It’s been a while since I’ve posted on any current matters so I thought I’d put together a little roundup of recent published work. In December, I had the opportunity to interview Mariah Carey for Time Out New York’s “Hot Seat” section. Mariah is from around my way in L.I., and we really hit it off. Here’s the version of our interview that ran in the magazine. I’m thinking of posting the full text of our conversation, though, because it was so entertaining from beginning to end. That girl is funny. Let me know if you’d be interested in reading that.
TONY also recently asked me to put together a walking tour of the South Bronx for their current issue, which you can read here.
I’ve recently started contributing to the Washington Post (good looking out, Chris Richards). You can read the first two pieces I’ve done for them, reviews of the new Clipse and RJD2 albums, here and here. I’ve got some much bigger things in the works with them as well…
I’m now blogging about reggae and other Caribbean matters at Large Up, a new site my homey Dave a.k.a. DJ Gravy and Martei Korley have started in partnership with Okayplayer.. Here are a fewrecentposts.
While speaking to former Too Poetic DJ Freddie “Kaos” Cox recently, he let it slip that there was an unreleased album the group had submitted to Tommy Boy in 1989. Long story short, I’ve been sitting on the interview for the past month and a half waiting on the LP, called Droppin’ Signal, to reach my inbox. Here it is for the first time on the Internet or anywhere outside of Wyandanch and Tom Silverman’s file cabinet: stream all 14 tracks off the lost album, produced by Too Poetic and Nate Tinsley, below.
A word about Too Poetic: before founding the Gravediggaz with Prince Paul, Frukwan and Rza, rapper Anthony “Poetic” Berkeley, a.k.a. Grym Reaper, was a member of this Wyandanch trio, with dueling DJs Kaos and Woody Wood. The group’s lone release was the 1989 Tommy Boy single featuring the house-y “Poetical Terror” on the A-side, and the better known “God Makes Me Funky,” co-produced by the late Paul C., on the flip. In this interview, Fred/Kaos recalls the history of this short-lived but memorable group, and his late partner Poetic, who died of colon cancer in 2001. Read the rest of this entry »
Jonzhaft the Psychopath. All photos/flyers courtesy Oxygen
North Babylon, which borders Wyandanch to the south, is not a place many people associate with hip-hop. It’s a predominantly white town. But both LL Cool J and Freddie Foxxx grew up here, and the area has produced many other, less heralded rap talents like Bolaji (of Zakia Records fame) and the subject of the below interview, John “Oxygen” Everette.
I’ve known Ox for a few years, essentially since he started up the multi-regional group Sputnik Brown (which also includes another North Babylon native in Howard “Musa” Lloyd) and, since then, we’ve had many conversations like the one you’re about to read. It’s good knowing someone who was in the mix when hip-hop was really jumping off in the area ’80s but still has the enthusiasm of a “new” artist. What I didn’t initially know is that he was making his own records back then with local label LaRhon as Jonzhaft the Psychopath, and, later, with producer DJ Smash as part of the early ’90s acid-jazz project, Jazz Not Jazz. Here he shares some insight on the little-known rap hotbed he calls home, and his own history as an MC. Read the rest of this entry »
“Wyandanch Week” (Really a once-a-week series of installments) continues with producer/engineer/studio head James Nathaniel “Nate” Tinsley. Eric B. & Rakim, Groove B Chill, Too Poetic, Sid & B-Tonn—if they’re rappers from out of Wyandanch, they did their first studio recordings in Nate’s basement studio. Moving into house music in the early ’90s, he founded the label, Island Noyze, releasing records under the name Nathaniel X and as part of the group Vil-N-X (pictured above). After releasing a single by rapper Brotha Life, “The Wreck’a b/w Show Taker” on the label, he picked up the mic for 1995’s The Brotha Life and X Man 12″ on another Long Island label, Undercover, and a virtually unknown LP by the late ’90s crew, Ghetto Dawgz. Nate recently relocated to Medford, but continues to work with local Wyandanch talent at his home studio. Read the rest of this entry »
Groove B Chill’s 1990 LP Starting From Zero makes for a decent time capsule, but it probably doesn’t make anyone’s list of important Golden Era LPs (despite contributions from prime-era Prince Paul and Pete Rock’s first production credits). Where the group—which consisted of future actor Daryl “Chill” Mitchell (then known as Chili Dog, currently starring in Fox’s Brothers); fellow rapper Eugene “Groove” Allen; and DJ Belal Miller—quietly put their stamp on history was with their proto-New Jack Swing turn on the pre-”Symphony” posse cut “Uptown Is Kickin’ It,” and the first truly commercially successful hip-hop movie, House Party. The Hudlin brothers based the Kid ‘N Play vehicle on real stories shared with them by Daryl and Belal, and all three members were given roles in the film they were originally meant to star in. As heard on this 1985 recording at Wyandanch High School, back when Rakim was still Kid Wizard, Belal—then Grandwizard BMC—was often in his corner, with Biz Markie in tow. (It’s worth noting here that the recent emergence of this recording online is a result of this conversation with Belal, who reminded me of its existence, and the homey Oxygen’s possession of it. Once again, respeck to Ox for the upload.) Currently, Belal can be heard every Monday night on Long Island on WUSB’s “Soul-Glo Bistro.”
