TAPE 1, side A – Up to 1990 National fucking anthem…MC MELLO Our Time (album “Thoughts released”)Republic 90 DADDY FREDDY & ASHER D Brutality 12”Music of life 88 HIJACK Style wars 12”Music of life 88 STEREO MC’s On the mike (SUBSONIC REMIX) 12”Gee St 89 BLADE Lyrical maniac 12”Raw Bass 89 OVERLORD X 14 days in May 12”Hardcore 88 MC BUZZ B How sleep the brave 12”Playhard 89 MC MELLO Comin’ correct 12”Republic 89 RICHIE RICH feat RUMBLE I can make you dance (album – title cut)Gee St 89 MC TUNES Back to attack (rare white)Hit Quad 87 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 B Boys B wise (off Monsoon 12”)2 the bone 89 THE SINDECUT Demanding cycle of a word bound hammerhead 12”Virgin 90 HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” INSTRUMENTAL off import copyUS Epic 88 TAPE 1 side B – Up to 1990 HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” US/UK Epic 88 MC BUZZ B The sequel 12”Playhard 89 MC DUKE Miracles 12”Music of life 88 STEREO MC’s Lyrical machine INSTRUMENTAL off 12”Gee St 89 HARDNOISE Untitled 12”Music of life 90 OUTLAW POSSE Original dope 12”Gee St 89MC MARTEY & DJ DBM Beyond control 12”Gti Records 89 HIJACK present HUNTKILLBURY FINN, SHAKKA SHAZAM and The ICEPICK The burial proceedings in the coarse of three knights 12”Music of life 90 COOKIE CREW Born this way US 12” (rare US PRINCE PAUL REMIX) US Polygram 88 HIJACK Hold no hostage (released on Music of life and also on Ice T’s US Rhyme Sindecate) 88 HIJACK Doomsday of rap(released on Music of life and also on Ice T’s US Rhyme Sindecate) 88 2 THE TOP The matter at hand (b side of “Score to settle” 12”)President 90 MERLIN Bust da move (off Drop the weapon EP)Rhythm king 89 SILVER BULLET 20 seconds to comply 12”Tam Tam 89 BLADE Forward (off “Mind of an ordinary citizen” 12”)691 influential 90 SHE ROCKERS On stage 12 (backspun instrumentals)Jive 88 TAPE 2, side A – 1990-1992 RUTHLESS RAP ASSASSINS Justice (Just Us) THE MASE REMIX 12”Emi 91 FRESH SI & MO ROCK A day of reckoning – off “The long awaited paraxysm ep”Conscious 91 11:59 In the shadows (off “Killing time” ep)Hum 91 KILLA INSTINCT Un-united kingdom (off Den of thieves 12”)Music of life 92 MC MELLO Firm stance (off “Mello gone crazy” ltd promo)Funki dred 92 DEMON BOYZ Glimmity glammity (off 12” and 2nd LP)Tribal bass 92 HIGH AUTHORITY I’m the man 12”Optimism 91 BRAINTAX Talk about the future (off “Fathead” EP)Low life 92 COOKIE CREW Secrets (of success) 12” COOKS MIXFFRR 91 BUSHKILLER Bushkiller draw (flip of “92 Salute” 12”)Danger 92 BLADE Rough it up EP691 Influential 91 HARDNOISE Serve tea then murder 12”Music of life 91 AKAPEL Pick it up EPPhlange 92 DEF TEX Bird land (Off “tutorial sessions” EP”)Soundclash 92 KRISPY 3 Destroy all the stereotypes 12”K3 91 TAPE 2 side B – 1990-1992 REBEL MC Black meaning good – Slavery mix 12”Desire 91 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Rippin up the industry Part 2 (off 12”)Mango 91 SUBSONIC 2 Unsung heroes of hip hop 12”Unity 91 JC001 & D-ZIRE Sea of MC’s 12”Anxious 92 POINTS PROVEN feat FLY On the mic (off “only fools & horses” EP)Payday 92 CAVEMAN Cool – cos I don’t get upset REMIX (off “Victory” EP)Profile 91 SINDECUT Wisdom (b side of “Tell me why” & on album)Virgin 90 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Sign of the beast ltd REMIX 12” (whoops)Mango 91 CAVEMAN I’m ready 12”Profile 91 KRISPY 3 Don’t be misled EPK3 92 KATCH 22 Biting the hands that feeds (off “Return to the fundamentals”ep) Kold Sweat 92 OUTLAW Sons of the devil (the principles re-buriel) promo ltd 12”Promo 91 The BROTHERHOOD Just a manifester (off debut EP)Bite it 91 SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single)Little rascal 12” FIXED PENALTY All of us (off “The EP” !!)Fpt 91 SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single) – instrumental. Little rascal 12” TAPE 3, side A – 1993-1995 MC MELLO Mello gone crazy 12”Funki dred 92 MINDBOMB Stop ya skemes(off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Bomb diffusal (off EP)Kold Sweat 93 KRISPY 3 Bubble gum 12” (and on album “Can’t melt the wax”)Kold Sweat 94 LONDON POSSE How’s life in London 12”Bullet 93 3:6 PHILLY Those flags offend me 12”Zoom 93 LORDS OF RAP Where does the xtra 3 quid go? (off “Stix n stones” EP)Madd dog 94 SCARY EIRE Dole Q 12”Eleven 95 K.I.D. Fatal attraction (off shared double 12” pack with BENJI)Kold Sweat 95 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Hard times (off “This is war” EP)Copasetic 93 KOOL DJ MAXI JAZZ I got the blues (off rare EP)Chaiya 94 MC Ni Sit back relax 12”IQ Reecords 94 GUTTERSYNPES Who fell (off “trials of life” EP)Liberty grooves 94 MINDBOMB The Mindbomb (12” & off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 TAPE 3 side B – 1993-1995 BLADE Bedroom demo (off “The lion goes from strength to strength” LP) 691 influential 93 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Interception (lp“Attack of the wildstyle beatfreaks”Ruf label 95 HEARTS OF DARKNESS A taste of venom 12”The Ruf 94 GUNSHOT Colourcode 12”Vinyl Solution 94 MINDBOMB Expletives deleted (off “Chameleon vibes” ep)The Ruf Label 95 TRANSCRIPT CARRIERS Diggsat (off “The haemorrhoid fry up” ep)Undivided 93 The PRINCIPLE feat SILENT ECLIPSE The damned EPBlueprint 94 499 – 499 is here EPProfile 95 BUSHKILLER Music in motiom (off “Trouble makers”EP)Danger 94 KILLA INSTINCT Thieves rush in where th efools lay dead 12”European 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Put em up (off “It ain’t clever” ep)Kold Sweat 93 BLADE Clear the way 12” (ltd 12 with pre ordered lp’s!)691 influential 93 FIRST DOWN Let the battle begin (off EP)Ill gotten gains 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Nah, nope it’s dope 12”The Ruf Label 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE The bomb drops (off “seconds to detonation”ep) The Ruf Label 95 TAPE 4, side A – 1993-1995 ( a few 96 jams too) HEARTS OF DARKNESS What you waited for 12”The Ruf Label 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Disappoint me (off “It ain’t clever” double 12” ep)Kold sweat 93 M C MELLO Radics delight (off “The first chronicles of dett” ep)Natural response 94 HIDDEN IDENTITY Return of the red eye (off “blunted bumpkin buskers” EP) Pure rudeness 94 LONDON POSSE Pass the rizla (off Various Artsists “British underground” EP)XL 94 KATCH 22 Lifestyles of the poor & ruffneck (lp “Dark tales from two cities”)Kold Sweat 93 GUNSHOT Social psychotic Double 12”Vinyl Solution 93 BLADE Planned and executed MINI LP691 influential 95 KRISPY 3 On tempo 94 Lick REMIXKold Sweat 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Scream – boomsday of rap (off lp/cd “Attack of the..”) The Ruf Label 95 DJ KRASH SLAUGHTA Always remain hardcore EPX Records 95? LEE CURITS CONNECTION Hip Journey EPBlindside 95 BROTHERHOOD One shot 96 REMIX 12”Bite it 96 LEWIS PARKER Visions of splendour (b side of “Rise” 12”Bite it 96 NUMSKULLZ Signs of the end – Instrumental 12”Hombre 97 TAPE 4 side B – 1996-1998 NUMSKULLZ Trouble on my mind (debut off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp/cd) The Ruf Label 96 MINDBOMB Man’s life (off “Trippin thru the minefield Volume 2”lp/cd)The Ruf Label 96 The CREATORS feat Marga Marl J – Weird old world (off “Masterplan” ep) Blindside 96 PARLOUR TALK Colouring 12”Acid Jazz 97 UNANIMOUS Freshest on the mic REMIX (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Hip hop love (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp in 96 and re-released in 2000 on the “Thermonuclear Soundwars” EP & budget priced CD. The Ruf Label / Ruf Beats SKITZ & ROOTS MANUVA Blessed be thy manner 12”Ronin 96 MUD FAMILY Mud files EPRonin 97 MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Westwood is a twat 2x12” + on RD Vol 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 KILLA INSTINCT And now the screaming starts (off “escapism” EP)German Move 95 MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Stop your skemes SCRATCH REMIX 2x12” The Ruf Label 96 SOLID ROX The struggler 12”Black plastic 98 GUNSHOT Return of the gunshot (off “Twilight’s last gleaming” lp/cd)Words of warning 97 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE 4 the ho’s (“Return of the wildstyle”ep) The Ruf Label 97+cd 98 TAPE 5, side A – 1996-1998 THE HERBALISER feat FABIAN Mr DJ 12”and on lp/cdNinja Tune 96 NUMSKULLZ Nothing but the music (b side of “Enough of that” 12”)High noon 96 RODNEY P Tour stories (off “Tings in time “ep)Pussyfoor 97 DECKWRECKA Wrekin biz (London) EPRonin 97 The ICEPICK & DJ SUPREME Phenomenal criminal 12” (Backbone 97, re-issued Ruf Beats 99) BRAINTAX Deal with it (off “Future Years” EP)Low life 97 KRISPY Listen up REMIX (off Various Artists “Ruf Diamonds Vol 2 “lp/cd)Ruf Beats 98 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Cosmic symphony (off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 Also into off Summer in space off same lp/12” mixed over next record. Both tracks were also released on the US Bomb Hip Hop anthology JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE “Technics Chainsaw Massacre” 99 3xLP / 2xCd set. The first British act to get to No 1 on a US radio chart! ROOT S MANUVA Fever (his own solo debut – rare 12”)Armshouse 98 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Childs play(off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 LEWIS PARKER Songs of the desert (off “Masquerades & silhouettes” mini lp) Melankolic 98 NUMSKULLZ DifferenceHombre 97 HERBALISER Wall crunching giant insect breaks 12”Ninja Tune 98 TAPE 5 side B – 1998-2001 SKITZ feat ROOTS MANUVA / PHI LIFE CYPHER / SKELETON & TONY VEGAS Fingerprints of the Gods 12”Ronin 98 NUMSKULLZ Something worth listening to (off “The unexpected”epHombre 98 MINDBOMB Deconstruction of a falling star (off “Great British Beef” lp/cd) Ruf Beats 98 MARK B & BLADE Insight magnificent (off “Hitmen for hire” 2x12” set) Jazz fudge 98 MARK B & THE MUD FAMILY No time like the present (off 2The half of it” ep K Boro 98 LOST ISLAND What I like 12”Son 99 BEANZ presents ASPECTS Indecent exposure 12”Hombre mapache 99 DJ LIFE Zee plan (off “Some music” ep)Chop chop 98 The MEN FROM ATLANTIS Heavy water 12”Hombre 2000 MINDBOMB Ruf Beats (lead single off “Great British Beef” lp/cd)Ruf Beats 98 PARLOUR TALK Vacation 12” (off “Padlocked tonic” lp/cd)Acid Jazz 99 MAD DOCTOR X feat BLACK TWANG etc DJ’s & MC’s Son 99 DJ FORMAT English lesson 12”US Bomb hip hop 99 TAPE 6, side A – 1998-2001 THE HERBALISER feat BLADE Whose the realest (off “8 point agenda” 12”Ninja Tune 99 LEFTFIELD feat ROOTS MANUVA Dusted 12” (off “Stealth” lp/cd)Hard hands 99 K DELIGHT How many DJ’s (off “Controlling the hip hop” EP)Ruf Beats 99 The ICEPICK Dungeon Funk 12” (also on Various “Thermonuclear Soundwars” CD) Ruf Beats 99 TASKFORCE feat SKINNYMAN its on you (off “New mic order” EP)K Boro 99 MARK B & BLADE Nobody relates 12”Jazz fudge 98 THE NEXTMEN feat TY Turn it up a little 12”Scenario 2000 TOMMY EVANS Desert Island Discs (off “Time capsule” EP)YnR 2000 RONI SIZE REPRAZENT Dirty beats (DJ SKITZ REMIX 12”)Talking loud 2000 MC MELLO Hedz don’t know 12”Jazz fudge 99 NUMKULLZ Ad infinitum 12” (title of album but not on lp/cd)Hombre 2000 BRAINTAX Go there (off “The travel show” EP)Low Life 99 DEF TEX Obscure journey (b side of “Synchronise” 12”)Son 2001 JEEP BEAT EXPERIENCE Another bomb beat (off “Thermonuclear” 12” ep) Ruf Beats 99 TAPE 6 side B – 1998-2001 MARK B & BLADE ya don’t see the signs PHI LIFE CYPHET REMIX Jazz fudge 2001 DJ FINGERS May tricks (off Ep & lp “Robots Rebeliion”)Syndicate 2000 LEWIS PARKER Sunflight (off ltd dj promo “The options” ep)Melankolic 2000 TASKFORCE Intro (off “Voice of the great outdoors” ep)Low Life 2000 DEF TEX Poetic speech techniques 12” (and on the lp/cd)Son 2001 UNDIVIDED ATTENTION In a change to the scheduled programming 12” UA 2000 ROOTS MANUVA Witness the fitness 12” (off “Run come save me” lp/cd) Big Dada 2001 FINGATHING Head to head (off “2 player” ep)Grand central 2000 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Northern rock (off “4 wheel drive” ep & lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 DOYEN & COCKA Cock deezal EPSFDB 2001 K DELIGHT Ignorant mc’s (off “1 man big band” ep) Ruf Beats 2001 RODNEY P Big tings we inna 12”Riddim killa 2001 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Devil music (off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd)Ruf Beats 2001 GUNSHOT featuring BLADE, MC MELLO, ICEPICK, TASK FORCE, HUNT KILL BURY FINN & BEANZ Th eenglish patient (off “International rescue” cd) Words of warning ASPECTS We get fowl 12” (off “Correct English” lp/cd)Homre 2001 BRAINTAX feat TASKFORCE 3 Amigo’s (unreleased to date !)Low Life 2001 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Playing with the big boys – last verse off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 ROOTS MANUVA Join the dots instrumental 12”Big Dada 2001 Mixed live by Dave THE RUF March 2002. For more info… Mail order call/fax RUF BEATS on 01606 47327 The Ruf introduction “What is the problem with UK rap”, “Why does British hip hop never blow up”, “Why do the few acts that get signed to majors quickly end up on the scrap heap” or worst still “UK hip hop – it’s a load of bollocks” – anyone involved in hip hop over here has heard it all before. For years it perplexed me why all these journalists and people seemed obsessed with talking about it, rather than doing anything about it. Then it struck me – that was the problem, too many people who didn’t have the talent were doing all the talking, rather than doing anything positive about it. So that was all I was going to do then, try and do something about it. Not talk, just do. This was going to be simple… Sod the prejudices of being white, from a grammar school, kind of awkward looking, not even from America, not even from London, not even from Manchester but from Altrincham? Looking back I was so naive, but that became a bizarre strength when mixed up with passion, a little intelligent madness and the attitude of a “rough mouth” (as my deputy head Roy Coleman (r.i.p) called me whenever I was sent before him). I just didn’t care back then, I thought I could be whatever I wanted to be, a blissful idea passed on from my loving mother… as long as I wasn’t going to be a journalist. After all, the duodenal ulcer I’d remarkably developed as a 14 year old, would not suit a writer’s lifestyle what with all those frustrated creative emotions. So after quickly retiring from the nine to five office life grind, I soon found myself on the dole, then with two record shops, then with one, then with none, then on pirate radio, dj’ing in clubs, soon to be making and releasing records and all the associated nonsense business activities. However I had arrived