For what it's worth, my top hip-hop picks of the last 6 months (or more, in
some cases), in no particular order, and annotated only as time/immediate
recall allows.
*Company Flow, Funcrusher Plus lp (Rawkus)
sparse, lo-fi, gritty, and long.
*Organized Konfusion
similar feel, maybe? much more produced; great fucking flow. i run to
this tape all the time (not that that means anything, musically)
*Sir Menelik, "Space Cadillac" (Rawkus)
w/ kool keith aka dr. octagon helping out. weird-ass sampling; not at all
typical hip hop feel. muy interesante, and i'm sure you could do cool shit
w/ the instrumental versions. in general, i stick by most any of rawkus's
hip hop. (speaking of which, who can tell me anything about stretch
armstrong? anything of his i ought to hear/have?)
*Cut Chemist vs. Shortkut, Live @ Future Primitive cd
look for a review @ www.urbansounds.com soon. infuckingtense dj battle,
tight & charged.
*MixMasterMike--i forget the name of the 12"--grr--
just got this out in SF. a 2-sided scratch-fest, ISP-stylee. only given a
few listens, but i like muchly. tight & complex. not sure how useful
it'll be for mixing, but we'll see.
*Q-bert vs. A-trak cd
again, look for a review @ urbansounds soon. heavier on the scratching;
tracks tend to be looped breaks, rather than complex mixes & cuts. but
pretty damn invigorating.
*Jurassic 5, forget the ep name again
Cut Chemist's crew. another of my SF finds. old-school feel; funky
breaks; mellow flow. with a couple vocal tracks and a couple different
instrumental bits & pieces, a nice change from the standard
clean/dirty/instro hip-hop ep format.
*Latyrx, "muzappers" ep
Lateef & Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow's cohorts. heavy on the electro feel; much
better than the lp, in my opinion. several versions of several tracks;
well worth the cash.
if i think of more, i'll post'em..
phil