JAY-Z FOR PRESIDENT (THE PRE-REASONABLE DOUBT ERA)

I always thought Jay-Z was one of the nicest emcees out there, even before he hit with "Ain't No N-Word" and the "Reasonable Doubt" lp. I'm talkin' 'bout the Original Flavor "Can I Get Open" days.... even when son was rappin' like the Fu-Schnicks, if you were a true rhyme connisseur like myself you could just tell that this dude was taking schitt to another level. Yeah, I know y'all real heads out there will scoff since he ended up being a multimillionaire pop rapper-slash-record industry CEO... I gotta admit that as much as I myself am a fan of ya boy Young Hov, I will probably never forgive him for influencing the greatest rapper pound-for-pound EVER, Big Daddy Kane, to change his style from total perfection to some triplin' up the word tongue twistin' schitt. But regardless, my n***a Jigga paid his dudes and came up through those underground ranks (I ain't gonna re-tell homie's life story, y'all should know it by now and if you don't you more than likely don't care anyway). I didn't even know until recent years that his first record was waaaay back in 1986 with the random rap classic "HP Gets Busy" by High Potent (so just how old is this dude for real??).

I really started paying attention back in I guess 1995 or so (probably even a little earlier) when I heard this joint "What's In A Name" on a mixtape (was it Ron G? My man S&S? I forget stuff like this all the time... if you know, hit me on the comments and refresh my failing memory). A young lady emcee that I was doing tracks for at the time asked me who I thought was the best rapper and I told her "I dunno, it might be this dude Jay-Z... you know, the dude from 'Can I Get Open'". She just looked at me with a perplexed grill and probably thought I was high on something.

BTW, there was another unreleased cut by Jay-Z on that mixtape that I need... if you got it and can hit me with it I would be forever in your debt (not really, but I'd be your pal at least). I have the OG cassette somewhere but I don't feel like looking for it. I really need to go through all my 90's mixtapes... maybe one of these decades I'll get around to it.

JAY-Z - What's In A Name RE-UPPED

soulman... blazin' y'all AGAIN... world of beats, kid

A lot of dudes who rock break mixtapes... well, not necessarily break mixes, let's say old record mixtapes... they rock 'em like they would rock a party. Meaning that they're trying to keep the people dancing... each record blends pretty nicely into the next, everything stays pretty funky and energetic throughout, ectera ectera. I respect that type of mix when it's done well, but for me that's just never been my style. When it's your job to keep the fools dancin' I think you're handcuffed to some degree- certain schitt you just can't play (unless you are a truly great deejay OR a great personality like a Biz Markie... Biz could probably get away with playing anything!). That's one of the reasons why I have never really played out, I don't want to have to cater to what the crowd wants to hear. I want to be free to play ANY ol' schitt I want to play. I like the hard, funky schitt but I also like the smooth mellow schitt and the cool schitt that you really can't dance to but you can nod the hell out of your head to. Man, if I can't play that kinda stuff then I don't want to play records at ALL. I gotta have variety, that's all there is to it.

Which takes me to another thing that dudes like to do- mixes based on a particular genre. I've done this too, particularly with my Best Of Archaeologists Classics series (stuff like From The Rock Section, The Highest Pleasure (Jazz Joints), Funky 45 Joints, etc.). But again, I prefer not to be restrained. If I'm playing records, I want to go from funky rock to jazz funk to sweet soul to breakbeats to easy listening, from uptempo to slow drag... pretty much anything goes. You can see a little bit of what I'm talking about on this clip taken from my Soulman - World Of Beats Vol. 2 DIG IT! mixtape that I did back in... damn, when did I do that? 1997 maybe? I'm not sure, and I don't think I even have any of the OG tapes or even the full artwork anymore, so I can't check up on it. Anyway, check out a taste of how I was puttin' it down in the late 90's....

SOULMAN - World Of Beats Vol.2 DIG IT! (excerpt) RE-UPPED

YOU KNOW WHAT I'M LOOKIN' FOR SO DON'T ACT SO DUMB

One of these days I'm gonna post a rant about so called "Hip Hop" people who don't care about drumbreaks. "Oh, I'm soooooo over drumbreaks, nobody cares about drumbreaks anymore, f**k a drumbreak, yaddayaddayadda". Right. Well, I love a dope drumbreak just like always- guess I'm more Hip Hop than you. HAH.
Well, even if you're a 36 year old nerd who still lives in your room at your mother's house and you don't love drumbreaks anymore, you may appreciate this post from a rare record perspective at least. The band is Surprize and the album is "Keep On Truckin". Knowledgable beat heads will recognize the title and the break that's found on it, the hard rocking "Sweet Love" (heard on the infamous Vinyl Dog break records and sampled by The Roots, among others). Now, I've seen the og album many times, but this copy I have here is the ONLY copy I've ever seen with this cheap ass black-and-white cover. I found it at a flea market for a buck back in the mid 90s and since then I've asked numerous dealers and collectors if they'd ever seen the album with this cover before. Everybody I talked to said nada, so I'm just wondering if any of y'all big dudes have ever come across this one in your crate digging adventures. If so, holler at a beatman and let me know what it is. If no then I'm just the king of beats... get on my level. Lololol