after the second UK hip hop attack had failed miserably with the demise of Music of life, Brit Core, and the evergreen (well its sleeves were anyway) Kold Sweat. What the hell was I thinking? Like Blade says “its great to be a lunatic. It is great being a loony!” Since 1993 somehow I’ve managed to remain out of control of the label to such a degree that I’ve spawned and released more records as an artist than anyone else in the UK (unless you can prove otherwise pal). On many occasions during 93 up to as recently as 99 I’ve told people my plans and they’ve looked at me as if I had a miniature resurrected 2 Pac trying to climb out of my nostril. I knew it was always going to be hard but if I’d known just how hard it was going to be, it is probably true that even I, Dave THE RUF would have thought “fuck that” although I doubt I would have started making UK Garage. Finally though, our music is starting to be judged on its own merits. With dedicated label owners and artists taking matters into their own hands, we have the chance to join together to build a scene like we have never had before. Numerous websites, e mails, mobiles, text messages, jams, occurrences are going off on the daily, as everyone tries to elevate their game to the next level, to be the next Roots Manuva, the next Black Twang, the next Mark B & Blade, the next Aspects. Whether they’ll reach that goal or not and whether that goal was just a mirage in the first place, will become apparent, but if this 6 pack achieves anything it should be to show you how staggering differences in finances, equipment, musical tastes, labels, location and attitude have helped to make one of the most diverse hip hop scenes in the world. Kids in our big towns now often have something, somewhere locally happening, that is if they can be bothered to get off their fat arses and find it. Years ago this wasn’t the case so let me tell you all a little story. A little Ruf history In the early 80’s Hip Hop from the UK’s view, was more a general part of dance music until the regular Electro / Hip Hop albums started and big albums dropped by Mantronix, Just Ice, Schooly D, Beastie Boys, Run Dmc, LL Cool J, Eric B & Rakim, MC Shan, Public Enemy etc. I was lucky to have grown up in a culturally naff (and firmly Tory) area of Manchester called Altrincham, although “town” was 9 miles away, as kids we rarely ventured there, unless on a shopping trip getting dragged round the shiny shops. Luckily for me my mate Jay was not only in one of Manchester’s earliest groups (Mind over matter) but had a great record & tape collection, which he shared via grimy ghetto blaster (hardly the ghetto but never mind!) at the top of the field where the smokers used to gather in breaks at school. So it was here I heard all the crazy sounds above and more like 2 Live Crew, Skinny Boys, Doug E Fresh, Melle Mel. It was so different and raw and I was hooked, banging up the volume on “My Uzi weighs a ton” whilst my Dad complained about “that darkie racket”. I’d absorb every little snatch of TV I could, staying up late for The Old Grey Whistle test, checking music shows in the hope some hip hop would be on, even all the cringe worthy stuff, Cutmaster Swift on Terry Wogan, and even The Tube (what were those Cowboys doing dancing to Mantronix like that?). I taped religiously Stu Allen’s 3 hour show “Souled Out” on Key 103, a big mix of soul, hip hop & house later to be put into separate sections and renamed “Bus Diss”. Stu was our Mike Allen (Mike could be a bit cheesy, but played some dope import records on Capitol in London), and he was the first radio dj I heard playing rap made over here. He had no preconceptions, he’d play tape demo’s from Ruthless Rap Assassins, Prince Cool, MC D, Grand Groove, MC Buzz B, MC Martey etc it looked like it was true, it wasn’t where you were from it was where you were at. However every town has its own little squabbles and because Stu Allen was heavily backed by a record shop called Spin Inn, who supplied him with all the US Imports, there tended to be little promotion of the other main local hip hop shop’s activities over at Afflecks Palace where the Goths & punks mixed readily with capped hip hop kids and early ravers. The rival shop was Eastern Bloc, who had got together four groups working under a joint umbrella name “The Hit Squad” which included my mate Jays group Mind Over Matter alongside Force Five (4 mc’s rhyming at the same time!), MC Tunes (with Geds on the scratches or A Guy Called Gerald as he would later be known), Spinmasters (whose 2 dj’s went on to be a part of 808 State & host their own mad dance show). Manchester writer John McCready did an excellent breakdown of the local scene, but unsurprisingly it just concentrated on the groups around Spinn Inn. So straight away I realised that politics played a part in this - trendy kids went to Spinn Inn where they’d cram at the counter hoping to be served by sarcastic Kenny (or some other moody, smug git), hoping to get something played just for them, or to pay £9 for some great dirty bootleg, or perhaps buy bugger all and just see what was out, or stare at Mrs Ice T’s bum on a record cover – “what’s she doing with a piece of string up her arse?” (G Strings were not commonplace in 1988). I hardly ever had any cash to spend but when I did I’d just get ignored, but I wasn’t alone. It was one of those snobby, pretentious shops where you got the feeling they were doing you a favour selling you the records. So I thought “fuck them”, they don’t want my paper round money then I’ll fuck off to Afflecks and mingle with the strange looking people mixed next to capped youths - weighing up the merits of buying Stetsasonic’s 2nd album (cover – blue sky, scary tracksuits) or BDP (cover – Malcolm X pose with gun, in scary tracksuit with BDP on). Eastern Bloc was strange, at the time it was more of a gathering place, but then again, it had to be as they were only capable of serving one customer every half an hour. Big queues, tons of fresh imports, little attitude and Martin & Graham had their Hit Squad set up, with my mate Jay in. My first UK hip hop gig was seeing all 4 crews in the Hit Squad playing at the legendary Boardwalk, which, at the time only held 200 downstairs and was a really grimy venue. It was mad – I was 15 and sneaked in with my mate Steve, the air smelt funny, the place was seedy as fuck but playing tunes like BIG DADDY KANE Raw (awesome), FROZEN EXPLOSION Babs (psychedelic), RHYTHM RADICALS Dig the move (hard PE tribute), it was crazy. All 4 groups did their very different sets, all were “local” but otherwise varied in sex (well there was only one bird rhyming but this was 88), colour, style & swagger. The jam ended late, very late, my Mum said we would “have to talk” in the morning, I didn’t care, it had been worth every minute. In the mean time huge amounts of records were being sold in the US, which translated to here. Morgan Khan’s electro series helped serve up affordable compilations to school kids with its heavily edited 40 tracks on one album (and they still had the nerve to put “fully extended mixes” on the sleeve, why? Cos the dj used the 7 minute original and then played the second fucking verse!!) he even put early stars Faze One on who then managed to drop UK raps first artist album. He even masterminded UK Fresh 97, a ground breaking event at Wembley Arena where the Streetsound label’s supporters gathered to see Flash, DJ Cheese, Bam, Lovebug Starski, World Class Wreckin Crew (with Dr Dre in shiny “suit you sir”!) Mantronix, Just Ice and who could forget The Real Roxanne. DJ’s Max and Dave made a tune with Afrika Bambaataa as Hardrock solid soul movement. Derek B started to persistently trouble the charts with his fly red and black tracky and (one small) gold chain, ultimately representing at Wembley with Salt N Pepa & the Fat Boys at the Free Nelson Mandela concert (with fashion and women like that no wonder the fucker stayed inside for a while). In the summer of 1988 everyone seemed to love or hate hip hop, there was no middle ground. In the meantime I was absorbing as much as possible whilst spending as little cash as possible. I went through 100’s of cheap cassette’s, videoing anything half decent (once Dad had got rid of the embarrassing Beta Max) and went to whatever gigs I was allowed to plus a few I wasn’t and generally started growing up. Out went the Commodore 64 and my 186 bootlegged games and 31 originals (10 of them out of a £2.99 budget range). Somehow I managed to buy a great big bollocking “disco console”, doing a deal to swap my big bedroom with my big brother, who took it over only to deny me access through it to go to the loft, which was where my glittery monstrosity awaited my sweaty paws. Trying to mix on these bin lids wasn’t easy but I did pull off some amazingly mediocre blends. Out went the disco console, in came a guitar amp (with dirty reverb for that essential Schooly D hard, recorded-in-a-metal-room-type-vibe) and a Roland 505 drum machine & a mike. I had been writing songs, poems & rhymes for some years but suddenly everything started to click into place, I was starting to sound half decent (some would argue I still do) but those drum machines were too basic, I mean this wasn’t 85. The regional heat of the DMC’s in Leigh had an MC & a DJ competition and I managed to persuade my old man to take me up there along with Jay. We both entered the mc battle, with about 18 competing in the day to get down to the 5 to have a chance at night. Jay dropped his raw styles on them and got through, I went for a 115 bpm fierce edited breakbeat and did a very political anti racism jam called “Fight This Thing” and didn’t get through. However a big rasta came up to me and fisted me (as in respect, not the sexual act). At the time it meant more to me than anything, seems corny now, but as I left the venue to Funkmaster Wizard Wiz’s “Girls” I was also wearing a smile. Meanwhile the first wave of UK rappers were storming in, every week it seemed Stu played some new group from places as exotic as, Bristol, Chorley, Newcastle, Sheffield but mainly from Saaarf London. What’s more some of them were even appearing on Normski’s genre crossing, spirited Dance Energy show, Hijack were even supporting (many say blowing away) Ice T except when they came, or rather did not come to Manchester (bastards, never found out why either). I went to every gig I could though, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, LL Cool J, Run Dmc, Beastie Boys (with Davy DMX spinning breaks!) whether at the International 1 or 2, the Apollo, or the Ritz. On the 2nd occasion I saw Public Enemy at the International, he was supported by both Cookie Crew, who really rocked it, and Derek B who really did not, actually getting boo-ed as the needles jumped and his 2nd single went in the charts. Many of the people who had bought his early stuff were ridiculing him and I felt not for the first time (nor would it be the last) how hard it is when a group is trendy one minute, then shat on the next, as I joined in the boo-ing like the easily led teenager I was. Thinking back I definitely thought Derek B was good when he dropped, but I always thought those Sarah Jane lines were a bit embarrassing. However Derek B quite rightly came back next time, when he was supporting Run Dmc and Public Enemy at the Apollo with DJ Scratch in tow (at the time on EPMD tunes) “I’ve been looking all over the world for the best dj and do you think I’ve found him….” into dj routine, crowd go mad, especially the ones dissin’ him last time, me included - although I’d only arrived for his last ten minutes eager to avoid it seeming I wanted to check him out. Then there was MC Duke & DJ Leader 1’s amazing body popping-tastic set supporting Salt N Pepa, there seemed no barriers… yet. By now I had a Fostex X26 multi tracker, not just one crappy deck but two and was producing self important 24 track demo’s with embarrassing covers on with me in my black tracksuit, with arms made for an orang-utan, emblazoned with gold “Ruf MC” (or was I MC RUF back then?) and, get this, a long bold as brass, well gold actually, lightning flash not just down one arm, but down both legs as well. The girl who did it obviously had the Eric B & Rakim “Follow the leader” album but it was little consolation to know she had good taste in music whilst I was swinging around my bed-sit looking like a gibbon. I had left home by this time so had no one around me to tell me I looked a pratt, but luckily I had the sense to wear it once or twice. Bottoms or top – never both at the same time, the glare would have been too much, people would have been crashing cars and shit. Having money is an essential part of any boom times, looking back I realise now, that just like me, at the time were thousands of young adults in paid work for the first time with nothing to spend their cash on but clothes, music, booze, cigarettes and other drugs. After college I’d landed a two-year contract with IBM, but as I’d left home I had little spare money, especially after I bought a Roland 808. It maybe a bit old hat now but at the time it was the shit, so easy to programme and when you accented that bass drum, boy was the kid in the next bed sit pissed off as the beat boomed on. So lots of money going on living, and tiny amounts going on records – just the really, really essential ones, largely the albums I blame for this continuing addiction. And then the second wave of British acts came through. At the time it wasn’t like the big deal everyone makes now of being UK, UK, UK, it was just there, fans generally accepted it. After a being made redundant twice by two computer companies I soon found myself on the dole in Wythenshawe where after much Del boy style trading I eventually found I had my own record shop to steal and blag tunes from, many of which you are about to hear on these 6 tapes containing a variety of my most loved and most played British hip hop tunes. About these tapes So these six tapes are my definition of good hip hop that has come from these shores . I am well ware that there are blatant gaps in the track list but this is my history. Besides since 1992 I’ve probably put together more UK based mix tapes than anyone else, as far as I’m aware, but there could be an insane hermit living in the Shetland Isles who owns every obscure piece of UK rap vinyl ever, who knows. So if you think I’ve missed pure gems then it could be for a number of Ruf reasons : •I thought it was over rated then and probably now, •Some groups have had loads of press and media coverage whilst others got slept on at the time and I must admit I do like finding and playing records that others aren’t aware of, which is actually