Re-Up: Half a Mill Freestyles

One MC who shows up on a lot of my old WYNU tapes is Half A Mill. I ripped a few of his freestyles from 1996 through 1999. There is one of them (Oct 96) where he rhymes for nearly 10 minutes without stopping. R.I.P. Half a Mill, one of BK's finest.


Half A Mil Freestyles (zip)
*includes Half a Mill Freestyles From WNYU 1996-1999




 

AK Skills

AK Skills, Far Rock Queens, in yo area! One of my favorite under the radar MCs from the mid 90's. His flow and his energy sucked you in, and then he had you laughing with the one liners. The two 12's he put out on Tru Criminal in 1996 are classics for me, you can't go wrong with some D.I.T.C. production.






From what I've heard, Ak Skills had to step away from the mic after being incarcerated.
Wherever he's at now, let's hope he's doing well and keeping his AK Skills sharp.

I'm sure you can find all of his 12"s all over the blogsphere, but as usual here at DW we gotta hit you with the exclusy freestolas. I managed to dig up five freestyles from WNYU, WKCR, and Hot 97. Enjoy...


AK Skills Freestyles

Stretch & Bobbito Hot 97 January 1996
(over Mobb Deep 'Extortion' instrumental)

New York Live WNYU May 1996
(over Heltah Skeltah's 'Operation Lockdown' instrumental)

Stretch & Bobbito WKCR December 1996
(over some beat I forget, anyone? Mobb Deep?)

New York Live December 1996
(over Frankenstein's 'Pain is Gone' instrumental)

Stretch & Bobbito Hot 97 May 1996
(over Saukrates' 'Father Time' Instrumental)

Mr Complex

Readers of this blog are
probably familiar with Mr Complex, who got his start with Organized Konfusion as part of the Organismz. He was also a part of the Polyrhythm Addicts, and he went on to do plenty of solo material. He's one of many artists who got a lot of exposure working the radio circuit, and here I have a few WKCR/WNYU freestyles from the late 90's, and some of his early 12"s. He definitely has a distinctive style, you have to pay attention to what he says, you may even have to play his shit a few times before you catch everything. You can get everything below in the zip or or peep them individually...

Freestyles-

Live WNYU April 1997
Live WNYU April 1998 (with Apani B Fly)
Live WNYU
Live WKCR CM Fam show (with J-Live)
Live WKCR

12"s-



A lot of people probably first heard about Complex on 'Visualize' produced by Spinna, but this is Mr Complex's first solo release in 1995 on Core records. My favorite track on here of the three is 'Feel me'













I caught these next two 12"s recently in the dollar bins, don't sleep on Complex . This joint is called 'Imakillit', from 1999.













This one is from 2000 called
'Do it Up' on Blindside records

Skillz

Mad Skillz has just that, mad skills. He's the notorious ghostwriter with

the clever punchlines and rhymes 'tighter than 5 virgins in a Volkswagon'. Nowadays he calls himself Skillz saying 'he's not mad anymore', but he's still putting out good music on okayplayer as well as doing his end of the year rap ups, where he reviews the year's events and music. His first LP 'From Where' on Big Beat was kind of disappointing to me (aside from a few joints). Lyrically he was on point, but I thought he should have been given (or chose) better beats. If you heard him live on Stretch & Bobbito back in the day, you knew dude was definitely talented from jump. I think I have all of his radio appearances from Stretch & Bobbito's show here, from 1994-1996, if I'm missing any
feel free to add them in the comments.



Mad Skillz live on Stretch & Bobbito...

April 1994 (ripped from the Freestyle Frenzy record) Live on Stretch & Bobbito with Q-Tip. The first half was released on the B-Side of the 'Nod factor ' 12" (the part on the 45 king beat). Here you get the full 10 minutes with Q-Tip.

October 1994 (also ripped from a Freestyle Frenzy record) here he rocks over the Beatnuts 'Get Funky Remix' instrumental and The Cella Dwellas 'Land of the Lost'.

July 1995 (bigup to Apani for noting the year) Here he is with the Supafriendz (Lonnie B & Danja Mowf) freestyling over Guru's 'Respect The Architect' instrumental.

Sometime in 1995?? (ripped from cassette I don't have date on) Here he is over Channel Live's 'Mad Izm remix' instrumental.

January 1996 Mad Skillz with the Supafriendz and Crash Course freestyling over Camp Lo's 'Swing' and Godfather Don's 'Properties of the Steel' instrumental.









*Bonus- Check this Supafriendz joint from 1996 called 'Vowel Movement' and the B-side 'Questions' from Danja Mowf.











*Bonus- All of the Skillz Rap Ups from 2002-2007

Waterpoof MC

I've been hitting you with nuff Jersey records
so here is some west coast hip hop to even things out
a few things from a semi slept on Rass Kass.

I've been digitizing a lot of stuff from my old tapes and posting as I go along. Hopefully the sound quality on everything is decent, I try to make it as good as I can. Since this is a blog dedictaed to old radio shows, unreleased tracks, hip hop mixes, etc., I put together a little bit of all of that in a compilation, a grip of stuff I had from Rass Kass.

'Soul on Ice' Diamond D remix
one of my all time favorite hip hop tracks.






Rass Kass live
on the Stretch & Bobbito show in 1996,
around the time the 12" came out...

'Walk the walk'
a demo that didn't make it to the Soul on ice LP.
The sound drops out for a second, and the quality isnt all that great
but it's still a nice unreleased treat from him

Another radio appearance,

live on the Halftime show in 1998,
right before his 'H20 Waterproof MC' 12" came out. He talks a little about the Golden State Warriors LP which was never released...


Freestyles from Hot 97 XL Show
over some Wild Style beats...

Then you got
another Ras Kass appearance on Halftime
this time with Kurupt and Jay-O-Felony
from around 2000

You can grab all these joints and freestyles
along with Soul on Ice LP and Instrumental versions in the zip above.

I was going to put a few more things on but I kept it short at 30 minutes.

For those interested

you can check an interview with Rass Kass from 1996 on Press Rewind,
along with a bunch of other old magazine interviews and articles they have on the page.