SURPRIZE - Sweet Love RE-UPPED

NFL 2007

Most of y'all who are here reading this blog probably are not all that interested in NFL football (as in AMERICAN football, not to be confused with the sport with the guys running around in shorts kicking a round white ball all over the place that's probably the most popular sport everywhere in the world EXCEPT America). Well, I am an avid NFL fan and during this time of year football pretty much dominates almost everything in my universe. So I'm gonna briefly cover what's going on in the league hopefully on a weekly basis for the duration of the season. Any football fans out there please join me in my NFL fanaticism, leave comments, rep your squad, whuteva... those who are not interested just chill until I drop the next Cold Crush tape or break mix (i'll keep you fed, don't worry).
Views on the season so far- AFC: the Patriots would be hard to beat even if they DIDN'T have tape recordings of the signals of all 31 other teams. With the signals they STEAMROLL everybody. Bob Sanders is a beast for the Colts. Matt Schaub is the real deal and Houston might be pretty damn good this year. Mike Tomlin is gonna be a really good coach in the NFL. Norv Turner never will be. The Bengals will be fun to watch this year, but they will not be a factor in January. Denver... I'm just not buying. There is something about Vince Young and that Titans team... they shouldn't be very good, but they might actually be a playoff team this season. I think Steve McNair is finished. NFC: Right now I like the Cowboys over everybody in the NFC. What the hell happened to the Saints??? I gave Rex Grossman the benefit of the doubt, but he didn't deserve it- he really does suck. 49er fans are getting happy... don't. Not yet. Same with Lions and Cardinals fans (although now that it looks like Arizona has a decent O-line I think they could do some things). The Eagles are not a good team, but Brian Westbrook is a great talent. He's being wasted in Philly. McNabb is hurt and shouldn't even be playing. My ass is tired of Andy Reid's tired ass. Adrian Peterson (the one who plays for the Vikings) is gonna be a MONSTER. Green Bay plays in a hella weak NFC so they'll win some games but they still aren't a good team. Overall the league stinks right now. I'll be back watching next Sunday, though.

LL COOL J IS YOUR UNDERTAKER

I've seen LL Cool J in the skreets twice that I can recall- once in Philly back when he was first blowin' up, I guess sometime in 1985. Just bouncin' down Market Street with his boy Earl or somebody... I remember just thinking that he was bigger than I thought he'd be, seemingly slightly taller than the 6 foot height he used to claim on his records (I was about 6 feet my damn self and I know I was lookin' up at the boy). The second time was years later in New York, strolling down Broadway not far from the Def Jam offices with a female acquaintance of mine. Who rolls by in his whip but the world famous James Todd himself. Now, homeboy sees the young lady walking with a dude (me) who could very well be her boyfriend, husband, whatever (I was neither)... no matter, he smiles at her and fixes his lips in a kissyface position. Well, at least he fought back his natural urge to start lickin' em- thanks for having that much restraint, Uncle L. The young lady obviously blushed and probably secretly wished she could've given dude her phone number or even just hopped in the car with him for some groupie activities- hey I don't blame her for that- but she played it cool as to not dis me so blatantly.
Naturally, being the man that I am, I didn't appreciate Cool James' act of disrespect. But do I hold grudges? No, I d... uh, well actually yes I do hold grudges. In this case, though, I won't let this axe I been grindin' for well over a decade stop me from tellin' the truth, be it convenient or not. LL Cool J may be the GOAT in his own mind, but no matter if you do or don't agree with that ranking, anybody with even the slightest knowledge of real schitt history has to admit that the boy was B-A-D in his day. If you check my Soulman World Of Beats website (I'm feelin' too lazy at the moment to provide the link... just google that schitt if you must) you'll find my little ancedote about seeing L perform "Rock The Bells" for the first time and how blown away I was to hear his infamous "After Midnite" freestyle over the T-La Rock "It's Yours" instrumental on Lady B's radio show. My man seriously dropped on the mid 80's rap scene like a weapon of mass destruction, changing the game and leaving a lot of mc's careers totally obliterated (and also inspiring a LOT of hate... one of my big name rap buddies recently told me some funny stories about LL in his early days that unfortunately I can't repeat here, but trust me- they were funny).
What I have for you in this THAT REAL SCHITT entry is what I thought was one of L's dopest cuts from the late 80's / early 90's phase of his career, but one that got very little play when it first came out. Imagine- LL spittin' straight FIRE over a raw, fast Marley Marl beat and the schitt went overlooked? Crazy. I guess it got igged because it was stuck on the Marley Marl "In Control Vol. II" lp and I think it might've initially been available on cassette only (that's all I could find it on when I copped it)... I dunno, but the schitt was dumb hot to me. Truly the definition of THAT REAL SCHITT.
Also as a bonus I need to smack y'all with some live stuff too, so you also get a clip of L going all out over the Davy DMX beat at The Roxy back in the days... going at it with crazy vigor even after the beat stops. HIP HOP. Suckers get mad while the girlies scream....