what a good dj should do, not just play all the shit that everyone knows for quick props. If Bam, Flash & Herc had done that there would be hip hop, but not as we know it, Captain! •The most obvious is – I don’t bloody own them. Whilst I am a record company mogul (or should that be mongrel?) I have had to buy most of the records here as UK labels have always been tighter than a knat’s arse at giving out promo’s to the needy. Also I’ve had to buy and sell records as my financials tides have ebbed and flowed through the years. I hate to think of a few of the gems I’ve got rid off to lunatic Germans called Hans who paid £30 for a Brit Core rare item I bought in London for 39p at an exchange (you’d be mad not to sell it, surely?). •I am not from London, which has released a large majority of British Hip Hop records, but unfortunately many groups and labels thought London was actually all there was to British Hip Hop, therefore forgetting to do any shows outside of the M25 or simply didn’t get the records distributed much outside the city. Anyway I think it paints a much more interesting and varied picture this way, so there. However doing this set has fired me up again and made me realise just how much great stuff is out there that I haven’t got anymore, if I ever had it in the first place. If you enjoy this set or are incensed about any looked over records, bare in mind they might have appeared on some of my previous mix-tapes, (which are still available kids!) such as : Uk Retrocide (1993) Rare British Compilations 1 – 9 (1995-1999) Sounds Of Blighty Doublepacks Volumes 1 - 3 (1999-2001) Radio Zero Doublepack fake radio show on mixtape (three times voted 3rd best hip hop show in the UK 1998-2000, despite the fact it’s not even broadcast yet) 1997-present. I have also put quite a bit of Ruf related records in here, partly because to me it’s a fair reflection of the amount of records I’ve released (often when there was little out) and partly because it’s fascinating hearing the label’s development and how it fitted in (or not) with what was out at the time. People forget, but I’ve released 15 albums and 25 other slices of madness, so to give some their first playing for years was quite uplifting. This project was a labour of love for me and I hope you enjoy it too. It has thrown up so many other possibilities and I’ve even enjoyed writing these notes (despite being chained to the computer for a while). Who knows we could have multiple spin off’s eg British Hip Hop Family Trees, Never Mind The Hardnoise, Around the UK with a crate of Stella (feat Disorda), My life as a British Hip Hop Nobody by Dave THE RUF or even Top of the Hip Pops. Alternatively, how about Roots Manuva’s herbal garden show, or the new UK Garage / Hip Hop fusion of supergroup “The Tele Thuggies”. All ideas copyright Ruf Beats 2001, well you never know, That twat Anne Robinson made a shit load out of “Wackest link” didn’t she? About the mix TIMES : Normally late afternoons from Feb 28th – March 14th 2002 LONGEST SESSION :Four and a half hours in one day. PLACE : Ruf HQ, up top. RECORDS USED : you bloody count them VALUE OF RECORDS : What someone would be prepared to pay for them. STATE OF MIND : Varied according to tune-age, spliff-age and family/business matters. MISTAKES : One audible when decided to put a record on a deck that already had a record on, this is not big or clever and generally results in a big fuck off scratch noise. Whoops. RESULTING BRAIN DAMAGE : Severe, this stuff does mess with your head. I like to make mix tapes live so I sat down in March with two big crates, a few drinks and multiple selections of spliff confectionary. They were all done live, one take, with few bpm’s known and arranged loosely in a date order but more according to what sounded nice back to back. There’s also a load of nice blends that dismiss the myth that you can’t play British Hip Hop out, this is bollocks as out of my many hundred’s of dj gigs over the years quite often it has been The Unknown selections that have been the titty-rippers. The dates of release and most other information on UK releases can be kind of tricky to figure out as they obviously thought it wasn’t important. Therefore the mix is arranged very loosely but still as it’s over 6 tapes you should be able to pick up on the differences in time. I tried not to blend and cut things too quickly so you could hear decent amounts of tracks, however as it got towards the end I realised there were too many top tunes to try and juggle into the mix. Bizzarre facts about Dave THE RUF •He won an original copy of Brainfreeze off DJ Shadow for answering his UK Hip Hop questions at a Quannum show in 2001. •He has never appeared on Westwood’s rap show, but has been played by John Peel who he met last year and learnt about how 50’s R’n B bassline were often done by the human beat boxers of their day. •He hosted the UK hip hop part of UK Fresh, after JURASSIC 5’s debut show (where they gave him props for his MINDBOMB show – yeh, I Know bloody hell!) and at the time allegedly Blade’s last ever show (never say never, eh!) despite having all accommodation withdrawn thus forcing him to sleep 50 miles away in a barn. •He once did a show at the Blue Note with 3 gorgeous girls dancing in front of him, and NONE of them were paid. Incredible. •He has been told to his face by the head of Radio 1 that he is “urban” which came as a shock to the Cheshire lad. •He has taken Afrika Bambaataa record shopping in his native town, only to be disappointed when the great one only was after Prince cd’s (Yes CD’s!) •He once appeared on a BBC 2 documentary about “wiggers” despite the fact that he has never worn a wig. •His favourite gig ever was in Cork, his most hated one was in Swansea. •He has still not bought any new recording equipment (since 1993) but insists “the old ways are the best” as he glue’s his dentures back in place and scrapes his Bobby Charlton haircut over his boyish grey hair. TAPE 1, side A – Up to 1990 National fucking anthem… This is actually off an old Ruf Beats promo of JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Seconds to detonation EP that never got released due to 2 tracks sounding shabby after the mastering (and no they didn’t sound like that before, you cheeky sods, honest). The main track on the ep “The Bomb Drops” was one of my label’s biggest hits (its been on 60,000 units) so it was worth waiting for the plant to get it right. MC MELLO Our Time off his devastating debut album “Thoughts released” Republic 90. This had to go on as I used to listen to this album time and time again when I was in my bed sit years. Every track on that album is a killer, listen to the breaks and you’ll hear many classic breaks ripped here first. I could have put on any of the tracks off this and been happy but like this because it really is infectious and flips the “God made me funky” groove into others effortlessly whilst Mello and crew have a right old laugh! DADDY FREDDY & ASHER D Brutality 12” Music of life 88. A very early stab at hip hop / reggae fusion that these toasters brought to the world. Daddy Freddy was once the world’s fastest rapper although I never understood much of his patter, it always sounded so raw and authentic. HIJACK Style wars 12” Music of life 88 These Brixtonites exploded onto the hip hop scene with the awesome energy of this JB’s Blow ya head sampling gritty drum machine anthem produced by Simon Harris. Kamanche Sly, Rhymester, Ulyseess, DJ Undercover & DJ Supreme were one of the first crews to come out of the undergound on the UK scene and ALMOST cross over on their own terms, before Ice T’s short lived Rhyme Syndicate label snapped them up, only to have its and therefore Hijacks backing pulled out by Epic/Sire. STEREO MC’s On the mike (SUBSONIC REMIX) 12” Gee St 89 I first saw these on a music programme when they were touring Germany with MC Rob B on the mic, DJ Head on decks and some mad geezer on the drums, it made me check their varied debut set “33/45/78” from which this awesome remix appeared later on. I loved their second album too but it seemed a lot of black hip hop lovers wouldn’t check for them ‘probably because of the honky factor which was a shame because these boys knew their music. I bumped into Rob B at UK Fresh 97 and wondered where he’d been for 5 years since their massive “Connected” album, which strangely (in my mind) blew up everywhere. He looked surprised to be recognised. BLADE Lyrical maniac 12” Raw Bass 89 This is the 2nd record on raw bass, so what the fuck was the first? Answers on a postcard please, or better still, post me the sodding record, aaarr go on please, you know I deserve it. Blade’s early records were so damn funky but still hard, I loved them still do, even hi s liner notes and quotes were good, take this “Many constantly try to make out we’re rejects of society of somethin’- but we’ll show em”, and boy did he from then til now. This ep featured “We’re going independent” and production by Mastermix / Sparkie & 2000 AD, Renegade on the decks and “No Sleep” Nigel on the engineering boards. OVERLORD X 14 days in May 12” Hardcore 88 There was some sort of video for this on a BBC programme called Dance Zone or something. It was pretty mad as Overlord X came with a weird deerstalker hat, the kind that Rick wore once in The Young Ones, not only that he came with a very big crew or hanging around his estate. What was interesting was that he got to say what the track was about and the messed up story of justice that influenced the track. Taking the lead from Public Enemy this independent 12” not only got included on the next Streetsounds Hip Hop compilation but also helped sign him & his crew to mango, an Island subsidiary. He released three albums through them and bizarrely found success in France before trying to re-invent himself with a commercial edge in the early 90’s. MC BUZZ B How sleep the brave 12” Playhard 89 This was the second proper release from Shaun Braithwaite aka Buzz B. I saw him in 1987 at Manchester’s Ritz (with about 150 others) doing tracks with the Rock The House crew and Leakey Fresh’s out to distress set up with Owen D. by now he’d lifted his skills to perform a unique hip hop poetry which maybe got a little bit too watered down by the time he finally dropped his unusual album “Words Escape Me” on Polydor in 1993. He managed to get this on late night channel 4 music programme that had Nenah’s younger brother Eagle Eye Cherry introducing it, for Shaun to come on dressed very classily, with two mates dancing in chimney sweep type clothes whilst Owen & Leaky jumped from deck to deck trying to make out they were back spinning something. The b side is actually a harder 70’s funk mix that deserves digging for two. Complicated, under rated Buzz B deserved better, he popped in my Corn Exchange shop once and said “hello”(just before the IRA bombed it) disappeared for a while rumoured to be on a caravan site in Wales. Only to appear in eclectic DJ Justin Robertson’s Lionrock group delivering more essential poetry on the sublime “Straight at yer head”. MC MELLO Comin’ correct 12” Republic 89 Released way before his album this is one of his earliest records after his JUS BADD early jams. There’s an urgency about this even reflected in the awful typed promo notes, blimey no computers in republic’s offices mate! RICHIE RICH feat RUMBLE I can make you dance (album – title cut)Gee St 89 Richie was one of the earliest pioneers of Uk rap. His radio show “Home beat hip hop show” on Kiss FM broke a new form of cut and paste mixing to the masses. He had a vinyl debut in the early 80’s after winning a scratching battle and went on to form Gee St, a label that helped not only launch his own records but also Jungle brothers, PM Dawn (gulp) and later The Gravediggaz. His early records “yes I have returned” , “Make it funky” and “My dj pump it up some” were trend setting records that hugely inspired my JEEP BEAT style. Richie was open minded and tried to cover all the styles of dance music on this, his debut album, with Soul cuts next to hardcore hip hop like the “Coming from London” track with one-hit-wonder SUGAR BEAR, and this Bootsy Collins sampling track, but he enjoyed a massive hit with his house anthem “Salsa House”. I saw him perform this album live at the International 2 supporting 808 state who had just dropped their own classic “Pacific State”. MC TUNES Back to attack 12” Hit Squad 87 The earliest piece of wax in this pack and for a reason. When my pal Jay was in Mind Over Matter and the loose Hit Squad posse put on jams. I was amazed how Gerald got the super raw drum machine beats & razor sharp cutting live, not only that but Tunes was almost punk rock in style, no body was going to fuck with him, or diss him, at least not to his face. This was Nicky at his hardest, a drum machine & cut and a voice that’s it, I still love the sound of them gritty 808 beats too. I think a lot of jiggy rappers should have to rhyme over shit like this to see if they can really rhyme. BLACK RADICAL MK 2 B Boys B wise (off Monsoon 12”) 2 the bone 89 One of the UK old skool’s most prolific artists came with this Big Life supported release (and remember back then Big Life were licensing stars like De La Soul, Naughty by Nature and Digital Underground in the uk) produced by Coldcut & DJ Cel & DJ Mo who dropped this weird b side that sounds a bit like Two tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Big, bold & making more than a few points Black Radical was our KRS 1 only without the beef. THE SINDECUT Demanding cycle of a word bound hammerhead 12” Virgin 90 This collective were the original all styles of black music in one box group, who should have blown up alongside Soul II Soul, ‘cos hell they could do it all. Impressive street soul “tell me why” and “Slow Down” fast funk “Live the Life” and tracks like this and “Wisdom” representing Lin E Lin’s dope rhymes. Awesome stuff that looked like it was going over the top only to slide back down into the muddy trench. Heroic. HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” INSTRUMENTAL off import copy US Epic 88 Not on the Uk edition, I had to track down a bloody yank copy for this dope instrumental. And was it worth it? Well yes because for about 4 years I used the instrumental in my live shows when doing Mindbomb’s Nervous Breakdown, no one knew what the fuck it was over here, in Germany the few Britcore survivors broke their necks. TAPE 1 side B – Up to 1990 HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” US/UK Epic 88 I actually loved this track so much that when I put down my first Ruf N Rugged megamix I couldn’t resist taking the accappella of this and dropping it over an instrumental of