Rap Superstar

Originally published at BunkBlog. You can comment here or there.

Inspired by the recent news article on Roxanne Shante, I got all old skool and looked at my stack of tapes, hunting for those obscure bits that I’ve not found on digital media yet. I was reminded of the strange and jarring hiccup in “La Di Da Di” at the 2:38 mark, which was not present in the original and kind of obscures the next phrase in complete non sequitur. Seriously, they didn’t try to record an alternate version of the song when they got smacked by the lawyers, they just clipped 10 seconds of expository story out of it. The listener ends up wondering why this girl is crying over Rick and feeling blue. Sure, you’d like to tell her not to cry and dry her eyes, but why in the world is she crying in the first place? So, I grabbed my trusty patch cord, and now I have the original, found only on cassette, full version of the classic Doug E Fresh song on my computer. Take that, sampling copyright violations!

Now, to see what else I’ve got hiding out. Ooh, the LA Beats megamix…

More Cassette Ripping

Originally published at BunkBlog. You can comment here or there.

I had the vinyl of this, but all my vinyl disappeared when I joined the Army – it either ended up thrown away or in my brother’s house, and there’s no expectation I’ll see the licorice pizzas ever again.  But, the song is one I’ve been hoping to find digitally for years, and now I’m just giving up. It’s a 12 minute megamix of a crazy assortment of hip hop and rap from 1985, which was called (if I remember correctly) LA Beats Megamix or something like that. Not only is this classic of the era completely missing from any online store, it’s even missing from many people’s memories. Many of the songs which are part of the mix don’t seem to have been preserved even as lyrics on the web today.

The Knights of the Turntable section, from their classic Techno Scratch, is remembered fondly. But what about the section in vocoder that says, “don’t be afraid of these vicious beats” – where is the tribute to that band, whose name even I forget?  Let me up freak, get me some juice, indeed! You only came to the party to rock shock and dance… Ah, memories.

If you’re reading this anywhere but at my actual blog, the little streaming player won’t show up for you.

 

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