This is the latest video off Fat Joe’s forthcoming album as he joins the sequel party dropping Jealous Ones Still Envy 2 on October the 6th. The tracks been floating around the net since March but its such a banging beat and sample by The Allies DJ Infamous noone has got tired of it yet, cos that would be like getting tired of Hendrix which aint gonna happen.  Doubt the album will be any good but as CocaineBlunts points out:

“every year he releases some mind crushing lead in to a forgettable or corny full length. He could have saved New York years ago had he just consolidated his efforts.”

Joe does this all the time but in these ‘hip hop is dead’ days seeing major artists like Joe and Raekwon do real hip hop is like spotting 2pac at Tesco’s, it keeps the hope alive man, it keeps the hope alive.

Damon Smith, better known as Smoothe Da Hustler, hails from Brownsville, Brooklyn. He came to prominence in the mid-90s thanks to his groundbreaking debut 12″ Broken Language and critically acclaimed underground album Once upon a Time in America. Smoothe is known for his pioneering of the hustler persona and lyrical style in hip hop.

Early Career

Smoothe Da Hustler’s rap career began like many others, performing on mixtapes, local radio and freestyling at shows in the New York area.  In 1994 Smoothe and his manager pressed a self-funded promo single under their own Nexx Level imprint. Smoothe took the single to numerous college radio stations who got behind the track and gave him his first airplay. This created enough buzz to see Smoothe draw major label attention though many A&R’s were unable to understand Smoothe’s depiction of the hustler lifestyle and most thought it unprofitable.

At the time Smith was ghostwriting for future star Foxy Brown who was courting a deal with Def Jam but the legendary hip hop label were only interested in signing a female hustler not the real deal himself. One A&R who could see the potential of the product after attending a number of underground shows was ‘Ill’ Will Fulton, who took the promo to his employers Profile Records, the home of Run DMC at the time.

Broken Language era

Profile Records finally took the plunge and signed Smith, instantly re-releasing his debut Hustlin’ on their label in 1995. However, it was the singles’ b-side that would see Smoothe Da Hustler catapulted to hip hop notoriety, as Broken Language instantly became an underground smash.

Not wanting to waste anytime Profile placed Smoothe in the studio to record his debut album Once Upon a Time in America. At the time of writing the album his long time collaborator and producer D/R Period was working on the M.O.P album To Death and Smoothe was forced to rhyme over empty drum tracks with a promise from D/R that he would create classics once free. Many have noted that the album’s production does have a rushed feel with many unimaginative samples and drum tracks being used more than once on the album. Problems aside, the album was a critical success and underground hit making Smoothe Da Hustler a household name on the global hip hop stage.

Post Profile records

After the success of his first album much was expected of Smoothe’s sophomore album, but due to Profile Records sale to Arista records in 1997 the album never saw the light of day. Rumoured to have heavily featured rising star Big Pun, the reasons for the album being shelved are unknown and are usually put down to the industry cliche ‘label politics’. It is likely that because Arista was owned by major label BMG Group, underground acclaim was no longer a good enough marker of success and Smoothe’s relatively low record sales would have warranted little or no promotion for his second album.

With his second album effectively recorded but without a release date Smoothe’s situation was further complicated by the death of his eldest son’s mother from an aneurysm. The hustler was at a crossroads: keep hustling in the music industry or take a hiatus and concentrate on raising his son. Smoothe maturely chose to raise his son and left the industry for many years. He resurfaced some years later to form the group SMG (Sex, Money and Gunz) with Trigga Tha Gambler and Ice T – who reached out to Smoothe to bring him on tour in 2003. They went on to record an album together, Repossesion in 2004, and still work together today. Smoothe is currently working on new material to be released via his own SMG records following on from his digital release Violenttimes Day, as well as working on a hip hop cartoon entitled Big Wheelz.