Young MC’s now overplayed “Know How” but with JB’s & Brothers Johnson breaks stabbed through (this resurfaced recently on my “Ruffest dj in the world” mix cd which is a little bit essential even if I say so myself. It’s a classic track especially because it was so mixable for dj’s and with the ace intro / outro, superb middle break cutting and themed lyrics no one could step to this. MC BUZZ B The sequel 12” Playhard 89 A big tune up North, even managed to get played at the Hacienda next to “Strings of life”. MC DUKE Miracles 12” Music of life 88 Duke held hardcore respect for a while even though on his debut he dropped a clanger by looking like Chris Eubank in English Gentleman garb outside a big mansion with scary butlers. The cover was so bad I sold my copy years ago, even though I quite liked most of it. When this dropped though, it was a gem, rare grooves were blowing up jams everywhere and Jackson Sisters “I believe in miracles” was a jam that always rocked it, with Simon Harris hooking up the beat clinically for dj usage. STEREO MC’s Lyrical machine INSTRUMENTAL off 12” Gee St 89 This is a great instrumental for scratching over and top in the mix, I always thought the vocal was a bit cheesy but loved playing Eric B & Rakim’s “Follow the leader” over this as it makes it sound crazy. HARDNOISE Untitled 12” Music of life 90 No Sleep Nigel & Mastermix engineered this “Apache” driven raw rocker to perfection with it’s ultra hard rhymes & delivery throughout this all time UK classic. When Liam from Prodigy recently put this on his “Dirt chamber” mix cd I could have screamed at him for just used the beats, this has always been a problem, our premier beat makers quite often don’t respect mc’s enough or try to put anything back in the scene. All I can say is it’s a good job that never happened with the Sex Pistols, the Specials, Madness or The Clash. The whole point of authenticity and originality often comes from local scenes and taking away the vocalists can strip the song of it’s own unique voice. This problem of dj’s playing largely instrumentals always takes the urgency to a lot of jams. OUTLAW POSSE Original dope 12” Gee St 89 Happy memories for these because I used to dance my pants off to this at Precinct 13 where Andy Madhatter or Huen Clarke dj’ed and much more importantly where I met my future wife. This was an early uk jam that broke in the clubs first, again often being played as an instrumental (see above, the bastards) and cutting in cheekily the same hook as UPTOWN’s classic “Dope on plastic” one hit wonder. Two years later and me & Mrs Ruf went out in London village, where my Mum was living at the time, to see OUTLAW (by then they had lost their posse) at Giles Peterson’s night at the Fridge where they rocked it, but caught a fair bit of boo-ing in the process. The night was amazing musically, hearing breaks &and funk next to hip hop at the height of the whole “Talking Loud”, “Acid Jazz”, “Jazz Rap” phase. We just thought it was good music. MC MARTEY & DJ DBM Beyond control 12” Gti Records 89 Another Manchester crew with a great female mc who manages to control her flow over some huge samples here, I mean, to sample in 900 number took huge bottle and to be fair to them this worked and blew up local clubs. HIJACK present HUNTKILLBURY FINN, SHAKKA SHAZAM and The ICEPICK The burial proceedings in the coarse of three knights 12” Music of life 90 When the terrorist group finally got hijacked from under Chris France’s nose (the Music Of Life boss) they agreed to make this parting gift to show gratitude to the label for helping them achieve so much. And so Hijack gave us the mc from future UK heroes Katch 22, Standing Ovation, and the Icepick who as well as a very nasal delivery n the posse track on Hijack’s lp, also popped up on backbone years later along with a a single release on some little crappy label called Ruf Beats ran by a dizzy Northern twat. Chris said thanks but never released any of them again and Kold Sweat, the new kid on the block, snapped 2 out of the 3 up. COOKIE CREW Born this way US 12” (rare US PRINCE PAUL REMIX) US Polygram 88 Along with Derek B, the Cooks were one of the first to really blow up, thanks to big money inputted early on, then later withdrawn by ffrr, which meant they got to work with Stetsasonic’s Daddy O and DBC. This classic break beat cutting up tempo jam bust open charts in the UK, but seemed to lose street cred straight away unfortunately, but I later picked up this ace US edition featuring this wacky, exciting Prince Paul remix which is much harder to front on. Cookie Crew’s 2nd album was largely dope with a few devastating tracks produced by Black Sheep, but again they seemed to have lost credibility before they started. No it wasn’t fair but yes they were good mc’s live and without them it meant the Wee Papa Girl rappers snuck in and embarrassed us all to fuck when our Mums and Dads said “ah so this is what hip hop is then” We wanted so desperately to kill these walking talking talent abortions. HIJACK Hold no hostage / Doomsday of rap (released on Music of life and Ice T’s US Rhyme Sindecate) 88 Big tracks, big tracks. Two absolute anthems and what’s more they were on the same twelve inch record, yeeahh. This is taken for granted now, but getting two rockers on 12” back then was a novelty, especially as far as US imports were concerned them tight yank bastards. Mind you singles were cheap at about 49 cents over there whilst an import could be up to £8.99 here if the bastard shop would even sell you the thing “sorry mate, I was supposed to save that for my man DJ Bastard”. Thank god then for Uk 12”s at £4 and for Music Of Life putting this out. Perfect hardcore B Boy insanity music, the cutting is on fire, the intro’s are attention grabbing and stylistic mc’ing 2 THE TOP The matter at hand (b side of “Score to settle” 12”) President 90 This is an early release by the mc who went on to be in Kinetic Effect with Insane MacBeth, that not only managed to make loads of relevant points about hip hop at that time, but managed to shout out (as was done in those days) to half the hip hop community including three girls called Dawn, come on boys, three, that’s just greedy. This was an unusual record as the a side Score To Settle featured journalist Malu Halasa with a very freakily voiced introduction, no wonder most hip hop journalists are failed musicians then? I actually sent one of my very early demo’s to President records too and their A&R girl there wrote me back an encouraging 10 page letter, offering positive advice and tips, of which I managed to ignore it all thinking I knew what the fuck I was doing. Three weeks later on I got a positive response from a CBS (pre-Sony) big wig, so after jumping around my shared kitchen whooping like a four year old and ultimately burning my toast, I decided I would listen to the advice this time. Four weeks later I finally got the bottle to phone him by which time he had left CBS thus teaching me a valuable tip, don’t fanny around being scared. MERLIN Bust da move (off Drop the weapon EP) Rhythm king 89 Merlin was on Top of The Pops once, with the Beatmasters I think doing a hip–house thing, I remember Record Mirror was going on about how he’d done it then got arrested and was going daaarrrn. I think the music industry loves it when rappers get in jail, it’s easier to rip them off money and it gives them instant street cred. Anyway this is off a 4 track ep dropped well after he became known for his Beatmasters “I’m free” debut and the huge “Megablast” hit with Bomb the Bass, which featured an ace funny horizontal Tim Westwood intro. This Ep is largely good especially this Tim Simenon (Bomb The Bass) & Nelle Hooper (yeh that’s right) produced fast hardcore killer. Raw. SILVER BULLET 20 seconds to comply 12” Tam Tam 89 Talking of hardcore killers… ha ha.. the immortal Robo Cop sampling intro, the wild transformer scratching and relentless beats crossed this record over to the house/techno crowd on hip hop’s terms. Everyone loved it, he even toured shortly with Public Enemy, had his previous release “bring 4th the guillotine” re-released and got an album out, that really wasn’t up to par and seemed rushed, quickly sinking without a trace. The producer Ben Chapman continued to stick his fast and funky tracks out via big beat label Bolshi in the late 90’s, whilst Sliver Bullet attempted a comeback in 1998 on beats label Arthrob that never got beyond a performance at Fresh 98. BLADE Forward (off “Mind of an ordinary citizen” 12”) 691 influential 90 “Nothing great was achieved without determination” yup, Blade back with more pro-independence jams. Although the cheesy intro is horribly derivative of the horrible Westwood radio scanning intro off Bomb The Bass, recently re-done with humour by J Zone, it soon develops into a break neck paced fast hard rocker with scratches flying around at belting pace. Blade tucked this on the flip of “Mind of an ordinary Citizen” and selflessly bigged up a whole host of up and coming British acts. Love the photo’s of his two mates at New Cross station too and his ultimate street declaration “if you need to contact us just ask anyone in the Lewisham Borough” – they will then go home turn on a light into the sky and when in times of wack mc peril, Blade will be there to save you. SHE ROCKERS On stage 12 (backspun instrumentals) Jive 88 These girls were pretty hardcore before Jive got their mits on them, put them in studio with big name producers and turned out a fairly weak lp, luckily the break on this is a killer with Dj Streetsahead (who came in my Corn Exchange shop and talked to Doyen Doy for a while once) pulling off tricky exciting cuts throughout. I’ve had 2 copies of this since 1988 and still can’t backspin properly. Anyone would think I was a dj. TAPE 2, side A – 1990-1992 RUTHLESS RAP ASSASSINS Justice (Just Us) THE MASE REMIX 12”Emi 91 I have a big soft spot for the rap Assassins. They were the first crew out of London really to make any impact and they were from up the road in Hulme which I passed on the bus on trips into Manchester. Manc electro pioneer Greg Wilson set them up on his Murdertone records which he managed to get distributed by EMI, furthermore they managed to rope De La Soul’s Maseo in to pump up this track a bi. Although occasionally lo-fi in the music production stakes and sometimes using already shagged to death breaks, they always threw so many ideas into the pot so that you got something from it. Both their debut “Killer” album (which did make some noise through the press) and the follow up “Think – it ain’t illegal yet” (which came out with no fan fare at all) are both quality albums. FRESHSKI & MO ROCK A day of reckoning – off “The long awaited paraxysm ep” Conscious 91 Very strange 6 track ep this, super, long titles, careful measured mc’ing and really crusty lo fi beats but somehow it just gives the whole thing a strange likeable feeling, even the record sleeve is hugely understated. Obscure record that was according to the group “big in London” but they all used to say that to you. 11:59 In the shadows (off “Killing time” ep) Hum 91 Now we’re talking Hardcore Urban Music put out dirty dance records whether sound system hip hop like this or mental rave tunes. I like this kind of sound system vibe that drags you in so very deep with the emotional mc dropping some awesome lines. I liked this so much I bought the company, well actually no I didn’t what I did do though was to sample the bassline and the “here it comes” line on my MINDBOMB pig dissing rhyme “The Vibe” (off “Trippin thru the minefield” Volume 2). This was 11;59 at their hottest. KILLA INSTINCT Un-united kingdom (off Den of thieves 12”) Music of life 92 Gil Scott Heron’s “The revolution will not be televised” funk poetry classic got caught up in some hardcore British hip hop anarchy here, with Lucas G’s boys pulling up their hoodies and walking through the rain with two fingers held firmly high. The track starts with a load of samples from the television film of Stephen Kings “it” and gets far scarier leading to one of the best last verses in hip hop as mc Bandog karate chops his way through verbal warfare. I don’t know who was acting so nasty to them, but at this time it did look as if the Britcore groups were pissing off people into melody driven hip hop or jazz-rap, personally I never gave a shite, if something rocks it rocks. It would seem though back then we were indeed a nation of back biting bitches, some might say we still are. MC MELLO Firm stance (off “Mello gone crazy” ltd promo) Funki dred 92 I love this and it was featured on 3rd Eye’s unique video insight into Uk Hip hop as at 94. There’s a moodiness to this that’s kind of hard to put your finger on, but still manages to uplift you. Mello was still the man, DEMON BOYZ Glimmity glammity (off 12” and 2nd LP) Tribal bass 92 If I hadn’t lost my first Demon Boyz lp it would definitely be on there, but this was an explosive tune for them and me. Firstly they’d been away and had two label changes since 1988’s “Recognition” LP on Music of Life and their 12” on Mango “International Karate” and for a while no body could get hold of this and I played it every chance I could. Using the huge “Pot Belly” break that A Tribe Called Quest had used on “if the papes come” but with cooler stabs and rolling organ chorus, this tune was awesome in smoky clubs and respect to Rebel MC who after hi s cheeky chirpy chart hits with Double Trouble set up this Tribal Bass label and hugely influenced jungle. I still drop this to cheers when down south and their 2nd album “Original guidance” still sells when ever I can find one. Demon dropped all that tricky word play ages before Das Efx and with better beats and more panache, they always entertained and the story of them driving off with the Merc/BMW Chris France had hired to put on the cover of their debut album always makes me laugh. The Demon Boyz are one of our most slept on groups and I’d like to bring them back. They were most definitely “Rougher than an animal”. HIGH AUTHORITY I’m the man 12” Optimism 91 Not much info on this at all, just a weird white promo , cat no OPT12005, I don’t even know if it got released, but it is very good and uses a Spencer Davis Group break that Portishead tour dj Andy Smith would later dig up and unleash on his “Document” mix album. BRAINTAX Talk about the future (off “Fathead” EP) Low life 92 Braintax and BTI came through like a breathe of fresh air in 1992 on Jospeh’s label from Leeds and the “Fathead” ep’s is one of our strongest ever ep’s. 7 tracks of pure butter, top breaks (they used the Quincy Jones “Summer in the city” break ages before the Pharcyde’s “passing me by”) skilful and