ruined by intolerable guest rappers with a history of ruining hot singles. Normally here manages to avoid such pitfalls and features the illest harp in a rap song since Godfather Don's Da Bomb Baby, but Hit Boy still couldn't resist going all Liberachre by switching the beat up at the end for no good reason other than Gold Digger is his favourite KanYe song. He got that tinkering tradition, baby - look at his oeuvre!

"Keep bitches out your business
Keep a woman by your side
And don't mistake the two
Because if you break them rules you could lose your life
And that's the reason why..."

Audio Push - Normally
(From t'internet; 2015)

Generic list post: No Samples Cleared edition

24 years after the Alone Again court case, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Pagan ass suing Biz Markie for copyright infrigement is still the single worst thing to happen to rap music. Here's a generic list of joints that either didn't end up on the albums they were intended to end up on due to sample clearance-related fuckery or did end up on the albums they were intended to end up on before sample clearance-related fuckery forced them to be recalled and removed from all subsequent pressings. Ayo Gilbert - your mum copped a Wax Poetics subscription after Zach G started writing for them, mate.

Slick Rick - Captain Caveman (1991)
De La Soul - De La Slow (1991)
Eric B. & Rakim - Everything's Cool (1992)
UGK - Cocaine In The Back Of The Ride (O.G version) (1992)
Grand Puba - Time To Put It On (1992)
The Click - Daily Routine (1993)
Snoop - Gz Up, Hoes Down (1993)
Gang Starr - Doe In Advance (O.G version) (1994)
Big L - How Will I Make It? (1995)
TRU - Smokin' Green (1995)
AZ - Your World Don't Stop (O.G version) (1995)
Mobb Deep - Everyday Gunplay (1995)
Smif-N-Wessun - Nuthin' Move But Da Money (1995)
Brand Nubian - Brand Nu Hustle (1998)
Ghostface & Raekwon ft. Slick Rick & RZA - The Sun (2001)
KanYe West - My Way (2004)
Cam'Ron - Shut The Fuck Up (2004)
Trae ft. HAWK & Fat Pat - Swang (O.G version) (2005)
A.B.N - Rain (O.G version) (2008)
Roc Marciano - My Persona (2011)

Kept the songs by Queens rappers to a bare minimum here because I've already spread enough love in their direction recently, Please believe ya boy is still waitin' on that CDQ version of the O.G Thugs R Us by DJ Clue & Noreaga with the Under The Influence Of Love sample, though.

A Fam-Lay compilation 4 u

Perennial Star Trak b-lister Fam-Lay is to Re-Up Gang what A-Mafia is to Dipset: an affiliate henchman rapper who dropped a string of great deep cuts between 2002 - 2006, got locked up for a few years, came home and dropped shit that's 400 degrees hotter than the rappers he once played second fiddle to, before the new music sadly dried up after 2012 bar guest verses on the most unlikeliest of songs.

Here's the proof in the form of a compilation. Fam-Lay has gotta be a top 5 rapper to have never dropped an album and his discography is so scattered that he's prime fodder for a best of comp. It begins with his debut solo track from The Clipse's Lord Willin' in 2002, and then concludes a decade later with that song's redux Clap Clap, which is the last track he released aptly enough. 11 of these 14 tracks are Neptunes productions, including his freestyle over their Nike commercial. Free to add No Time For No's, Step Back or any other Fam-Lay cuts which may have floated your own boat, but don't dare delete the Rock N' Roll remix because Lil' Flip should have gotten Hip Hop Quotable in The Source for that verse.

Fam-Lay - The Best Of Fam-Lay (compilation)

1. FamLay Freestyle (2002)
2. Rock N' Roll (ft. Pharrell & Kelis) (2003)
3. Rock N' Roll remix (ft. Lil' Flip, Pharrell & Kelis) (2003)
4. Nike (Freestyle) (2003)
5. Fresh N Drivin' (2004)
6. Git Busy (ft. Pharrell) (2004)
7. Amalance (2005)
8. Skrung Owt (2006)
9. Da Beeper Record (ft. Pharrell) (2006)
10. YOUINSTANTLY (2010)
11. What's My Name (2011)
12. Beach Cruiser (2011)
13. Money Makin' Trick (ft. Project Pat) (2011)
14. Clap Clap (2012)

~~~> DOWNLOAD IT HERE <~~~
Props to N Ski Valley for the 2 MP3 assists here. If you're a Yank text FAM4A to 30303 and cop that man a Da Beeper Record ringtone.

Generic list post: march 2015

Obligatory round-up post of the songs I've listened to most during the month when nobody of note in the rap trade died, making it a welcome change from the last 3 months where Larry Smith passed away in december, Yams overdosed in january, and Jacka was murdered in february.

3 Deep - Say What I Wanna Say (2008)
5th Ward Weebie ft. Snoop & Juvenile - Let Me Find Out Pt 2 (2014)
Mr.2-17 - Strong Arm Flexin' (2014)
Meek Mill - Monster (2015)
The Purist ft. Roc Marciano - Patina (2015)
Rich Homie Quan - Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh) (2015)
Young Thug - Halftime (2015)
Tha Dogg Pound ft. Kokane & Snoop - Skip Skip (2015)
Foxx - Real N*gga (2015)
Lil' Bibby & Lil' Herb - Ain't Heard Bout You (Kill Shit Pt.2) (2015)
Jidenna ft. Roman GianArthur - Classic Man (2015)
DonMonique - Pilates (Kendall, Kylie, Miley) (2015)
T-Pain ft. The Dream & Vantrease - Let Your Hair Down (2015)
Vybz Kartel - Time (2015)
Disasterpeace - It Follows (Title) (2015)

I'm a big fan of Game's most shameless latter-day industrial output but Ambitionz Of A Rida with Dej Loaf has yet to find its way into my steady rotation, even though Dana Dej doesn't sound like Tink Got Gunz on it. Not listened to the Kendrick Lamar LP because it seems the sort of album noted rock canon expert Questlove would describe as sounding like the rap equivalent of Johnny Clash's At London Prison.

Rap songs that aren't on YouTube but really should be # 6

The year is 1989 and denial is not just a river in Egypt but how rap's O.G King Of New York Melle Mel is livin'. By night the fallen Frank White is now hittin' the crack pipe like Jimmy White; by day he shoots anti-crack TV commercials for WNBC with his What's The Matter With The World collaborator Van Silk and hits the studio to record songs like White Lines '89 and Drug Wars for his Piano LP.

Drug Wars isn't Piano's highlight (that'd be Free Style which saw Melvin blackin' the fuck out and Izz-izzing words on wax before E-40 or Snoop even touched down proper) but it still badly needs to be streamable somewhere online for the chil'ren. Rumoured to be ghost-produced by the album's in-house DJ Kid Capri, its beat is a lo-fi precursor to Know The Ledge, and the song itself is a lowkey missing link between Night Of The Living Baseheads and Slow Down in the pantheon of golden-era songs about how crack decimated New York's poorest neighbourhoods. Basically, it's prime street-level rap noir from a man slap bang in the middle of N.Y.C's crack epidemic and a final grand huzzah from rap's first Grandmaster.

Grandmaster Melle Mel - Drug Wars
(From Piano album; 1989)