As well as puttin you lot up on the latest greatest in Rap singers and the usual nonsense, more and more of you are contacting us requestin the rarities from the HOTASBALLS Rap radio archives, for the few that say please, i’ve culled this wee number.
It’s 4 live cuts broadcast the night after the show above by Tim Westwood on the Capital Rap Show on Capital Radio.
http://www.mediafire.com/?jmgd50jntjn
Still Number One
Criminal Minded
My Philosophy
P is Free [Reggae Version Excursion]
The show was at the Town and Country Club, as opposed to whatever corporate branded trench-foot ridden hole its known as today. The T&C Club was THE venue of choice during the late Eighties for Hip-Hop [and even Go-Go] outfits playing to a larger crowd than the usual pokey sweat-soaked low-ceiling spots in London town [The Trouble Funk show that was featured on the Say What! alblum on Island back in 86 is a perfect example of the raw excitement that ensued under the T&C roof].
This show, was THE best Rap performance I have ever witnessed in the flesh, without question, and i’ve seen a few in my time let me tell ye. It wasnt because I was bouncing up and down like some lanky lunatic, rhymin along with almost every other lyric with my mates, or spiritedly throwing bows down the front, but simply because KRS had already honed his skills and created a persona for himself as the number one performance Rapper at the time, and let’s face it, not many have come close to perfecting his presence or delivery on-stage since. The clarity of virtually every rhyme was as clear as crystal that night, his phonetics were unfuckwitable, that may sound standard, but think of how many shows youve been to and that hasnt been the case.
As outta-towners attending gigs in London, the inevitable radio shows that came with travelling to the mainland from Ireland were as important to document as anything else we were at. By any means we’d record the Westwood shows, or Max n Dave or Dave Pearce or even Delroy Briscoe on Sky Community Radio, whoever was playing Rap at that moment in London, I wanted to be able to hear it at home, back in sunny Belfast. One of my best mates Andy even bought a portable radio/ tape deck in NY on one trip, just to catalog the Stretch & Bobb late night sessions on WKCR. We’d get off on the trips to 4 Star General, hangin out with and after a while, snappin on George, in his Gucci loafers and shitty nylon grey socks, we”d stock up on vinyl at Groove and head to all the Hip-Hop spots of choice at the time but the radio shows were imperishable and evidently lasting, so we’d do anything to tape em.
This show was broadcast on the Friday night, the evening after the gig, that’s a pretty impressive turnaround even by todays standards. Me and my muckers were ecstatic as we tuned to 95.8, nodding our heads to the show that we were all at just the night before, but the element that has made it an even longer lasting memory was listening to it on a roof-top across the bloody road from the venue, in North London, with it’s high Irish population. Shouts to Robin and Robins brother who let us hang out on the roof hurling abuse, amongst other things, at passers-by below til the wee hours.
The same live session from the Thursday night was also used for three cuts on the LIVE HARDCORE WORLDWIDE alblum, none of the tracks I have upped today were on that release so this is probably the first time these wee numbers has surfaced from this gig.
If you want more of this kind of thing, leave comments and you never know what might appear next, by just ripping the shit and runnin, youll never know what else could be round the corner. Enjoy.
HOTASBALLS 