entertaining rhymes and a fatness in the production that others would die for. I sold a stack of these and very nearly ended up in 194 releasing Braintax records before Jo decided to move down to London. Doh. I have a couple of tapes of their demo’s produced after this (the original “future years” EP) which have never seen the light of day that were excellent too, and I was really gutted when they pulled out of contributing to my Ruf Diamonds Volume 1 over a very real concern that being on the same album as my Mindbomb’s “Westwood is a twat” cut. I was distraught, but Jo bought the tracks back off me “Future years” and “jokes over” which I’d paid for to be recorded, at the Cutting Rooms where an ace French engineer called Christophe had impressed Jo. However out of it Low Life became reborn and I’d met a great engineer who I went on to work with on various Jeep Beat & Mindbomb tracks. Jo was good enough to put me up (and indeed put up with me as I overdosed on Wine and threw up in his flat) when I was in London cutting records at Abbey Road with an engineer he’d put me onto thus giving me mind blowing Abbey rd experiences (yes I did the Beatles walk photo etc). A truly great record from the force behind Low Life. Inspirational. COOKIE CREW Secrets (of success) 12” COOKS MIX FFRR 91 Another example of a blinding mix tucked away on a b side using the classic “Bouncy lady” breaks hard stabs. BUSHKILLER Bushkiller draw (flip of “92 Salute” 12”) Danger 92 Bushkiller were wild, ragga vibes filled their sound but they used the dopest beats and wrapped distinctive twang filled rhymes round your ears effortlessly.This tune was a hard to get killer tune at the time and has lasted the years well thanks to the simple production and original sound. BLADE Rough it up EP 691 Influential 91 More gems from the man, still walking the streets of New Cross here and dropping the Vibrettes “Humpty Dump” break over squealing funk mayhem. This has begun to be a stalwart of my hip hop sets for some reason… HARDNOISE Serve tea then murder 12” Music of life 91 Blimey, the sound of a juggernaut about to crash through your walls ,this “Dirty Harry” soundtrack sampling raw anthem unleashed hardcore mayhem on the streets with intense scratching and exciting tense atmospherics. Gemini’s unique vocals gave him the title of the hardest mc whilst still having clarity and power throughout. AKAPEL Pick it up EP Phlange 92 Biznizz had something to do with this lot who dropped a very strange largely beats and breaks orientated ep that also contained this club tune that got a nice bit of play. Great name for a label too, wish I’d thought of it. DEF TEX Bird land (Off “tutorial sessions” EP”) Soundclash 92 Def Tex used to drop these instrumental sets with alarmingly regularity thanks to the help of their native Norwich’s local hip hop store Soundclash backing them. Great jazz/funk loops and beefy beats were dropped from great heights by this crew who have recently returned on Big dada’s little brother Son. I’d done a couple of very early gigs with Damien, Chrome, Anthropologist etc and had a couple of mad parties at Disorda’s place where these guys proved they were one of the dopest crews around. I used to play this out so much that I ended up using the hook in a mix of “Metacosmic Dimensions” if only all samples could so easily be sorted out! KRISPY 3 Destroy all the stereotypes 12” K3 91 One of my favourite groups these, as both Stu Allen & Leaky fresh used to play them, and they were almost local boys, just up the M6 in Chorley. I loved the fact they had they’re own label and that when they supported Naughty by Nature (who were massive then) they took a long a whole backing band and gave them a good run for their money putting on a great show. Furthermore the early records always had a great mix of quality breaks over tight ass production. I bumped into Wiz at a few record fairs when I was dealing and pushed their “Can’t Melt The Wax” album when it dropped on Kold Sweat, so it was so nice to be able to strike up a friendship when I interviewed Wiz for HHC and then to get a couple of tracks onto Ruf Diamonds 2 years later and share a place on US Bomb’s “Worldwide” comp and Frances “Operation Overlord” comp. Krispy are a blinding crew who gave me hope for making hip hop and staying up here where I belong rather than making the easy hip hop down to London. TAPE 2 side B – 1990-1992 REBEL MC Black meaning good – Slavery mix 12” Desire 91 Who’d have thought when he was doing “Street tuff” and “Just keep rockin” that he’d use his money to pump out some conscious funky ruffneck street tunes, but that’s exactly what he did. Taken off the album of the same name from 1991 this got a little bit slept on due to his previous cheesy chart rep, but really as you’ll hear it wasn’t deserved. Rebel mc went on even further setting up the underground Tribal Bass label which pioneered jungle and drum and bass ahead of most and also gave us new Demon Boys material. It’s very rare for someone in hip hop to start off with a dodgy rep and turn it around, but not only did he do this but made new waves with his raw “Rich are getting richer” dubby fast hip hop / jungle cut. BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Rippin up the industry Part 2 (off 12”) Mango 91 Using the mighty “Iron Leg” break DJ Cel dropped this funky cut, strangely not on the album but just on this 12” dropping lots of industry insights in a clever way. More great intelligent words on the sleeve too with a big shout to Coldcut who inspired this track and had a big input behind the scenes in his early years. Eg Sleeve notes : “there is a saying amongst Black musicians, that is articulated in many ways “we make it , they take it”. The album this promoted “The untold truth” is one of the best British albums ever, even now rhymes and hard messages are particularly relevant as racism and prejudice have risen again and “England is still a bitch” as he declared on the albums closing track. SUBSONIC 2 Unsung heroes of hip hop 12” Unity 91 This Nottingham crew burst out with the 808 thumping beats and horns of “We go subsonic” before getting a huge CBS backed push behind their Unity imprint. DJ Docta D was an influential local radio dj who clearly had some great breaks and clever production, the mc caught a lot of flack though, once again largely ‘cos he was a white dude with a kind of geeky face, and plastered himself all over the cover (if you look at a lot of old “White” groups in UK hip hop they frequently hid behind hoods, hats, backs turned to camera, or not having any photo’s at all) in some strange fashion photo’s. This group got a massive push, I mean they even got Dj Premier in to remix “dedicated to the city” in typical slippery scratch style and with Guru conversing with the mc in between verses. Furthermore there were three different singles released off their album and each of those came in a variety of remix discs. “Addicted to music” , “Dedicated” and this were probably they’re best tracks and it was sad to see them not do anything else after the huge push this got, they had the tunes, alright they tried to cover too many bases on the lp (just what was it with putting cheesy almost New Jack Swing on there?) but overall they dropped well produced tunes with something to say and offered a bit of relief from all the too hard and serious attitude of their peers. JC001 & D-ZIRE Sea of MC’s 12” Anxious 92 JC spat out words faster than anyone for a while, taking the Guinness Book of records crown. I’d checked for his always obscure and often badly distributed jams since 1988, when I’d seen him on a dance music show doing a tune called “I dis therefore I am” on the wonderfully named label Furious Fish. His raw flowing style impressed me and I’m lucky to have a few of his promo’s. Dj D Zire had repeatedly popped up producing various early hip hop jams and he looped up Cymande’s sublime “Dove” break for this blissful floating track that achieved something very different at the time. A few years ago I saw a programme on Howard Marks who ended up in the tiniest little jam room and guess who was on the mic, yeh you’ve guessed it Mr JC still keeping busy after all these years and a true pioneer of the scene,. POINTS PROVEN feat FLY On the mic (off “only fools & horses” EP) Payday 92 Another London based tune with DJ Bizness and Dego producing this Del Boy inspired ep. Interesting 6 tracker this, which has 4 hero connections and a shout to Reinforced and Goldie who I think helped out with the business side a good move because after repeated projects Points Proven moved on from hip hop and made the jump to jungle like many broke producers did around this time. CAVEMAN Cool – cos I don’t get upset REMIX (off “Victory” EP) Profile 91 With the Principle’s strong funk led productions Caveman always had the tightest beats and dropping in great breaks all over. They were the first UK signing to Profile (and in fact the only other was 499, three years later) a large US indie who had offices over here and huge hits with Run Dmc, Twin Hype, Special Ed, King Sun, Poor Righteous teachers and a whole host of others. They dropped a steady stream of hits off their debut album including “Victory” the “Crosstown Traffic” sampling “I’m ready” and this ace ep. MCM caught a fair bit of flak from London based mc’s about his occasional US twang and mc style, but on the whole I think it was just sour grapes, as he always just seemed positive and honest to me, but he had the deal, one of the best producers ever in the UK scene and worse than that they came from High Wycombe, “not even from London? I’m not feeling that”. Unfortunately when Principle got disillusioned and went off to America for a while, the rest of the group thought they could drop a 2nd lp without him, which they did and which bombed quickly without a trace and really missed the beat constructor. Since then MCM popped up on a few indie releases and some early Blindside tracks. SINDECUT Wisdom (b side of “Tell me why” & on album) Virgin 90 A fantastic rolling beat, unusual live guitars and great hooky chorus have kept this track in my head for years. I always thought it was a shame that they didn’t drop an entire album of hip hop as their “Changing the scenery” album was so varied it tried to do a bit too much and I think ultimately pleased few except the most eclectic fans. BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Sign of the beast ltd REMIX 12” (whoops) Mango 91 Another limited 12” on super scary GREY coloured vinyl, I mean come on if you’re going to have coloured vinyl you have some crazy colour or red or something don’t you. Not bloody grey! It is that fact that the record loos like my grey battered Technics slipmat that I am going to blame for this being the only corking “You have been framed” moment in this 9 hour set, it wasn’t the flabby spliff, no sir, not, not, it wasn’t me, honest guvnor. Well yes it was, luckily I had a jam and a half to follow it. CAVEMAN I’m ready 12” Profile 91 The third single off their album even managed to trouble the charts and was expertly timed as the Jimi Hendrix break used in it was featured on a Jeans advert at the time. As many know I’m a huge Hendrix fan, not only did I drop a Jimi inspired album “for Jimi Hendrix” after reading several books on the man and with superb space graff from my graffiti pal Temper but I named my son Samson Hendrix after the man. He is a legend, not enough heads in hip hop check for these kind of breaks which is a shame, because if you look at the building blocks of hip hop (and much of modern rhythm tracks) the Ultimate Breaks and Beats Volumes 1-25 you would see that a lot of the tracks came from a great variation of groups, of all creeds from all over the place. I approach my recording in an experimental way like Jimi, but I don’t do hours and hours of retakes which actually largely fucked up many of their recording sessions and meant many of his vast selection of songs were never really finished and came out years after on bootlegs and industry releases that didn’t do him justice. When this track came out I was only vaguely aware of who Jimi even was, it wasn’t until 1995 that I got absorbed in the Hendrix story, and even deeper into it after Mark 1 and then Loz left my group, and I needed to look somewhere for inspiration. KRISPY 3 Don’t be misled EP K3 91 Their 3rd release was this ace fun and funky 4 track ep which got picked up by Gumh records in Germany and released out there on a 10 track CD of most of the groups early records. I had a load of these a few years back but didn’t keep one because I was passionately anti CD at the time like the daft little naïve spud I was. KATCH 22 Biting the hands that feeds (off “Return to the fundamentals”ep) Kold Sweat 92 Blimey these guys were raw, they had some dirty gritty beats but get all musical when they wanted too. Hunt Kill bury Finn, came Hijacked endorsed and along with Unanimous Decision and Krispy were the jewels in Kold Sweat’s ridiculously packed release schedule. This EP dropped after the success of their first album “Diary of a Blackman living in the land of the lost” which was a very heavy lp in all aspects, this ep ruffed it all up a bit before the group went more musical for their 2nd album set. Katch were an important group as they managed to drop a lot of knowledge in entertaining and raw tracks , not unlike a UK Public Enemy or KRS 1 the only problem being that they struggled to get a wider audience than the underground followers. OUTLAW Sons of the devil (the principles re-buriel) promo ltd 12” Promo 91 A nice oddity this one. After a war of words with the Cash Crew , probably a storm in a tea cup, Outlaw (who had again lost their Posse on this) snuck out this promo only cheap bob white label, to diss the boys back for the Cash Crew’s “Bouquet of barbed wire” track two of the more funky diss tracks to ever drop. What is even stranger is that Caveman’s The Principle popped up to drop this remix for the boys. The BROTHERHOOD Just a manifester (off debut EP) Bite it 91 The first limited 7 track ep on Trevor Jackson’s (The Underdog) self run label. The Brotherhood were lucky in a lot of ways to have Trevor to guide them through the industry maze. This 12” was largely Brit core in style with the excellent title track “Descendants of the holocaust” probably notable for being the first tale in hip hop of Jewish decendancy. However the Brotherhood were the original chameleons of UK rap, when Cypress Hill came out they dropped “Smoke a spliff but I won’t sniff” got signed to Virgin then dropped a “Hip Hop and rap” which sounded like Pete Rock on one side Lords of the Underground on the other even cutting them in as the