Highlights

Broken Language

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Fuck Watcha Heard

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Murdafest

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Hustlin

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Selected Discography

Singles

Hustlin / Run (12″) Nexx Level Entertainment 1994

Hustlin’ / Broken Language (12″) Profile Records 1995

Hustler’s Theme / Murdafest (12″) Profile Records 1996

My Crew Can’t Go For That (12″, Promo) Def Jam Recordings 1996

Albums

Once Upon a Time in America 1996 (Profile Records)

Once Upon A Time…

Fuck Whatcha Heard ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Dollar Bill ft D.V Alias Khrist

Glocks On Cock

Broken Language ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Speak My Peace

Neva Die Alone

Food For Thoughts

Family Conflicts

Only Human

Hustler’s Theme

Murdafest ft Trigger Tha Gambler & D.V Alias Khrist

Hustlin’

My Brother My Ace ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Dedication

download Once Upon a Time in America

Full discography

Related Acts

Trigger Tha Gambler

D.V Alias Khrist

D/R Period

Kovon

Ice T

Nexx Level Entertainment

Hill Playaz

Trivia

Trigger Tha Gambler is Smoothe Da Hustler’s younger brother

Smoothe’s mother appears on the track “Family Conflicts” on Once upon a Time in America

Links

smoothedahustler.com

myspace.com/smoothdahustler

References

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Smoothe+Da+Hustler

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.1351/title.these-are-our-heroes-smoothe-da-hustler

http://www.sixshot.com/interviews/10663/

http://allhiphop.com/stories/features/archive/2008/03/20/19498912.aspx

http://hiphopgame.ihiphop.com/index2.php3?page=smoothedahustler

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Swine flu and all the hysteria around it in the press. Swine flu is the new pedophilia, it is the new knife crime, it is the biggest illegal immigrant of them all. I mean so far its failed to kill even half as many people as normal flu but no one seems to care because they are so damn afraid of catching a pig cold. I’ve also noticed that there have been no reported cases of swine flu in the hip hop community and wondered why. Is it that the vast majority of people in hip hop don’t dine on swine?

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Well the old school 5 per centers don’t anyway, your Joe Buddens and such do but they have no respect for the culture, example being they are too busy dissing legends like Wu Tang then moaning about being punched in the face by Wu Clan members. (9 of them 1 of you what did you think was gonna happen Joe?). The only people I know who’ve had Swine flu eat pig from the regs to the daily so it didn’t surprise me but I don’t believe swine flu came into the human realm from someone eating a bit of bad bacon. I believe in the Ricky Gervais theory that somebody somewhere (probably on a farm in the southern states of America) was taking their love of gammon to the next level and getting a bit carnal with a ‘babe’.

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So that’s the kosher theory out the window so what is making hip hop heads immune to the worlds most deadly case of the sniffles ever? Daps that’s what. Swine flu is spread by filthy bastards spreading their infected muck everywhere via physical contact usually the handshake. Which portion of scoiety regularly forgoes the handshake? Hip hop thats who. That’s cos we give daps, we pound each others fists rather than press the flesh. I had presumed that the whole world knows how to pound fists but apparently even in the birthplace of the daps, America the mass media is unaware of this 200 year old tradition.

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After Obama gave his wife Michelle daps at a rally last year the pound received some media attention but the nazi right wing Fox news channel branded daps the ‘terrorist fist jab’ severely damaging its approval rating with white america but thankfully not Obama’s. Proof that not only will watching Fox news make you instantly dumber but it can also give you swine flu and kill yo republican ass. Thankfully in his last act as president the other ‘W’ tried to redress the balance and save a few lives. Although the marine did seem concerned enough about pounding Bush to wear a white glove which is the daps equivalent of wearing 2 condoms. Nevertheless the message is plain to see: Daps saves lives!

http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr43/90sguy/daps.jpg

The Compton Cricket club never cease to amuse people. Its just a perfect comedic combination of two alliterated words that exist on opposite ends of the social scale. The rarefied gentry image of Cricket and the gangster hardcore image of Compton have been successfully melded together since the clubs inception in 1995 and they haven’t looked back since. With a 40 minute hip hop opera in the can and the movie rights of their story already sold to Disney you’d think they’d be happy with their media output but these guys aren’t declaring yet.

They currently have a music video out catchily entitled ‘Bullets to balls gats to bats’ and its really popular in Australia. Honestly it is. I love the lyrics on this track, these guys completely bypass the edutainment field and just straight up preach their gospel with lines like:

took the youngsters from the hood
and showed them good
no matter what they are told
its better for them to have a book than a Beretta

Lines like that make me actually think they may be good at cricket cos well they can’t rap. Stick to the cricket pads homez and leave the lyric pads to the pros.

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The new video for the first single of the forthcoming Slaughterhouse album is out and its got me thinking. The video fits the subect matter perfectly but as soon as I saw it I thought of Royce 5″9′s ‘Feelin It 07′ off The Bar Exam and how it would’ve made an awesome video for that track instead. Sync em up and see what you think…

06 Feelin It ’07

I’m compounding some facts I dropped last week in The lost art of turntablism about how the artform has lost its musicality and is now dominated by teacnique freaks, geeks and nerds. I found 2 video’s on youtube that extoll this trend perfectly.

The first is a brilliantly funky and  musical juggle by DJ Babu and the second a geeky, nerdy boring ass explanation of how to bite the juggle by a monotone muppet. Seriously did Babu and co. learn everything from videos and seminars or did they just get on their decks and express themselves? The crowd reaction of the 4 onlookers is what turntablism used to be all about.

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When I was a kid I’m sure there was a saying that my momma used to say that went something like ‘lego is for christmas but Wu Tang is forever’ or maybe I made that up. The point is that the Wu and Lego go together like butterscotch and leather. We’ve already seen the lego album covers with a Wu ‘tang’ but now its gone next level with a full lego remake of classic moments from the Wu’s classic debut album 36 Chambers.

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The pinnacle of this collection of vids by Davo is a full length shot for shot recreation of ‘Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ video as seen above. All this has been made possible by the general publics imagination and the new lego which has more facial expressions, detail and most importantly New Era hats.

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My personal favourite is the 7th Chamber intro or Killer tape skit as its been labelled which features some brilliant acting by the lego clansmen.

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We get a bit of ODB in the Raw Interlude too but no Method Man intro yet. I can’t wait for that, ‘I sew ya asshole closed and keep feeding you and feeding you.’ How do you show that with lego?

My only question is where will all this cross pollination end? Whats next Wu Tang pancakes? Oh wait did someone already do that…

Most people I speak to are aware of turntablism but just don’t care about it whatsoever. At one point one of the most exciting elements of hip hop culture it is now predominantly associated with uber geekdom. I have to admit going to a DMC contest used to be an eye opening experience but now it is usually an ear bleeding nightmare as DJ’s deconstruct their decks looking for a new gimmick or a trademark move.

This has always been a part of turntablism since the heyday of Q-bert his Skratch Piklz and their legendary battles with Rob Swift and the X-men but it always encompassed good tune selection and crowd entertainment. Similarly in the era when I first attended scratch battles it was all about DJ Craze and the Allies versus the UK’s own Tony Vegas and the Scratch Perverts.

I had the privilege to meet Craze when he was about 17 thanks to MC Jakes and hung out with him a bit getting him pints and generally skinning up while he wowed the crowd at The End and his set that day is still one of the best I’ve heard in living memory. Everyone was expecting an hour of scratching but Craze just banged together a stack of Nas, Biggie, Wu and many other of New Yorks finest into a live mixtape which was occasionally interrupted to showcase his skills but never for more than a 2 or 3 minutes.

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The Scratch Perverts famously won the 1999 DMC team battle with a clever routine designed around insulting their opponents the Allies along with showcasing their signature scratches but nowadays it seems people want to be technical for techniques sake forgetting that music is judged by the ear not the inner geek.

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There is always one beacon of hope in the midst of a shitstorm and at the moment they go by the name of C2C. Hailing from France and consisting of 4 flawless DJ’s 20 Syl, Greem, Pfel and Atom they rose to fame by winning 3 consecutive DMC Team finals from 2003 to 2005. An impressive feat in itself but it is the manner in which they accomplished their victories that is noteworthy.

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Their competition sets are so polished and flawless they sound pre-recorded and often make it hard for the audience to distinguish what each DJ is doing. That is the sign of something much bigger and better than merely DJ skills; if 4 DJ’s cutting together can sound like 1 record playing they have risen to the level of composers.

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What makes this even more exciting for the future is they are signed to a record label and currently making an album scheduled for release in 2010. Many DJ crews have put out material but never have they had the potential to completely reinvigorate the turntablist movement. This album won’t be leftfield, self aggrandizing or simply a 70 minute showoff session, it will be funky well thought out and musically diverse guaranteed.

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How do I know this? Well if the DMC routines weren’t enough of an indication of their style then check the videos above and below of multi-talented 20Syl showcasing his skills in the studio. This dude has not only got world class DJ skills he also plays the MPC like an instrument as well as mastering the keys, guitar and pretty much anything else he can get his hands on.  As if that wasn’t enough he does a mean Rolf Harris impression to boot as you can see and hear below.

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Kevin Madison aka K-Solo was the harder edge of the EPMD collective The Hit Squad who recorded 2 albums in the early 90′s. His 1990 debut Tell the World My Name was entirely produced by EPMD with Parrish Smith handling the majority of the work but Erick Sermon adding the classic opening track ‘Spellbound’. Vocally Solo was reminiscent of Big Daddy Kane with a high-speed hard delivery that, coupled with his storytelling style, vividly illuminated his adventures in prison, flirtation with crack, racism and of course sexual exploits.

Solo briefly became famous for his ‘Spellbound/Letterman’ style which entailed crafting his rhymes around the spelling out of words to create a delayed reaction punchline as the listener would take an extra second or so to decode the spelled out word.

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Spellbound would lead to one of the biggest beefs of the time between Solo and former cellmate DMX who also recorded a track entitled Spellbound featuring spelled out wordplay. DMX claimed that K-Solo had stolen the concept for Spellbound from him when they were inside together whilst Solo responded by claiming it was X who had bit his style and lost a freestyle battle to him in jail.

Solo even went as far as taking a lie detector test in the Beef II documentary to prove his claims, but the feud was never settled and the two traded diss tracks down the years. Unfortunately for Solo, by then few were checking for his name. After splitting from Hit Squad in ’93 following EPMD’s demise and signing to Death Row without releasing any material, he spent the rest of the 90′s as a ‘guest’ rapper often dissin’ his former friends.

Trivia

K-Solo stands for Kevin Self Organisation Left Others

K-Solo claims to have brought Keith Murray and Rockwilder into the Hit Squad family

Trained as a boxer and has offered to fight both DMX and Keith Murray in a ‘cage match’

Changed his style in the mid 90′s to sound harder and guested on Redman’s Muddy Waters LP

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Singles

Fugitive

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Spellbound

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Your Mom’s in My Business

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Slang Dictionary

Not much I think he says Phat once

90s Guy says

K-Solo was one of the most talented rappers in The Hit Squad and one of the more talented rappers of the 90′s to fall by the wayside. His later gruff ‘hardcore’ vocals showed that style eventually triumphed over substance and that the labels were only interested in pushing gangsta personas. Personally I preferred his storytelling rhymes over his gimmicky ‘spelling bee’ style but the dude would’ve smashed it on Countdown still. Shame he didn’t do more but he still managed to squeeze out this classic and ‘Times Up’ before EPMD split and fractured the Hit Squad.

90s Guy Favourites

All the singles above plus;

Tales from the Crack Side Tales from the crack side

Real Solo Please stand Up Real solo please stand up

Renee Renee Renee Renee

In fact just download the whole album below!

Link

On the DL

HipHopDX Interview

The Retro Kidz live up to their name with this track ‘New Era’ thats getting much play in America right now.

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Check out their debut appearance in Armand Van Helden’s promo for his ‘I want Your Soul’ video.

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MIA Okley Run

Annoying darling of the fashion world and not much else MIA has released her own clothing line surprise surprise. Take a peek at her ‘Okley Run’ line but be warned I’ll personally merk you if I see you wearing this crackheads clothes.

MIA Okley Run

The Wackness Mixtapes

A film about mid-90′s New York, hip hop and weed sounds like a dream come true. Add to that it stars Sir Ben Kingsley (no, no, no no, rowntree yes! grosvenor yes!), Method Man and an Olsen twin and this should be interesting. Even if its dripping in wack juice the soundtrack is gonna be tight and we’ve got the official movie mixtape mixed by D-Nice and a bootleg to boot.

Official tape on the DL

Bootleg

on the DL