Roxanne Shante - The Def Fresh Crew

Re-up. More classic Pop Art era Shante coming soon..

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Uncle Jamm's Army - What's Your Sign

I heard this in the Limit club one Saturday afternoon and freaked out. I also have good memories of DJ Mongoose - I've told you before but I'll tell you again, he was the resident DJ at the club on Saturday afternoons and he's also DJ Mink's older brother - scratching the classic 'fresh' sound from Fab 5 Freddy's famous single over the instrumental version and that freaked me out even more thus inspiring me to want to scratch like that myself. I don't have the tape any more, can't even remember what else was on it and if I'm honest it would sound pretty wack now but the memories of hearing it for the first time and wanting to replicate it so badly are good and that's what matters. The observant among you will also notice that this is the B-side as the A-side, 'Naughty Boy' is a dreadful track and should never have seen the light of day never mind have been chosen as the A-side to any single but I have recorded it and included it in the file for the completists out there.

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Roxanne Shante - Bite This

So, I'm back from my summer hols and ready for action, kind of. Here's a def slice of wax from '85 as requested in the c-box and it is Shante's best record I think. Marley Marl rocked the biggest beats around and that's exactly what I was looking for when I was a young 'un, still am now I guess. Do you remember when there was no regular hip hop played on the radio and you had to wait for the next Streetsounds release or maybe scrounge a tape off someone who was connected to someone else with a bit of cash who could afford US imports just to hear some new stuff? That was the only way you could get anything new and it was painful when you craved new music but it just wasn't quite reachable, especially when you had little or no money to hand. Then you heard a record like this and went wild? Yep, me too. '85 was a great year.

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