hooks. SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single) Little rascal 12” Oh my God memories, memories. Tuff Tim Twist and Tommy from UK Rock Steady had been on my Soul Nation pirate show a couple of times sporting, it must be said quite bizarre mid Atlantic accents, and as they had just toured Germany with Son Of Noise and helped them get this record out, I naturally wanted a piece. When I opened my second shop “Boom Tunes” the group came down to play in the small shop for £300. At the time they had a good name and known to rock love. I couldn’t believe it when I asked where their Dats were and they gave me this crappy little cassette recorded to a crappy level and not even on chrome tape, so we gave it a go, the lads stood on my speakers hyped it up, and just as the went to come in with the explosive (on record anyway) beat the speaker just farted and tripped the 300W amp because of the background tape hiss. So we did it again, same thing, and again with me crouched down trying to manually adjust the level to stop it cutting out. It was mad, on the video you can see my head popping up and repeatedly going bright red. What a huge embarrassment for me, the group somewhat unfairly deflecting all the blame on me. They did three songs got a nice reaction considering and then Roc Steady went and kicked everyone in the bollocks spinning around. The day was a great success and we sold 50 copies of this alone, but it taught me to always be more cautious when dealing with live acts & dj’s. It was a good day, despite the fact I had stayed awake for 24 hours previously to stop ravers breaking in and trying to get the shop finished and make up for the shit head landlord. By this time I think Britcore was well on its knees, there was A lot of attitude coming from the new gangster wannabee fans and Son Of Noise dropped a bitter final album two years later “Access denied, Music and politics Part 1”.. Part 2 never came out. Eight months after the opening show I realised that selling tunes to daft little thugs was not really what I wanted to do and had to shut up the shop quickly, threaten to take a multi millionaire to court to get out of a lease where they had signed my signature, then move all my stock and whatever I could down to my birth town Altrincham where Mrs Ruf had found us much needed sanctuary. FIXED PENALTY All of us (off “The EP” !!) Fpt 91 Great ultra lo budget rap from Preston, looks like they hand drew the sleeve with a dodgy ruler, fantastic. A great hook & slippery unity scratch kept thisin my head and even if it does have ridiculously lo fi production it also has a lot of charm. Their local radio dj Steve Barker (who still does BBC Lancashire’s On The Wire show) gets a well- deserved shout here too. SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single) – instrumental. Little rascal 12” As before I had to bring this back just to mess with my own head some more. It’s not that I thought it was going to end and quickly brought in the next record at all, how could you think such a thing, ah yes because it is of coarse bloody obvious that the tension is ready for the beat to come back on added to the fact they say its about to. Whoops, Must Pay More Attention in Class. TAPE 3, side A – 1993-1995 MC MELLO Mello gone crazy 12” Funki dred 92 I love the looks of astonishment I’ve received when I’ve dropped this in my dj sets over the years. It has to be the angriest rumbling of attitude filled hip hop ever, as Mello vents his frustration at Jazzy B of Soul II Soul who “signed” Mello to Funki Dred, where Mello worked hard and completed a reportedly staggering 2nd album (if anyone has a copy I would love to hear it for a handsome reward!) for the Funki dred label. Once finished, Jazzy & co decided to bring up the issue of whether the samples had been cleared or not, the answer not and therefore the album never getting released. Quite unusual then that this 3 track limited 12” even got put out, the crazy thing is it is still on Funki Dred even though Jazzy gets dissed to fuck, it reminds me of the sketch in The Fast Show where the scally band play the clueless A&R man a track calling him a piece of shit. This track is one of my all time favourites and so made it onto my “Ruffest dj in the world” mix cd. I have so many great memories of playing this out, but the best I immortalised in MINDBOMB “Wonderful world of alcohol”, which was when me & Mrs Ruf pogo’ed at an Athletico night at The End in London, after a raw booming set packed full of classics to a full flour, whilst Cutmaster Swift looked confused before cueing up double copies of really quite mediocre RnB and virtually clearing the floor. That night we got a pile of people in on the guest list, got very high and drunk and had it large. Weeks later my relationship ended with Athletico and like Mello, what I thought was a much bigger label than mine turned out to be nothing but a house of cards, built on blagging empty gullible journalists and little packs of coke cleverly dropped into the right pockets. MINDBOMB Stop ya skemes(off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 This was originally released as 500 copies as the first MINDBOMB single which sounded very different and didn’t quite to the rhyme justice. So when I’d looped up Mantronix “King of the beats” (years before High & Mighty plus Mos Def dropped it, although I suspect their’s made a bit more of a splash) and added some bruising bass and samples it got turned into this beauty with Mark One slicing up my cuts. It was one of my biggest successes getting licensed in scratch instrumental form on Andy Smith’s “The document” mix album (which I’m still trying to get £3,000 in royalties for – the major label bastards) and more strangely my vocals got sampling on the breakdown in a Kenny Dope originated big beat anthem (how many UK mc’s have been sampled by Kenny Dope?) and cut up bootleg that also used Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit” and De La Soul. It also became a must perform track live and still gets dropped today. The album was one of the very few vocal ones out around this time and sold 1,500, even trickling through today it seems to have stood the test of time while. UNANIMOUS DECISION Bomb diffusal (off EP) Kold Sweat 93 One of my favourite acts ever these boys always dropped killer hooks with interesting rhymes always dissecting their topics with buckets of style. I jumped at the chance later on to license some of their tracks for Ruf Diamonds. KRISPY 3 Bubble gum 12” (and on album “Can’t melt the wax”) Kold Sweat 94 Great energetic track that used the intro break of A Tribe Called Quests 1st album to devastating effect. An uptempo call to arms this track fulfilled all their potential and showed why they were one of the country’s strongest acts. LONDON POSSE How’s life in London 12” Bullet 93 Released by Rodney P and his manager Bull this even had a video to accompany it and got some play on MTV but the track seemed badly distributed but it must be remembered that at this time it was very, very hard to get records out across the UK and even records of this calibre were being turned down by buyers. Therefore whenever I’d get offered tunes like this I more often than not took a box or two, bought cheaper, so sold cheaper and started getting my reputation for having all the independently produced hip hop in bulk. Although the group have stated this track was a bit half hearted it has become a London anthem and was recently re-released on a Best Off compilation via new big boys on the block Wordplay. 3:6 PHILLY Those flags offend me 12” Zoom 93 Hard to get amazing jazzy piece of niceness from this Nottingham group who dropped some killer tunes on the underground but never really got the acclaim they deserved. LORDS OF RAP Where does the xtra 3 quid go? (off “Stix n stones” EP) Madd dog 94 After a dodgy hip –house offering on the crazy Furious Fish compilation in 89, these London boys smoothed out their sound and started producing great tracks like this ode to the cd invasion. Always with humorous and incredibly sussed lines of wicked wisdom, the Lords stamped their identity on the scene and can be seen on 3rd Eye Video doing tracks off their album, which unfortunately never got released. The boys did manage to get a cut on the XL labels Ruffness ep before slipping away probably either very pissed off or quietly chuckling. SCARY EIRE Dole Q 12” Eleven 95 Blinding ska infectious, ragga hip hop, Irish hip hop with an intro with the cheek to sample Madness. This crazy Irish group had one of the most distinctive mc’s around with his gruff voice and endearing slang. A limited promo through Island this 12” was hardly heard by anyone and Island didn’t get involved further, a terrible waist as an album full of tracks with as much character as this would have been very welcome at a time when dropping UK albums was getting unheard of. I was buzzing my tits off when I finally got a chance to play this at the Funnel in Dublin as part of a Ruf Beats launch night for Guinness’s Jazz Festival. Free Guinness for everyone, free in, hanging out with super models, Temper spraying next to me (graff that is you dirty sod) and me dropping tunes like this. Ahh K.I.D. Fatal attraction (off shared double 12” pack with BENJI) Kold Sweat 95 Nottingham based mc whose distinctive voice got him a little stick in London, but with lyrics like these and great booming hook filled beats he was massively slept on, not helped by Kold Sweat being in its last days and so hardly promoting this strange double 12” with Benji. I was lucky enough to get sent his finished album that wasn’t go to go out on the now failing infamous lime green label. It was massive and still packs a punch, but unfortunately it was all a bit too complicated to get them out. BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Hard times (off “This is war” EP) Copasetic 93 Using the Baby Huey “Hard times” break this is a raucous posse effort with a great energy and some classy lines including “John Major is a punk mother fucker”. How they managed to make Roy Ayres “Everybody loves the sunshine” into this hard a track still amazes me. KOOL DJ MAXI JAZZ I got the blues (off rare EP) Chaiya 94 Now Faithless MC, back then he was kicking back and dropping great hip hop jams like this, often with the same dulcet tones but always with good subject matter and a fine collection of dark edged grooves. This is one of his best tunes flipping well known breaks and actually pulling off a great sung chorus. The Brixton mc almost like Buzz B seemed to just survive in general music circles rather than have crazy hip hop scene respect, but this seems to have helped both artists (and I think that’s why , both are artists not just mc’s) attain a longevity that most strictly UK hip hop heads could ever hope for. Great hip hop always has a lot more general appeal to the public then the industry and the radio programmer’s give the public credit for, it’s sad that the amount of money needed to push them groups into the light is rarely forthcoming but crossover dance and pop hits definitely feeds back and has helped British mc’s become more accessible. MC Ni Sit back relax 12” IQ Reecords 94 Put out on I Q Procedures (early Roots Manuva outfit) label and these records came to me via my man Blade who had bigged her up. With its head swirling sax and rude girl vocals (she was the Wildflower of he day) this girl made some serious noise. GUTTERSYNPES Who fell (off “trials of life” EP) Liberty grooves 94 Johnny from Tooting hip hop emporium Liberty Grooves really upped the quality level for our acts to aspire to. It had an amazing classy sleeve, 5 awesome tracks and not only was pressed in the US but came in special editions and allsorts. The group had previous released material via Kold Sweat with Sigher on the dope beats and very clinical production whilst Cel One made his moody rhymes twist round your brain to hypnotising beats. This quite rightly had a fair bit of wonga thrown at it and made some good sales but even so struggled to make it back. After a series of high priced Freestyle Frenzy albums both shop, label and group slipped out of sight but not after raising the quality control standard for others to aim for. MINDBOMB The Mindbomb (12” & off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 A few beats to play out. I still do the rhyme off this regularly and its scary how little has changed politically since 95.. TAPE 3 side B – 1993-1995 BLADE Bedroom demo (off “The lion goes from strength to strength” LP) 691 influential 93 Blade remarkably managed to get enough money from advanced orders direct from customers to help finance the recording and production of this huge 26 track masterpiece in gatefold sleeve and with full lyric book with gritty photo’s. He didn’t disappoint with the set ranging from funky, to raw, to innovative, to crazy, to raw, to even rawer before exploding with Mello on Dark and Sinister. This album was a staggering achievement against all the odds and sold many thousands of copies although I believe quite a lot were never paid for by crooked distributors here and in Europe where a lot of Blades fans were. Blade had become a legend and his rebuke of labels like Kold Sweat and Music Of Life who had offered him deals was shown in the ltd edition 12” b side “Ain’t shit to me”, mid you this is th e bloke who told me he had turned down the chance to be on a track with Ultramagnetic so you would have to question his sanity, well if he hadn’t confessed on this that “it feels good to be a lunatic”. