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Oh man – now here’s a Christmas present. Those with longish memories might remember that between the Guardian and New York Times-featured Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers mashup LP and The Beatles vs Hip-hop Legends: ‘An Adventure To Pepperland Through Rhyme & Space’ (he’s not one for short titles), Tom Caruana delivered what is not only still
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TOM CARUANA presents: Black Gold (WU-TANG vs JIMI HENDRIX) Ltd. black and gold vinyl LP
SHAKA LOVES YOU: Boogie EP
Did you catch Shaka Loves You’s recent Boogie single on Bomb Strikes? You know, the one featuring Fullee Love (a.k.a Jurassic 5’s Soup) in full funk vocalist mode? I hope you did as it’s the boys’ best track ever and finds them hook n slinging their way to something rather special. Now it’s the turn of the Boogie EP from which that cut was lifted. Of the other three tracks included
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KURE feat. LONE NINJA: Suicide Run
The suicide run eh? We’ve all been there. Though admittedly not in the company of Lone Ninja who ensures on this that Oz producer Kure is covered all the way to the end of his beat with full tactical lyrical support. What’s that Lone? “Your twenty henchmen with dying scourge guns blaze/ From deadly mission, yo, I emerge unscathed.” Why – that’s perfect – it’ll be the ninja training one
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ANDRÉ M: Dodged A Bullet (Vinyl 7″)
Like fellow travellers Big Boss Man, The Bongolian and the Qualitons, André M could surely find no greater happiness than being transported back to 1969 and forced to repeat it in a sort of mod-themed Groundhog Year-type experience for the term of his natural life. But what’s a man do about such an affliction? Seek help for obsessive nostalgia perhaps? What? Are you mental? This is
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WOXOW: Chaos Remixes
You may remember Chaos, the second single off Woxow’s debut LP Alcazar, not just as a conscious slice of boom-bap but also because the Italian producer managed to persuade not just rocksteady legend Ken Boothe to appear on it but also Akil from Jurassic 5 and Blurum 13 as well! With those sort of networking talents (alongside his knob-twiddling skills) it must have been no trouble at all
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MR BRISTOW: Festive Funkathon 2018
It’s become something of a tradition at MB Towers that cometh the Yuletide season, cometh Mr Bristow with a festive mixtape so it was no surprise when he appeared on the monkey’s virtual doorstep brandishing his Festive Funkathon 2018 mix and grinning like a cheeky Victorian street urchin. As well he might, given that said mix might well be the soundtrack for all your
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ROSTRUM RECORDS: Top Shelf 1988
Rating: Many are the claims to have brought ’88 back but surely never before with as much authority as Rostrum Records’ mighty compilation of thirteen long lost cuts from thirteen different hip-hop legends – Top Shelf 1988. The Top Shelf of the title was (so the story goes) a small studio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where emcees found a safe haven from the
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NOLA BREAKS V8: Natural Soul Brother (THE ALLERGIES remix) b/w Meters Medley Pt. 1 (PROFESSOR SHORTHAIR mix) (Vinyl 7″)
If you want people to put their hands together and groove to a funky beat, you might well enlist The Allergies – especially if you already enlisted them once before and it went down a treat. So that’s precisely what Professor Shorthair has done for NOLA Breaks Volume 8, getting said Allergies back on board to reprise the success of Volume 5. This time around, they’ve revamped Danny White’s
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DUSTY DONUTS 15: Our Dreamworld (NAUGHTY NMX Harlem Mix)/ Let Me Go A Million Times (NAUGHTY NMX Brooklyn Mix)
The monkey does like a slice of boom-bap soul so it was most uplifting to hear that the Dusty Donuts crew had managed to resolve recent mastering issues in time to unleash a brace of slo-mo bangers by way of an early Christmas present. This time around, crew member Naughty NMX is the man of the moment delivering Our Dreamworld (Harlem Mix) which mashes up The Continental IV’s You’re Living In A Dream World
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SOOPASOUL: Ya Looking Tight/ Soopasoul Theme (Vinyl 7″)
Not least of the tidal wave of vinyl 45s coming out at the minute, the new seven inch from Soopasoul will be – what – the fourth Jalapeno 45 in as many weeks – when it drops next week. Featuring Ya Looking Tight and Soopasoul Theme, this drop may ring bells since both tracks originally appeared back in 2009 on Soopa’s debut LP Twin Stix – albeit in the sprawling glory that twelve inches of
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