JS: Tell me about your involvement with Rakim. Belal: Before I started deejaying, back in ‘83, I used to be an MC in a crew called the Almighty 5 MCs. That was my first crew. But I couldn’t MC, really. I tried doing my little rhyming thing but they were so good. Rakim was in there. He had to have been about 13. I’m a few years older than him, and I was still in school. When I say he was a child prodigy, he was a child prodigy. Read the rest of this entry »
Sid “S.I.D.” Reynolds has the distinction of being the first and only rapper to be mentored and brought into the record industry by Rakim. But after releasing just one single as part of the duo Sid & B-Tonn (1990’s RAL/Columbia release “Deathwish I” b/w “Deathwish II”), he would find his footing as a beatmaker, crafting singles like Queen Latifah’s “Just Another Day” and Freddie Foxxx’s “So Tough” as an in-house producer for the Flavor Unit. In 1996, Sid returned to Long Island to form Crimedanch Cartel, a massive crew meant to be Wyandanch’s answer to Wu-Tang. The project imploded almost as soon as it started but not before dropping two of the most impeccable slices of unknown ’90s East Coast rap I know of in the white-label rarities, “Realism” (featuring Rakim) and “Money is the Key,” with LL Cool J. Read the rest of this entry »
When Rakim announced plans to drop The Seventh Seal in November, I figured I’d take the opportunity to revive my “Forgotten L.I.” series by shining some light on lesser known rap figures from Rakim’s hometown of Wyandanch. November 17 has long since come and gone but, nevertheless, I bring you “Wyandanch Week.”
In addition to producing the God MC, the ‘Danch and neighboring North Babylon (which borders Wyandanch to the south) can also claim LL Cool J (who lived in North Babylon substantially longer than he did in Queens), Freddie Foxxx, Poetic of Gravediggaz fame and Groove B Chill among its local products. Wyandanch Day, an annual block party/BBQ/talent showcase in the tradition of Harlem Day, et. al that’s still held every June, has brought everyone from BDP to Ice Cube out to a small park in western Suffolk County. Read the rest of this entry »
I interviewed Rakim about The Seventh Seal in the new XXL. Also spoke to “Back in the Day” rapper Ahmad about his new life as a Stanford undergrad, and wrote about Dana Dane’s passing of the torch to his son Dana Jr., aka Young Dane.
Billboard asked me to parse the recent comeback singles by Rakim and Sean Paul, “Holy Are You” and “So Fine.” Click their respective hyperlinks to read what I had to say about each. Rakim is Rakim and Sean is one of the nicest guys in the music business, so I’m pulling for both, but, considering the long waits involved, I think they each could have come with something a little stronger. Not that I’m looking forward to The Seventh Seal, any less, though. Imperial Blaze, Sean’s fourth album, drops next week, and it’s pretty good.
In other news, Rakim was on Good Day New York yesterday, shouting out the ‘Danch no less:
