Str8 from the Underground

This post is for all my people who love dope lyrics and hard rhymes. Some of the MC's below were considered underground in the beginning of their careers, and as time progressed they became excepted by the mainstream. 

I'm a fan of all types of music from commercial to avant-garde, but my favorite is underground Hip-Hop. Its the one style of music that still speaks for the hungry, disenfranchised artist trying to get their music heard. In allot of ways it can be considered the pulse of the street and heart of Hip-Hop. 

Below is a video by one of my favorite members of D.I.T.C. (Diggin In The Crates) A.G.. He is one of those MC's who, year after year keeps spittin sickness like he has a virus. For those who don't know D.I.T.C. was also home to Showbiz, Big L and Fat Joe. There are also videos from Pace Won, The Grouch & Eligh, Film Skool Rejekts, Crooked I, Jus Allah, and DU from the Outsidaz.

Flava In Ya Ear

The title is a tribute to the Craig Mack song "Flava in Ya Ear" cuz it was banging...just like the tunes in this post. Thanks to Allhiphop.com I finally know why Craig Mack and Biggie had beef back in the day. They were both on BadBoy records but Craig was already a platinum selling artist while Biggie was working on Ready to Die.

Craig became a born again Christian and didn't support all the gunplay and drug dealing that people were glorifying in their rhymes. This didn't sit well with Biggie since his album was about to drop and that covers the majority of his subject matter. It's been a mystery in Hip-Hop to why they were beefing for a long time..now you know. If you want more details click the link and go read the article at AHH.com.

Below are videos by west coast mobsta Crooked I, a newly slimmed down Fat Joe (the beat is FIYA!). Also there's music by newcomers 2Gzz featuring Juvenile, Killa Kyleon and Philly Swain. Check 'em out.

New Muzik

I heard a few new tunes today worthy of being classified New Muzik. The first is by artist Cuban Link who used to be part of the Terror Squad with Big Pun and Triple Seis. He was off the scene for awhile due to some label issues. There were also industry rumors that Fat Joe blackballed him in the game. Regardless he's back with some hot tracks for the summer.

Tech N9ne is back with more strange music. His rapid, machine gun fire flow leaves allot of people baffled and others copying his style. He gets comparisons to Twista but I think his flow is quite unique. He came in the game as part of the Regime with Yukmouth. Since then, he's released numerous albums and started his own label Strange Music. His new song 'He's a Mental Giant' will probably help stop the Twista comparisons and give him the credit for being a sick lyricist he rightfully deserves.

There's also tunes by newcomer Oun-P with his 'What chu Talkin Bout' remix featuring Lloyd Banks and Jadakiss. The beat to the track is Fiya! Last there's music from female spitter Patwa, Lloyd Banks and Ace Hood.

5 Classic Remixes

In the spirit of the best remix contest below are 5 classic remixes that still get airplay on my MP3 player. Notice that in the 90's when producers made a remix they not only added new verses, but in some cases added a new beat. The reason Murder Inc, Bad Boy and other labels at the time stopped doing this. Is the way to track a records success is thru BDS (broadcast data systems) spins and if they change the beat of a record the BDS system doesn't recognize the record anymore and starts counting spins again from zero. 

Instead of having one record sell 20,000 copies and the remix selling 30,000 copies to make the total of 50,000, which would be somewhat successful. Labels had one successful record and one unsuccessful. So to capitalize off remixing a record they stopped changing the beat.