LL COOL J w/ MARLEY MARL - I Be Gettin' Busy RE-UPPED

LL COOL J Freestylin' Live At The Roxy RE-UPPED

WALT DISNEY F**KED MY HIP UP

I think I am finally back from my Floridian vacation that began almost a month ago... thanks to all of y'all who waiting patiently for your boy Phill Most to get back to the bloggin' grind and kept checkin' back here to see if anything new was brewing yet. Well, at long last I'm ready to once again hit you with a regular dosage of THAT REAL SCHITT, so I appreciate your patience and hopefully you will dig the new / old stuff I have in store for your asses.

Now, then... about my week in Orlando, Florida (aka the city that Disney built). I will probably never get any endorsement deals with Disney after this post but sheeeeeit... i wasn't gonna get no damn endorsement deals from those mouse eared muthaf**kas anyway. Basically, Disney World sucks and I'll tell you why. Actually there are probably a HUNDRED reasons why Disney World sucks, but I'll just very briefly go over the ones that made my vacation an ordeal. And these reasons aren't like some clever little secrets that I and I alone figured out... everybody knows this schitt, yet they keep coming back for more.

First of all, the idea is that the kids love all these exciting rides and all this crap. Yeah, I guess they do to some point. But they DON'T like waiting in all these long ass boring ass lines for hours waiting to get on a ride that lasts for 5 minutes! It got to the point that my kids started crying when we tried to take them on this ride or that ride, they just wanted to go to the little playground areas that are scattered around the park and run around and get splashed by the water squirting out of the ground. By FAR the most fun that my youngins had during this trip was their time in those playground areas and just swimming in the pool at the condo we rented for the week. Other than that and maybe a couple of the really cool rides and events, Disney World wasn't all that big of a deal for them. The food sucks (although I would like to get one of them big ass turkey legs again). It was HELL-HOT. Everything was EXXXXXPENSIVE as f**k (and boy, do they have their selling game on lock- you gotta see it to understand the not-so subliminal seduction going on). And worst of all... man, there's just too damn much schitt to try to be covering it all. Walking walking walking walking walking walking walking... damn! By the end of some days, I honestly felt like I was near death, like a nomad lost in the desert trying to find that oasis. Damn near draggin' my kids back to the rental car 'cuz they are just pooped the f**k out. Are we having fun yet? Sheeeeeeit. Next summer's vacation is gonna be at the local playground and the YMCA- the kids will have just as much if not more fun and I will save thousands of dollars. I don't think my left hip will EVER be right again after all that walking. Thanks a lot Walt Disney.

By the way, this was actually my THIRD trip to Disney World within the last 15 years, so I guess I'm just another one of those clueless schmucks who keeps coming back for more (it was never my idea to go to this god-forsaken place, though). By far this was the most physically taxing, so I guess it's true- I really AM getting old.

PS: I know some of y'all are looking at the pic above with me in front of the Universal globe (we went there, too) and you're thinkin'... damn, ain't that the same schitt Phill was wearing in the PHILL MOST LOVE JAPAN post? Just a coincidence, that's all. I DO have other clothes... I'm no Kanye West, though. Here's a couple of other vacation pics with me and the babies just to prove it. Regular real schitt posts begin again starting tomorrow... thanks again for waiting it out.

GRANDMASTER OR THE CAPTAIN- OR GMC

Yo, what up folk. Back from vacation but still not totally back (DisneyWorld damn near KILLED a brother, fo sho... i'll tell y'all about it soon, after i've fully recovered from the great time I had down in the sunshine state). Here's a little something to hold you 'til I get back into the swing of things- an excerpt from one of my favorite old school tapes of all time featuring the Cold Crush Bros. and the Treacherous Three (minus Kool Moe Dee and with DLB from the Fearless Four in his place). This clip showcases the rhyme skills of the one and only Grandmaster Caz, captain of the Cold Crush 4 emcees. As I always say when hittin' y'all with these tapes from 25 or more years ago, it may be difficult to understand just how dope some of this stuff is if you weren't around to witness it when it went down. But TRUST ME... Caz was sooooo next level with the lyricism back then. For that era you had the three headed mc monster of Mele Mel, Moe Dee and Caz. But as great as they all were, IMO Caz was really the dude that had no discernable weakness. Story raps, funny schitt, serious topics (see the "Wildstyle Subway Rap"), stuff for the ladies, battle raps, a variety of styles and flows, singing routines, you name it. And he would absolutely kill it with his onstage banter between routines- if you peeped that Soulman Radio Mix in my last post, Caz is the dude near the end of the mix who made a dedication to his boy Roy Thomas who was "in the hospital with herpes" ("when the boy get out he gonna be walkin' like he got a potato chip up his ass and don't want to break it!"). Anyway, this little less-than-3 minute clip gives a nice example of the Cap rippin' a few rhymes live. Enjoy... i'll be back in full effect with a lot more fresh schitt soon! Peace out.

GRANDMASTER CAZ with the CC4- HOE AVENUE BOYS CLUB