Dose 17...Hit Me With That Shit, One Time!

1)Hit Me With That by The Beatnuts

Juju, Fashion (aka Al' Tariq), and Psycho Les tear it up on this classic Beatnuts track. Though they never garnered the fame that many of their fellow Queens rappers (Nas, Rakim, Mobb Deep) did, The Beatnuts were always equally talented. Every track on Street Level (1994) is gangster-rap classic, including "Ya Don't Stop", "Are You Ready", "Get Funky", and "2-3 Break". A great deal of credit has to go to their production, which, on this album, is simply remarkable. Take "Hit Me With That" for example. The beat samples Monty Alexander (Love and Happiness), David Axlerod (Holy Thursday, obviously), Method Man (7th Chamber), features awesome scratching, and has some weird child sounds (I think he's saying "oh", "no", and "eh"). In saying that, their MC skills cant be overlooked either. Each of these guys has a unique flow (they're all slow, smooth, and jazzy) even though most of the lyrical content drips with narcissistic self-approbation. Anyways, this is the one album I'm going to be listening to A LOT this summer.

Street Level (1994)

2)Same Beat Live Freestyle (at WKCR FM) by Y Society feat. Breeze Evahflowin'


I've really got to thank my man Kev for hooking this one up. Homie's got an ear for the illest stuff out there right now.

So I knew very little about Damu and Insight (together, Y-Society) before hearing this EP. Last year (maybe a bit longer now), Y-Society's Travel At Your Own Pace (2007) was acclaimed by many as the best hip-hop album of the year. Damu's Pete-Rockesque productions and Insight's versatile flow led people to think that it was the reemergence of jazzy poetry-styled rap. As such, the album was generally seen as a renaissance of Golden-era hip hop.

On Same Beat EP (2009), Damu takes one beat ("This Advice" from TAYOP) and shows the flexibility of his production. One track features Damu's own vocal contribution, while another showcases Insight's studio talent. However, the track really worth focusing on is the Freestyle for WKCR...

and I thought the Jay-Z/Big L freestyle only had competition from Murda Mook/Jae Millz... oh my god!

Here Insight and Breez Evahflowin (never heard of him, have you?) go crazy. Insight takes the first verse, and though he maintains his flow, sounds a bit shaky as he concludes (You gotta go out and vote/ cuz that's what you should be doin'/ Understand that if you're whack, your life's ruined). The second round goes to Evahflowin', and he's off the hook ("Circulate the lines, like the surface of the vinyl"...fuck!). Not to be outdone, Insight comes back with a vengeance. He completely restructures his rhyme scheme, rapping at speeds that would leave Twista tongue-twisted (The "Syllable Suplex" verse is unreal) and flowing with a pulse that only Big L brought to the mic (They weak preformers when you see them rock live/ thinking sales mean skills?/ that's really not wise). By the end, Insight's style morphs into some incarnation of the RZA saying,"6 confused bio-physicists"?, but he still keeps it together.

Frankly, this is the best freestyling I've heard since the days of Big L. Rather than battling each other, it's almost as though Insight and Breeze are taking on the entire rap community...guess who wins?

Check the video: Here

Check out Kev's Post: Here

Same Beat EP (2009)