It’s a gloomy east coast Tuesday. The inbox and the desk are bloated, but it’s all good, mostly due to Ghostface Killah’s Apollo Kids on volume 10. We discovered some digital jewels that we wanted to share with our beloved readers:
Vintage Ghostface Killah ego trip Interview
If you ask any of HipHopDX’s editorial, one of our biggest inspirations is ego trip magazine. This dream-team of Hip Hop writers made a magazine (and two books) that gave us an Ivy League Hip Hop education. The way the guys covered the past and the past, the sub-genres of Hip Hop was simply by fanatics, for fanatics. With back-issues going on eBay for top dollar, we were ecstatic to discover that egotripland.com has launched. There’s some dope new content, but we highly encourage the vintage interviews. One we particularly wanted to share is Jeff “Chairman” Mao’s 1996 cover-story with Ghostface Killah. This is the type of shit that made us do what we do, and it’s so great to be able to share it.
Read “The Iron Man Cometh: Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah Unmasked” here.
DX has been known to bust guns – at the gun range, of course. While we join the Self-Destruction movement in still encouraging all to “stop the violence,” we love gun music. From “AZ’s Chillin’,” a Fizzy Womack beat made of gunshots to Waka Flocka Flame’s name origins to Smif-n-Wessun, it’s all great to us. With 50 Cent’s film Gun releasing to DVD, the Complex.com brethren paid homage to the Hip Hop gun metaphor. From “Me & My Girlfriend” to “I Gave You Power,” the trend is chronicled here.
Read “21 Gun Salute: 21 Hip-Hop Songs Dedicated To Guns” here.
Just-Ice once rapped about Hip Hop’s earliest days, “I know, I was there!” When it comes to Death Row Records’ earliest days, few there are talking about it. Suge Knight and Dr. Dre rarely do interviews, and Snoop Dogg rarely wants to revisit those days. Well, a new voice has emerged, Donnell Alexander. He is providing tidbits of information on those controversial Death Row years. We really are enjoying the entries, and this latest one talks about Suge Knight strong-arming Compton’s Most Wanted affiliate The Unknown DJ for the Death Row name, as well as the famous “don’t use my phone” incident that involves a gun, Kurupt’s early managers and a million dollar lawsuit.
Read “A Beverly Hills Debut” here.
Parting Shots:
Pardon the terrible quality of this video. This past weekend, the HipHopDX editorial staff was together, and “like we always do,” we reminisced about our favorite Rap memories. A conversation about BET’s Rap City made us re-live this 2000 Ghostface Killah interview gone terribly wrong. Many people forget how Ghost got confrontational with Big Tigger and threatened to “smack that grin off your face” on live television. Ah, those were the days.
The Chronic …is a good read…im here at work reading dudes blog 🙁 hahaha
I co-sign that blog. I read 1-15 on the Chronic. I remember some of the shit from old interviews like when Jerry Heller talked Eazy out of the hit on Suge.
On another note. I hella remember this episode of rap city! lol! That shit was fake as fuck tho. Just look at the bad acting between Cappadonna and Ghost. I wish it was in better quality.
check out Ghost’s blog tho. http://www.bigghostface.blogspot.com/
lmaaao Ghost sonned tigger on this shit. damn
i remember this interview..never liked tigger too much but they used to play real hip hop then atleast.
Damn, I was scared for Tigger. Ghost is not to be fucked with. I remember a similar situation that happened with Camp Lo and Joe Claire.
Yooooo, I remember that episode; I remember Rap City, The Basement,….period. Yeah Tigger getting sonned was classic BET material, it was live. Tigger was always testing a rapper’s gangster on that show. It finally backfired on him, BET is now all corporat, playing re-runs of black tv shows that had short runs.
damn i miss rap city the basement with big tigga! dj dice was the tour dj for meth and red last year
its a fuckin joke, hes re-doing a scene from good fellas, but still classic material