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Interception (lp“Attack of the wildstyle beatfreaks”) Ruf label 95 My hype little dj set intro still gets hairs going up neck (and down my back now I’m getting on a bit) back then, people used to be like “what the fuck”, not used to seeing 3 dj’s on 4 decks only for 2 of them to spin off and start mc’ing, this was used time and time again to signal our arrival. It also started my first Jeep Beat Collective album which dropped as one of the first all scratch dj’ing albums at the same time as Dave Paul’s Bomb Hip Hop “Return of the dj”. After a few years it has notched up 3,500 sales of which I’m really proud but I don’t think it ever got the widespread critical acclaim it deserved, at the time no one was doing this shit, there were no turntable tracks and certainly ones that you could rock to in a club which was part of my unwritten Jeep Beat remit, which probably helped us cross over effortlessly into the big beat scene a couple of years later. HEARTS OF DARKNESS A taste of venom 12” The Ruf 94 Rob Woods (Poynton) and Sheik (from Hull) got to know me through my record shop and dropped this demo on me Out of the blue. I’d just put out my a record on Boom Tunes my own Northern Conquest ep which was a huge financial leak due to 3 Halves Entertainment ordering 900 and then when they were delivered reducing the order to a mere heartbreaking 100. But regardless I wanted to get this out, somehow, not easy when I had no money as the shop folded beneath me like a deflating bouncy castle. A few months down the line and a distributor called Timewarp offered me a P& D deal, which means Pressing and Distribution, it basically means you give the dat, they manufacture it, distribute it and in theory pay you. I had to market it on next to nothing but thanks to a twist of fate Blade reviewed that months singles in HHC and gave it a blinding review saying it was one of the best of the month, We were all huge Blade fans and therefore grinned like idiots. Although it generated little cash it did sell out of the 1,000 press but only made a bit when I got all the 200 or so unsold and went out there and did it myself GUNSHOT Colourcode 12” Vinyl Solution 94 Sped up a little a with a speaker troubling sub bass this track rocks it every time and busts stuffs two great big V’s at the BNP. I dropped this a lot at my Font residency around the time of the Oldham race riots last year. This track is a slept on classic and should be owned by everyone. Mercury, Alkaline, White Child Rix and Barry Blue what can I say fella’s, except “TUNE”! MINDBOMB Expletives deleted (off “Chameleon vibes” ep) The Ruf Label 95 Nice hype anti censorship jam off the 2nd Mindbomb single some nice raw beats and a cracking rolling guitar riff. This track was in response to the furore when I tried to get The Ruf “Northern Conquest” pressed as not one of the pressing plants would touch it because of my track the subtle love song “Fuck the Queen”. Can’t think why, something to do with offending people, good, that was the whole fucking point “offend the stupid!” I would have loved to have been in the meetings that took place when MD’s listened to the song and weighed up the implications, after all you can still officially be hanged I was reliably informed. Great, what a way to go, fuck the media pushed stereotypical death, yeeah hang me “Fuck the Queen” it’s what I believe, let’s uncover the Royal Family, The Law, The Music Business and some people’s stupidity for all to see. Freedom for Tooting ! Power to the people etc. Anyway the track came out got largely ignored as the media explosion I semi-hoped for never materialised. It wasn’t like this with the Sex Pistols, mind you I didn’t have the cunt Malcolm McClaren stiring the pot, and come to think of it I’m still making records. I only have 200 left now and hope to give them away as gifts in this very special jubilee year. Thing is I still hate the lot of them with the exception of the Prince Of Wales, who is not only endearing himself to me (except for his choice in women, surely he could get some better muff, he’s a proper Prince for fucks sake, Prince isn’t even a Prince and look at all the pussy he gets) but who gave me £200 for a drum machine, which was spent towards a set of decks that helped me make this, which I seemed to forget when I made the track, like the occasionally hypocritical Muppet I am. TRANSCRIPT CARRIERS Diggsat (off “The haemorrhoid fry up” ep) Undivided 93 Killer funky fun from these mad lads who helped kick start the vocal scene in Bristol. Mad funny notes went with this to complete with barmy lyric sheets so you could understand the country patter and work out what the fuck they were goin’ on abaaart. I took about 50 of these to sell and saw many faces walking away with this in their bag wondering if they really did want to buy it. “Yes” I’d convince then in hopefully not to smug record shop spiel “you do, it will take a while to get your head round it, but you will come to love and cherish it my child”. Well maybe not those exact words. The PRINCIPLE feat SILENT ECLIPSE The damned EP Blueprint 94 Silent Eclipse / MCD was going to be the hottest thing on the block, hell even The Principle had appeared out of no where to bless him with tight beats, but hold up, every record his voice changed, was Silent Eclpise a group or a man with 5 different voices. Here he was political, ruffneck and squeaky soon he was ultra gruff shouting “Government piss off” . HE had landed a deal with Island but once again, once they had him they didn’t really know what to do with him if every tune had been like this or “Don’t judge a book by a cover” things might have been different. However he has just made some appearance on current heavy weight Ronin act Deckwrecka, another artist with a voice that refuses to be ignored, whatever tone his voice is in. 499 – 499 is here EP Profile 95 Matt C from Downlow/Fat boss championed these over this 4 track ep and a mini album, after he had joined Profile supplying Westwood with the latest “hot joints” from Nine, Special Ed etc. Again he material was strong enough although perhaps too underground for the mass public who they never reached. It even had an appearance from up and coming Black Twang but they slipped away without a trace. BUSHKILLER Music in motion (off “Trouble makers”EP) Danger 94 A positive growling anthem with huge beats and a great Black Sheep sample helped this underground limited 12” to make it onto a load of wish lists only for it never to be seen in there shops, unless that shop was mine then you heard it 3 times on a Saturday at least. KILLA INSTINCT Thieves rush in where the fools lay dead 12” European 95 Their German followers helped keep this ace hardcore bands consistently put out wild records of this ruffneck calibre, more and more influenced by horror as they progressed they always came with raw edged skills, concepts and blinding samples. Although Britcore’s days were numbered they kept at it to the bitter end releasing record on German labels if they had to, they’d play in Europe if the weak hearted Brits weren’t listening and well done lads or you wouldn’t have left tunes like this for us. UNANIMOUS DECISION Put em up (off “It ain’t clever” ep) Kold Sweat 93 Another killer track with a big bad and bold Roxanne Shante “Big Mama” loop wrecking the mix. Yes. BLADE Clear the way 12” (ltd 12 with pre ordered lp’s!) 691 influential 93 This white label 12” came as a real sugar coated slab of madness for his hardcore fans. FIRST DOWN Let the battle begin (off EP) Ill gotten gains 94 This large Brighton crew busted up some mad beats and breaks and showed an old skool battle mentality that won them few friends but Arrow and the boys didn’t care. They had good sales in Germany of their “Worldwide” album but struggled to get paid before various groups members jumped ship. Two went off and formed the nucleus of Morcheeba, and Saanj re-invented himself named after on eof his favourite breaks Indian Ropeman. This group were proper B Boys and gents to when I came down on an early show to Brighton, ending up getting played the dopest breaks until ridiculous hours of the morning and hearing DJ Formats “Fuck DMC “tape track. I also formed a good hook up with affiliated group Metaphorce. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Nah, nope it’s dope 12” The Ruf Label 94 The first 12” from us and the first all a scratching record for a very long time. I got into this style from hooking up my favourite hip hop tunes originally and this was the track that helped to get Dave @ Bomb Hip Hop interested in doing an all scratching album. I did a lot of bag over shoulder distribution on this and around the country and had quickly sold out of 1,000 which then was very rare, I knew I had something special, when you have that, concentrate on what you do, not what others around you are doing. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE The bomb drops (off “seconds to detonation”ep) The Ruf Label 95 So this was the big one. I’d done “The Bomb Drops” for Return of the DJ and it was the first track to be accepted for it. So then I put it on wax with an inst, the re-titled Fuck The Queen instrumental that went onto be “Anarchy returns” (which no body complained about this time), a Mindbomb track called imaginatively “The Mindbomb” and a new track called “The tekno hater”. It went mad, even before Return of the DJ came out, I was getting offered gigs, compilation appearances, Justin Robertson ‘s mix lp had it on and he played it on Radio 1 on a Manchester special, it got in dj charts, shops were into it even the miserable fuck behind 3 Beats counter took some. Then “Return of the dj” came out and my group name was up there with Mixmaster mike, Q bert, Z trip, Peanut butter wolf and loads more. I was buzzing going round and selling this and the couple of hundred return of the dj’s albums, Tony Vegas took about 50 of the US release and a box of mine at a time when he’d only just formed the Scratch Perverts and he was still in the original broom cupboard shop. After all this time and all their success winning titles etc I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if we could have got the massive amounts of press they did whether we’d now be up there with Prodigy, Massive Attack etc. Its weird that I’ve put out more scratch dj tracks than virtually everyone around the world and it’s still this underground thing, but maybe that’s the best way to be. TAPE 4, side A – 1993-1995 ( a few 96 jams too) HEARTS OF DARKNESS What you waited for 12”The Ruf Label 95 Their 2nd release sees them entering classic funk territory with a clever intelligent twisting rhyme delivery. I loved this stuff, was really hard working it at the time as I was still doing a lot of “bag over the shoulder” distribution and had one particularly shite trip to London when I seemed to come back with more than I bloody took and there was a bomb threat at Euston, and it was pissing it down, and I had 3 packed bags of tunes, and I had very little to show for the trip – none of the ignorant twats in the shops other than Soul Jazz seemed bothered about this release bu I knew it was nice. Eventually sold out of the 1,000 though I always really wanted to hear a full Hearts Of Darkness album with nice variations on it. It wasn’t to be but at least I released 6 of their gems. UNANIMOUS DECISION Disappoint me (off “It ain’t clever” double 12” ep)Kold sweat 93 This is one of my ultimate tracks, the feelings Paul T manages to convey in this track are deep and powerful to me, not least because when I met Unanimous (they’d dropped the Decision by then), well Shiek and Eveready anyway, they told me Paul had left the band disillusioned and this was his last shot to get everything off his chest. Every line drips with sadness and his philosophy drips out of the speaker ad what’s worse we’ve been there too. Everyone in hip hop in this country has at some time felt this gloom at some point, a jam that’s got 30 people there, bullshit backstabbers, hip hop racism and all kinds of prejudices from everyone surrounding us. Hip hop attracts people like you and me because we are quite often disillusioned with mainstream music and hip hop offers a culture in a society, if you could call it that, that has less and less time for culture. Running the label, I played this occasionally to drown my sorrows to or smoke away the pains, but as the years went on and I managed to jump over or knock down many of the problems in my way the song reminds me of what I’ve been through but now with a positive sheen. I think every mc who rhymes should listen to this, one of a few intensely emotional hip hop records. M C MELLO Radics delight (off “The first chronicles of dett” ep)Natural response 94 After the Funki Dred / Jazzy B devilry episode Mello re-surfaced on Natural Response a small label tied into BMG. This 4 track ep was kind of hard to get hold of despite that. At the time there was a fresh new hip hop mag called Represent that I was doing reviews for and they actually used a couple of lines of my review in all the magazine adverts (un-credited mind, I wasn’t and still am not a big enough name to be used, no one cares what I think, to their credit!). “one of the most original and intelligent hip hop EP’s ever “ was something like the patter, listening to it now all 4 tracks rock with intense funky vibes and Yes it is great. This track messes up a crazy Lulu screech to drop a London version of Cypress Hill’s “Pigs” but with some ruffneck vibes from an unstoppable mc. HIDDEN IDENTITY Return of the red eye (off “blunted bumpkin buskers” EP) Pure rudeness 94 The only ever hip hop group out of Oswestry (where?) dropped this cheeky chappie spliff jam packed ep to a little bit of a buzz in London although many complained they were just ripping off Pete Rock & CL Smooth breaks and to be fair they did have a point, but come on, the humour that drips through the beat drops and silly cuts was never meant to be taken serious. I mean for fuck sake there was a 149bpm track on the other side. Mistima went on to do quite a bit on the rave scene whereas Evil Ed (who can be heard sort of rhyming here folks) went on to produce on YnR and several other recent projects. I have a great note from Tee on the biog saying after naming only 5 magazines “All D Bullshit – maybe not all these mags” before letting me know they were £2.75 for more than 10! Those were the days, no PR, no dj returns, just here’s a free one, can you buy any. Yes ta, took 50 sold the lot. LONDON POSSE Pass the rizla (off Various Artsists “British underground” EP)XL 94 Off a 4 track sampler ep along with Lords of Rap / The Brotherhood / The twilight Firm (old music of life production team) this was seen as four of our best crews being lined up to be signed. All tunes were well produced and getting good reactions but it was just a one off thing although a year later Brotherhood signed to Virgin. Here London Posse drop more spliff talk, with Cypress Hill fans thinking they were jumping on a bandwagon when in fact they built the bandwagon pal. KATCH 22 Lifestyles of the poor & ruffneck (lp “Dark tales from two cities”) Kold Sweat 93 More raw Katch vibes, by now they’d developed their sound significantly pumping any money made back into the studio and trying to develop a punchier live sound too. This second album is a lot more defined and musically powerful than the first dope but very raw album. This track shows Hunt Kill Bury Finn’s versatility and originality, he was dropping crazy flows over all kinds of tempo’s but whilst always definitely saying something. GUNSHOT Social psychotic Double 12” Vinyl Solution 93 Explosive tracks that thanks to its hard guitar riff seemed to lose them more hardcore hip hop fans, but when the sub bass was this high and the beats firing this much, I didn’t give a damn. This came out with “Mind of a razor” that had Shane & Al Scott on guitars and split their fans up a bit further, in a not too different way to the recent closed minded fools who slagged off Mark B & Blade’s Feeder remix of “You don’t see the signs”. The whole Britcore thing was starting to fizzle out as well but at the time this looked like it had force behind it, they were touring (with ChumbaWumba of all people) releasing mad 10” specials and dropping fat double was singles like this. Better than that they came into my shop and signed a load of these at my Boom Tunes shop before playing at the University. BLADE Planned and executed MINI LP 691 influential 95 Thanks to strong German sales in the past, he got proper marketing out there for this mini Lp. The trademark flows and disses are there but the music had changed greatly from his previous LP probably due to mystery producer Never Seen, probably so ‘cos he didn’t exist? KRISPY 3 On tempo 94 Lick REMIX Kold Sweat 94 Huge single for Krispy with Kold Sweat even doing a video for it, that even, shock, horror, got played a few times. This bouncy double base anthem did it because it had found an upbeat groove that to me anyway, helped lift some groups from making too moody, pessimistic records. An essential Krispy 3 tune. