Breihan's Got A Baby (Part 2)

Y@k Ballz - T.C.K
(From demo tape; 1999/Mondee's Where My Dogs At? compilation CD-R; 2001)



Top three Rap songs I've finally found CDQ versions of in recent years: Heavy Rain by The Jacka, Do The Crew by Jay Tee & Mac Dre, and T.C.K by Y@k Ballz. The latter is some super duty Transylvanian-toothed indie-Rap which doubles as a tribute to Y@k's graffiti crew True City Killahz. A cult-classic from Bobbito & Lord Sear's C.M Famalam radio show, it's Y@k's second best song after HomePiss innit. And so kiddies, the story goes that Bobbito decided T.C.K wouldn't be included on Y@k's debut EP on Fondle Em Records due to the rogue n-bomb he dropped. Seems plausible because you definitely shouldn't be dropping n-bombs on wax if you're a half Persian white lad who looks like a lesbian modelling for Zoo York (before commie-caps became the backpacker's hat of choice, there were peaked-beanies.) I'm always sure like the coral reef that T.C.K and Flossin' woulda sounded perfect back-to-back on side B of that first Y@k Ballz EP.

My own 1990s graffiti crew weren't so much True City Killahz as Toy Town Goonies. Here's an ELS dub ya boi painted in a hospital carpark's subway back in 1998 as homage to my Grandma Elsie. This shit woulda looked more James Flames if I'd used Montana spray-paint and a fat cap nozzle, but it was done with watery British spray-paint stolen from the auto shop in Kwik Save. Picture me spendin' money on posh spray paint and fancy nozzles when there were Screwball 12"s and Devin The Dude CDs to buy.

Mind you, I used to gladly spend money on graffiti magazines back when Tower Records was the muhf**kin' spot in Birmingham. Graphotism Magazine was my fave periodical, but the only shit I ever ordered from their store was Kool Keith's Sex Style cassette and a handful of early Kid Capri mixtapes. Call me Nat Robinson because my first priority was always music. Yo, I just dropped a jewel on 'em, my man Dave told me to go Puba Maxwell on 'em.

Style Wars over Star Wars

If nothing else, 2020 will go down in the history books as the year when one of Hip Hop's oldest debates was finally settled - yes, Cap from Style Wars really is a toy!

There's nowt as noncey as grown men who are into toys, but I ain't mad at someone making their own personal Style Wars action figures. How very fitting that Min One's figure is a dead ringer for Moxie from Auf Weidersehen, Pet since he's ended up being the documentary's biggest dirtbag.

Most iconic use of Dion's The Wanderer: Style Wars or The Wanderers?

Toto, I have a feeling we're not on Ramsey Street anymore...

Question: what do you get if you cross Style Wars and In Bed With Chris Needham? Answer: the 2005 documentary about Australian graffiti writer/Bogan extraordinaire/rebel without plausible deniability Justin "Jisoe" Hughes. Who dat? Essentially, Jisoe is Slobbie Unkut: a bizarro world Robbie Unkut who loves graffiti and buges rather than Godfather Don and blogs.


While Jisoe is an archetypal Aussie outlaw who fancies himself as the Ned Kelly of Melbourne's Hip Hop underbelly, the reality is that he's more of a Toadfish Rebecchi in stolen POLO. Filmed over the space of a year in the early 2000s, the documentary catches Jisoe at a crucial juncture in life: living as a petty criminal and reigning as the All City king of Melbourne, but grappling with adult responsibilities as his long-suffering girlfriend Sal gives birth to their babby. You don't need to have dabbled in graffiti as a teenager to enjoy Jisoe, because it's bigger than one of the four dubious elementz of Hip Hop: this is a documentary about a dysfunctional savant struggling to adapt to the conventional pressures of polite society; in that sense, Jisoe the human being has as much in common with Maradona as he does with Dondi.

Extras mannish: Jisoe's police interview after gettin' busted for criminal damage is some of the best catchphrase-comedy you'll ever hear. Two words repeated to increasingly hilarious effect over the space of 9 minutes.


Nobody talks, everybody walks.

Standing by starz

"I'm popular - I'm a rap star
But I live like a rock star, runnin' from the cop car"



This > ‘real’ graffiti, street art and ‘real’ graffiti vs. street art tiffs.

Via The Parrot.

Nowt to do with Mac Dre, the bay, the Hollywood walk of fame or graffiti, but one of my favourite inconspicuous mixtape tracks of 2011 has just become a viral-single with this video :

Webbie ft. Lil' Phat - What's Happenin'
(From some Webbie album that'll be full of Lil' Phat & Lil' Trill verses; 2011)



Ayo Webbie - you'll have your own eye out one day by leaving the plastic price tags on them shades, bruv'.

Thizz was your life

Whenever the subject of dead rapper murals come up it's usually the countless corny Biggie R.I.P murals which splatter the walls of basketball courts and bodeagas in Noo Yawk City or the respective Big L and Big Pun murals in Harlem and The Bronx by the T.A.T.S Crew which come to mind.



But it's worth remembering that besides the ballet-dancing and enemies/hennessey couplet rhyming rapist 2pac, there are a plethora of dead rappers from regions other than NYC. One such rapper being the Thizzface-pulling late Bay Area legend Mac Dre, who was shot dead in Kansas of all places. Probably my favorite R.I.P piece out of all the ones i've seen. Salutations. Now go bump Feelin' Myself in tribute.

Mac Dre - Feelin' Myself