Solo Sounds - We're Chilly

Some old school party style pressure for you now. My poor quality mp3s were deleted forever in favour of a fresh 320kbps rip of this re-press after it hit the streets a few months ago. There was an original for sale on ebay at the time (went for $85.00) but that's way too much for my budget so buying this was a no brainer. There's only the two cuts one here, vocal and dub and I can't really tell you anything about Solo Sounds that you can't already find out for yourseves so we'll leave it at that. It's only ever about the music anyway. For me at least.

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Steady B - Just Call Us Def

Whatever happened to that word, def? It had quite a lot of use in the mid eighties but it kind of fizzled out and 'dope' seems to have taken its place. 'Mos Def' is probably the most recent use that comes to mind but I'd like people to go back to using it as an adjective. I don't think I ever used it out loud. When we were kids everything was 'bad' (meaning good of course). 'That's a bad tune' or 'that's a bad move'. You get the idea. A lot of slang words went mainstream, the most obvious being 'chill out'. I heard my mom say that to one of her friends on the phone just the other day and she's in her mid sixties. Her friend is even older and I'm sure she knew what it meant. The power of the media, eh? I think old words like 'def' and 'fresh' should make a comeback so I'll start it off today with this power house of a record which is still a personal favourite so I did a def 320kbps rip so it'll cave your chest in if you play it at the required volume. 'Fly Shante' is on the flip which is another thumping, drum machine driven track, not to be confused with the later release on the same label by Shante herself that was produced by the real king of the beats, the man Marley Marl. I bow to thee, oh great one.

'Don't Mean He Can't Hear When I Say He's Def'

Roxanne Shante - Runaway

Roxanne Shante rhyming over a solid Marley Marl beat is just what the National Centre for Runaway & Missing Exploited Children needed. I wonder if they were approached to do it and if all proceeds went to that particular charity? You wouldn't have thought a lot of cash could be made off the back of an indie rap record from '85 would you? Well I don't know if my purchase contributed anything towards it but I kinda hope it did. Lyrically it's a step away from the norm as far as your average Shante records go but the beats are still rock hard. I got it from the record fair when it came to town around '88-'89 for 2 quid, still sealed too as were the other three I got at the same time; 'Queen Of Rox', 'Bite This' and 'Roxanne's Revenge' all equally banging records, all still sealed and cheap at half the price. I still have all four to this very day too. Sweet vinyl. Hard to let go. Must hang on. Must. Will.

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Stetsasonic - Just Say Stet

I always thought this was Stet's best record. When I first heard it on Streetsounds Electro 11 I thought it was dope. None of my friends at the time liked it and turned their nose up at it, thought it was a joke record with no street credibility whatsoever and that's always puzzled me. It was all about the beat in those days and it's as hard a beat as any so it can't be that. They're shouting the lyrics too which is good, controlling the mic like MCs did back then. Prince Paul doesn't disappoint on the flex either so what's the problem? I think the problem was that all of those so called friends stopped being bothered about hip hop music and started listening to eighties pop music instead so in my opinion they were never that interested in the first place. One of 'em (I only found out about this just before Christmas last year) traded a tape of mine full of dope jams which I could never afford to buy myself for one by Simple Minds. Simple Minds? I don't hold a grudge 'cos it was a long time ago but what a nice twat. I always wondered where that tape went an'all.

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Street Kings - Gettin' Fresher

Been listening to this one for a bit now and I'm lovin' it. I haven't had it all that long, four years, maybe five and the ad didn't mention the label being destroyed by a five year old either. Still, five quid's not too bad and the vinyl's mint and it still sounds dope, much better than all this golden era stuff. There. I said it. '83-'86 was my golden era anyway. Download this if you're curious as to what hip hop used to sound like. It's these kinds of records that got me into all this in the first place.

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Point Blank M.C.s - Hard To The Body

When US 12"s first arrived in Sheffield they were £6.49 each. That was quite expensive for a school kid on a £1.50 a week paper round. The only way I could raise the other much needed cash was to starve myself and save the £1 my mom gave me for my school dinner. OK, I wasn't exactly starving but it used to do me considerably in if I remember rightly. Back then it only cost two English pence to ride the bus in to town as Sheffield had the lowest fares in the country until privatisation smacked the council up the side of the head and it all changed forever. Virgin (pre 'mega') was the only outlet stocking fresh new US wares and even then they didn't advertise it. I must've been informed 'cos I can't remember how I found out but you had to ask to see the 'imports' and the bloke behind the counter would plonk a scabby looking cardboard box in front of you with about a dozen records in it. As you just sifted through you had to make a judgement by picking out stuff with colourful looking names as you hadn't heard of most of the them unless the late, great John Peel had spun it at some point. Times were hard. If you became a regular at the shop then the 'import bloke' would break the seals sometimes and play a snippet to help you decide. I still remember holding 'The Bridge' by MC Shan in one hand and 'Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble' by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince in the other and I'd not heard either so guess which one I chose? Anyway, this one was in there and I kept it all these years as the beat is dope and it makes parts of my house vibrate if I play it loud enough. Oh, and it's my guess that it's the only hip hop record to mention one time king of the jungle, Tony Blackburn near the end. Oh, and I did return some weeks later to buy the MC Shan record.

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