Strict Flow - "Move!"

Here's a little Pittsburgh Hip-Hop.

Barbara Mason - "Another Man"

Most people remember Barbara Mason for her 60s hit "I'm Ready." In the 80s however her songs took a slightly more risque approach, as you can hear in this record. A great record from the original West End's last days. Oh -- and it features one of my favorite drum machines, the Drumulator.

Funky 4 + 1 - "That's The Joint"

A little more Sugar Hill oriented flavor, 1980's "That's The Joint."

Sylvia Robinson - "Sunday"

Before starting Sugar Hill Records with her husband, Sylvia Robinson had some minor success as a singer in her own right. Her most notable (only?) single was "Pillow Talk," however anyone who has listened to Moby's second album may recognize this tune as well.

Haroon Al-Qahtani Presents: The Kraftwerk Über Mix

A 41 minute mix of songs from the most influential group of musicians in modern music, Germany's Kraftwerk (literally, power station). Their contributions laid the foundations for modern dance, pop, and hip-hop. While electronic instruments were used in music before the emergence of Düsseldorf's synthesized quartet, Kraftwerk mixed it with pop and rock sensibilities, making the niche genre easily accessible by the mainstream. The group was not without their eccentricities. Nearly 40 years after their debut album little is actually known about the group and visitors to their secretive Kling Klag studios are rarely welcomed.

Kraftwerk's philosophy of man versus machine in the creation of music would later be cited by Techno father Derrick May as an inspiration, and certainly affected the sound of Hip-Hop. Most notably "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" formed the basis of "Planet Rock;" "The Man Machine" has been sampled numerous times, from the Fearless 4 to MC Lyte, to Jay-Z.

It should also be noted that Kraftwerk's songs often contained subtle social messages as evidenced in "The Robots," "Radioactivity," "Computer World," and many others.

Tracklist:

1) Hello

2) Music Non Stop

3) Trans Europe Express

4) Boing Boom Tschak

5) The Robots

6) It's More Fun To Compute

7) Home Computer

8) Numbers

9) The Model

10) Computer World

11) Interlude

12) Showroom Dummies

13) Tour De France

14) Sex Object

15) Computer Love

16) Goodbye

Some very important tracks have been omitted such as "Radioactivity," "Autobahn," and "Man Machine" -- just to name a few. Listen here.

The McCoys - "Hang On Sloopy" Hip-Pocket Disc

A Hip-Pocket release of the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy." Read more about Hip-Pocket (or Pocket-Discs) here. Sampled by De La Soul for "My Brother's a Basshead."

Before cassette tapes were commonplace this was Philco / Ford's answer to portability: flexible discs that could be shoved into one's pocket. A miniature portable player was even designed for them. Some discs could actually be bought from vending machines at stores such as Woolworth.

They are very similar to the film-like records one would find in magazines through the 60s and 80s; they also wear out just as fast, as you might imagine. Download both the A and B side of this disc here. The B-Side is a nearly identical sounding rendition of "Fever." Some YouTube fun is below.

Hansoul - "Imagination"

I first heard this song on a Coca-Cola music sampler in 1991. You'd send in some UPC codes and then you'd receive this cassette sampler in the mail. Naturally, I chose the 'rap' one.' Some cool stuff was on it like Shabba's "Trailer Load of Girls," but Hansoul's "Imagination" was probably my favorite track. I never heard of the dude before this tape, and well -- never heard of him after either. What stuck out in my mind at the time was the lo-fi sample. I had no idea why it was like that then, just that I liked it.

Years later I'm speculating about what sampler was used on this track. I'm fairly certain the drums are the Casio RZ-1's layered over the "Impeach the President" drums sampled into the RZ. Why am I pretty sure? Well, they sound like something the RZ would produce, but on top of that -- if the RZ is connected in stereo mode it pans each sample channel to the left and right, just like on this track. As for the main loop -- it is too gritty to be an SP; it sounds 8-bit. I'd say it was the RZ-1 as well but the RZ has a maximum sampling time of 0.8 seconds -- so I doubt it. However, there was a rare extended version of the RZ with something like 4 seconds of sampling time and additional built in kits; some third party would do the mod for you . . .

The other possibility is that they used a keyboard like the Yamaha VSS-30. There's no production credits on the tape, but some Googling reveals that it's probably Randy (DJ Ran) Gaskins from Philly so time to track him down and ask him these highly important questions.

Here it is, Hansoul's "Imagination;" I believe it is what the 12" labels as the "Philly Cheeseteak Mix." There's another mix (embedding was disabled, sorry) with a more club feel, but I'm not really fond of it.