Monday, December 22, 2008

Mr. Revolutionary

For my 2nd day of Town Bizness week I found a old song from 22nd Precinct called "Mr. Revolutionary". 22nd Precinct was a 3 group with rappers Samson S and Southpaw with DJ Swift on the wheels. Samson S goes in on Trustafarian rappers over the Lonnie Smith drums and some strings. Nothing screams early 90's more than that break. Samson was actually a dope producer and was sampling the soul records even back in 93.

I've known Samson since the mid 90's and he's one of the people in my circle whose opinion I actually value. Dude is a music fiend like nobody else I know. He is one of the most blunt, direct people I've ever met. I would play stuff for him back in the day and he would give the constructive criticism I needed to get better. For instance early on when I was making beats I had a good feel for doing drums and putting samples on them but that was IT. I had no sense of harmony and really wasn't even thinking of it for the most part. I couldn't even play a basic bassline. Instead of bullshittin me, Samfry would let me know how underdeveloped my music was and eventually I improved upon my weaknesses. When I gave him a copy of WVM, I figured I had done a pretty good job because he genuinely liked it.

Somebody needs to get my dude a cpu and some internet access because he was one of the more entertaining posters on a message board in history! Check his column in the now defunct Tablet magazine for some of his writing.

More Town Bizness

So I know I'm the most laziest blogger out there but this paralyzing snow storm in Seattle has forced me to rip some more treats for you guys. Going to try and put something up each day this week to get in the routine of "blogging".

1st up is a song that I don't believe was ever released. Its a song H Bomb did with Supreme in 92 or 93 called "You Don't Stop" I believe. Both of these dudes were important to me early on in my aspiring beat making days.

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H Bomb and Topspin aka Sinsimilla

H Bomb is the first dude I ever made a beat with and the first guy I know to actually go to the mythical "studio" and record his own song. He moved to Seattle from Boston in 91 and ended up on my street. We met riding the 48 to Garfield our Freshman year and became friends. He was definitely on the East Coast rap heavy so he would put me onto stuff like Brand Nubian and Ultramagnetic and I would put him on with MC Pooh and other random West Coast tapes I had at the time. (At the time I wasn't feeling that trade! lol) Eventually H Bomb became known on the local rap scene and everybody started wanting to work with him. He was part of a group called Sinsimilla with Topspin and Infinite that was really dope and he also did guest spots on a lot of people's stuff including Born Supreme, who was known for being the master crate digger in the city.

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Born Supreme getting awards from our punk ass mayor.

H Bomb did this song with Preme before I had actually met Preme. I ended up linking up with him a couple years later. First time I actually saw Preme was at Bop Street though. I was probably looking for some fender rhodes samples or something at the time. I was walking up to the store and I saw a mexican dude roll up in a red Blazer with some Daytons on it. I figured he had to be somebody doing beats or djing but I thought he was El Mafioso who was a rapper Nes used to play on KCMU back then. Eventually I ended up meeting Preme at Music Menu thru my old school homie Amilcar who worked there. Amilcar played some of my beats for him one day and Preme liked em. Eventually Preme took me under his wing and taught me about records and put out my first songs on Conception Records, which some of you guys might have heard of. When I met Preme I wasn't even thinking about putting out records or anything like that. I just wanted to do some songs and maybe get my beat played on KCMU's local music spotlight. H Bomb and I used to think it would be big to get your song played on KCMU. That was success back then.

This song is still pretty dope to me. I love the way Born put the 9th Creation in there with the Bob James. Some genuine SP1200 shit at its finest. Hussein just had his own way of rhyming that I always fucked with. He was a town phenom for a minute there. Everybody wanted him on their tape.