things and time will tell.

KRS-One (as Big Joe Krash) – Break The Chain, Vol. 1 No. 1 Marvel Music, Inc. – [no cat. #] Cassette, EP + Comic Book, US, 1994 info Last year I said something about a certain hip-hop meets Marvel comics TV show that was so out of my dreams that someone could have made it up just to mess with me. File this in that same folder: KRS-One and one of my favorite comic book artists teamed up to make a hip-hop, after school special style, comic for the kids, complete with a cassette featuring three all-ages, Return Of The Boom Bap  era Boogie Down Productions tracks that you've never heard. Almost has to be a story designed to send me on some e-bay/discogs wild goose chase... Except it's true and I just got my hands on a copy that's been sitting in someone's closet unopened for the last 28 years. 1994: record producer Marshall Chess (ex-of Chess and Cadet Records) somehow pulls Kris and brilliant cartoonist Kyle Baker into a Marvel Comics deal to produce an educational comic...

Lauryn Hill – Doo Wop (That Thing) Ruffhouse Records – 78868-S1 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1998 info The big single from Lauryn Hill’s first solo album, served up here on a 7” that I picked up back in 1998. It's funny how some music brings you back to a moment… I remember being excited for  The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to come out- and it wound up being an  exciting record. I expected her post-Fugees solo set to be good, but Ms. Hill handed us a damn near perfect, classic album. Listening for the first time in a while recently, it's sounds pretty timeless to me, holding up even after almost 25(?!?) years. A side,  Doo Wop (That Thing),  highlights that even with hit singles like this, Miseducation  was not a crossover pop turn. She could sing, rap, write and had plenty to say that wasn't designed to sell records or score easy radio play. This cut's tales of the darker motives, posturing and desperate moves made in the name of love showed off how effortlessly she...

Various Artists (Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad) ‎– Luke Cage Marvel, Netflix ‎– D002532221 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Limited Edition, US, 19 Jul 2017 Info A few days ago, I was listening to a member of the union jump into an important discussion at a training I attended. He made some really thoughtful points, but in the middle of his comment he mentioned Luke Cage. Right away he paused to explain to everyone: "Sorry. Luke Cage was a comic book reference if that didn't make sense." Well, apparently we live a world right now where a good number of union members sitting in a meeting not only know who Luke Cage is, but have opinions on where he would stand on police, black lives matter, and union struggles. (The consensus, by the way, among people I spoke to was that he would clearly be on our side.) Ten years ago, if you had told me that one day there would be a Luke Cage TV show and that it would actually be good, I'd have been skeptical. If you said that the s...

Afrika Bambaataa & The Godfather Of Soul James Brown ‎– Unity Tommy Boy ‎– TB 847 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, US, 1984 info 25 minutes of James Brown diving head first into hip hop ala 1984, brought to the party by his greatest NYC disciple, Afrika Bambaataa. They rap against cold war greed and violence and the virtues of funk over live breakbeats supplied by some of my favorite musicians. It's a shame this record isn't more remembered, it's a gem. The '80s weren't packed with new highlights in the James Brown discography, but hanging out with the Universal Zulu Nation brought something out in him and the Godfather of Soul gives a great performance on Unity . Maybe he enjoyed hearing his music being kept fresh. Maybe he was moved by Bambaataa's obvious joy at getting to record with his hero. Or maybe he was just feeling inspired to preach that day on the power of funk, the dangers of nuclear war, the importance of education and the gospel of " peace, uni...

A second appearance on this blog for the students of Chicago's Carver High School. Sharing their debut 12" featuring the Class of 1983  was half the reason I initially set this thing up, so I highly recommend checking it out if you missed it. By 1985, Carver's music teacher, John Harris, had picked up a Linn drum  and was ready to drop another of Chicago's earliest hip-hop records with a new crew of Carver High MCs... Carver High ‎– Boogie With A Book (Let's Read!) Challenger Records ‎– CH7300 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1985 Info I can't tell you much more about Chicago's far South side rap pioneers than what I shared in that previous post. Two and a half years later and we get to see that these high school students (along with their music teacher and his Motherfox bandmates) were tracking some of the changes in hip-hop styles that were bubbling up. Again: this was 1985 . The Midwest wasn't exactly overflowing with homegrown hip-hop records yet... But...

A Keith LeBlanc and Adrian Sherwood production from 1984, paying tribute to the massive Miners Strike then taking place in the UK. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the greatest pro-union, electro hip-hop single of all time. (I dream of a world where it would have more competition!) The Enemy Within - Support The Miners Rough Trade - RTT 151 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, UK, 1984 More info on Discogs Tracklist A        Strike B        Strike (General Mix) Keith LeBlanc is an American drummer, probably best known for his 1983  No Sell Out  single, released by a still new Tommy Boy Records. The record was credited to Malcolm X, whose  cut up speeches were set over a LeBlanc produced beat . Although claims that it was the first record to use "sampling" or the first to use a DMX drum machine are laying it on a bit too thick,  No Sell Out  is rightly celebrated as a key moment in hi...

Let’s see how this goes… We’ll kick it off with what must be one of the very first hip-hop tracks ever cut in Chicago. Artist: Carver Area High School Presents the Carver Seniors ‎– Class of ‘83 Get Live Eighty-Three, “83” Get Live (Senior Rap) and The Carver Senior Song Challenger Records ‎– CH-1000 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, US, 1982 In the early 1980s, Challenger Records issued a small string of records featuring the students of Carver Area High School, now Carver Military Academy , on the far Southside of Chicago. Named for the school’s mascot and Challengers sports teams, the record label seems to have been driven by teacher and musician John Harris. They pressed up a handful of vinyl releases featuring the same logo that still shows up on the school’s jerseys . What’s the best you can really hope for from a senior class commemorative record? Well, when a high school band teacher sneaks a credit for his funk band, Motherfox, onto the back of a public school issued rec...