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Scream – boomsday of rap (off lp/cd “Attack of the..”) The Ruf Label 95 One of the strangest most experimental cuts on the album I’d laid this James Bond sampling tune down well before all the big beat (which hardly existed then anyway) guys did. Not only that the moody intro synths got used later by Jon Carter’s MONKEY MAFIA group which kind of freaked me out, especially when I was originally supposed to have a track “The Bomb Drops” on his Live at The Social Mix CD. The cuts on this record though are out of this world, every idea I threw at mark he took and twisted or broke it down way beyond what I imagined even cutting gin the tense crashing drum break I’d used when I entered my first mc battle! Strangely this track ended up on a Snowboarding Competition album in Switzerland and ended up being next to Massive Attack and Placebo thanks to the Athletico crew. Pissed me off though when it looked like I wasn’t getting paid but after numerous Ruf technique’s the album’s compiler MAILED me his £800 Sony TV… yeh, through the post, along with answer phone equipment and phone extensions. Last year that same TV got hit by lightning too, it is a very strange life sometimes. DJ KRASH SLAUGHTA Always remain hardcore EP X Records 95? Trip hop was getting well established by now and after Jeep Beat slowly more and more instrumental and scratch records came out of the UK. Many of the early scratching tracks were just noise but here TWO TONE COMMITTEE’s famed dj (and also soon to work with Monkey Mafia) dropped the absolutely bomb of all horizontal skinning up hip hop jazz tracks that just makes your head sort of role around. Even stranger then to have a Britcore b side featuring his old crew along with Bandog, mc with Killa Instinct. Years later a got a surprise when doing a gig for Paddy at no Fakin over in Liverpool, as who was there but Mr Krash and we finally got to have a good old mash up on 4 decks. A great track this and just been sent his new Ep out sometime in April 2002. LEE CURITS CONNECTION Hip Journey EP Blindside 95 An early BLINDSIDE (the Creators label) release flooding out cinematic vibes to the world with its ace “He’s a Cop Killer” sample over the mellowest beat ever. Great stuff. BROTHERHOOD One shot 96 REMIX 12” Bite it 96 By this time they’d been signed to Virgin for plenty of dough, and with massively O.T.T backing by Matt Carter’s Downlow magazine (which came before his later Fat Boss magazine). The Brotherhood had it all, big deal, quite a big promotional push, a few nice tours, but despite great sleeves, packaging and adverts from Trevor along with remixes etc they never really caught the public’s imagination, if they’d ever found their own style maybe things would have been different. The group fell out with Underdog claiming he was to blame for their problems, but the rest of the UK hip hop artists probably just thought, “shit, wish we’d been given a chance like that”. LEWIS PARKER Visions of splendour (b side of “Rise” 12” Bite it 96 After the Brotherhood deal went sour, Trevor Jackson picked up on a very limited run of this mc’s self produced & recorded vinyl and eventually got “Rise” flipped by this would be anthem. A dope picture cover with Lewis in dodgy tracky (but without any gold flashy bits it must be said to his credit) in the middle of a big yellow flowered field was all very different a lot like his music. Although he would never get the massive promotional push from massive Attack’s Melankolic label, he did go on to release a string of top calibre releases that helped release the stigma from British mc’s. What’s more he is still going and also producing and appearing, hell even cutting the decks up, for a host of peeps like Braintax, YnR’s Tommy Evans, Jehst, Champions Of Nature etc. Incidentally, and not a lot of people know this, but the version on the French compilation Operation Overlord is a much beefier, better produced version of this track and well worth seeking out. NUMSKULLZ Signs of the end – Instrumental 12” Hombre 97 TAPE 4 side B – 1996-1998 NUMSKULLZ Trouble on my mind (debut off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp/cd) The Ruf Label 96 I selected this off their dope tape only release Chapter 2 which I bought off them in 95 and sold a stack. I couldn’t believe that tracks of this quality were going to stay just on tape. Rola an mc previously with Def Defiance had heavy rhymes and now hooked up with Dj Jay Le Surgeon & DJ Rumage I wanted to get these boys on the label but they were hesitant and in fact had already made strong connections with Blade. This was when Blade was at one of his many peaks, a good while after his album had dropped he had even put out a Belgium group called Rhyme Cut Core. However I kept going on about doing something and eventually managed to persuade the lads to let me release this, which was their vinyl debut. I really wanted to sign them as I knew they would fit on Ruf Beats very well, I really wanted groups that were super productive, as I had realised that my labels success was built not just on dope 12”s that dj’s could play, but on strange limited plastic and most importantly albums. I have a lot of history with these guys, introducing them at Fresh 97 springs to mind. Me & Mrs Ruf even went on down to Bristol prior to Ruf Diamonds 2 to try and tempt them onto the label, spending ages chatting to them and just hanging out. By that time though they had a good rep, and Jamie who worked in Purple Penguin had just set up Hombre and as he lived literally down the street they “signed” with him. I was gutted, but knew there was nothing else I could do but try and keep tight with them, swallow my pride and keep bigging up their records anyway. Besides, I liked Hombre as it was at the time pretty much the only other Uk label regularly releasing varied stuff. Sometimes you just have to let it all go and remember why you got into this in the first place, as long as great quality music is out there, who cares, after all does it really, really matter what label that recording is on? MINDBOMB Man’s life (off “Trippin thru the minefield Volume 2”lp/cd) The Ruf Label 96 I recorded this at the same time as Volume 1 in 94/95, but kept it back thinking no one could handle two albums within a short space of each other, I should have just left it a month and dropped them and said “fuck off, take that”. Mind you a lot of it was because the label was funded entirely by self and every project had to make its costs back before I could get on with the next thing. This was a frustrating time for me as I had progressed to having (gulp) a proper distribution deal at a time when hardly any UK hip hop labels had one. It was with Plastic Head Distribution who did Killa Instinct’s German releases over here bu tother than that were all punk, thrash & techno. They tried but kept fucking me up the ass, the worst of these when they ordered 1,000 cd’s for France only to never get paid and me finally getting the stock back a year later. Annoying as these albums really were one album that just happened to have 24 odd tracks on and fitted together, Volume 1 being all beats, breaks & large hip hop rhymes with heavy doses of funk, whereas this volume 2 went much deeper into political messages, tracks about growing up, the funny hip pop business growing obese around me, the Iraq war (Kaleidoscope – which is still hugely relevant), tracks about being in debt and uplifting skunk beats. It got slept on to fuck, what can I say hardly any distribution and hardly anyone checked for it, despite that 1,500 of the first one sold pretty quick, no one seemed interested, probably because the sleeve was the same but inversed black on white. I love this album though and tracks like “The Vibe” still make it into my sets. I’ve chosen this track due to Joseph from Braintax and Eveready for Unanimous bigged me up for my production when I played it them whilst persuading them to give me Ruf Diamonds tracks. It’s a very honest, emotional track although the last verse isn’t about me but a mish-mash of mine and Mark One’s experiences with silly little girls trying to capture a bloke via a baby too early in everyone’s life. The CREATORS feat Marga Marl J – Weird old world (off “Masterplan” ep) Blindside 96 Somewhat unfairly the Creators have recently come in for a lot of stick for using few British mc’s, but back then they had a whole host of them including Marga and MCM, but also with Big Kwam. This to me is the best track they have ever done because they drop the perfect music for this cheeky, reflective but very funny stab at British life that helps take the vocal to another level. Everything they have done after this seems to be too image concerned, seeming to be IN with and supplying breaks to the RIGHT NAMES. Certainly when they dropped their album on Bad Magic it looked like they were going for fame via associations rather than let their talent naturally flood out. Here it did that, sometime the right beats & rhymes can combine and mean more than a big US name talking shite. PARLOUR TALK Colouring 12” Acid Jazz 97 After Transcript Carriers split up, the two key members dj Beans and Mr Deed formed this group that got signed to the pioneering trendy Hoxton Square label, that had made Jamiroquay and Brand New Heavies but made little money off them. The label even for a short time had their own magazine Jazid but once they’d signed these dope Bristol pioneers, didn’t know what to do with them. Hence this here today gone tomorrow promo 12”. Somehow the boys managed eventually to get an album “Padlocked Tonic” out through Acid Jazz too, a significant achievement. Along with extended family Undivided attention, Parlour talk with Numskullz redefined the Bristol hip hop sound. UNANIMOUS Freshest on the mic REMIX (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 This is one of a DAT’s worth of tunes I bought of the group for £400. It was quite a bizarre arrangement and strangely one of them where everything seemed to go okay but then no one from the group at all kept in touch with me, there was no bad words, no fall out, no hastles but I loved this groups material so much that to this day I still wonder why nothing else dropped through my door from them. Although their style had changed so much, they had managed to develop their styles and I thought they had a lot more in them. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Hip hop love (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp in 96 and re-released in 2000 on the “Thermonuclear Soundwars” EP & budget priced CD. The Ruf Label / Ruf Beats A key track this for many reasons. It was slap bang in Jeep Beats heyday and you can still boom it out of a system now to great reactions. Shortly after I made this its EVA break (that I’d dug for after hearing it on Gangstarr’s Just to get a rep) got bootlegged onto a break album and within 8 months had been big-beated up by Norman Cook well after this, which I still think is far better than his remix. I’d laced it with nice strings, a multitude of heavy hip hop cuts, well mashed up by Mark 1 over a classic Marley Marl drum beat, Norman had put a bit more rock into the beat and put a few squiggly noises on. His blew up, mine didn’t. So I thought sod this went in and remixed it – 3 times in a similar way to the later remixes of The Bomb Drops, ending up with 4 connected but different parts. Later on this track got released in France on the Operation Overlord comp and also bizarrely got used in a French film featuring Nicole (as in “Papa??” fame from the Citroen adverts. Still it finally got its props years later on when I brought it back on loud vinyl and budget priced cd for the 5,000 selling “Thermonuclear Soundwars” set. SKITZ & ROOTS MANUVA Blessed be thy manner 12” Ronin 96 This slipped out on a resurrected Ronin label, but before long was a much needed London anthem, although at a time when very few in London were checking for their own. This tune had it all though menacing beats & strings and that nasal, raspy delivery that would go on to become one of the most well known in the land. Skitz drenched his tracks in sound system ideology, a pointer to his love for reggae sounds that continue to influence his material especially on Titan Sounds. This track to me is one of the ones that really made a difference, with tunes as proper as this its hard to maintain any media led prejudices. It’s success also help Ronin within a year to be one of a number of new labels managing to release records on a regular bases, a mission which I had been virtually alone in since 1994. MUD FAMILY Mud files EP Ronin 97 In the next wave of Ronin bombs after the instrumental Agzilla the Deckwrecka records came this firing track that took London’s freestyle battlers and gave them some tight ass beats and once again, boom another consistently selling anthem that further increased confidence. MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Westwood is a twat 2x12” + on RD Vol 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 This created a stir at the time, largely due to the title, which was actually intended to be funny, I mean “Twat” is such an un hip hop word, but a word I’ve used a lot ever since I twigged that my Mum didn’t know what it meant when I was a Ruf mouth teen. God there’s so many stories about this one : one has it (from a good source) that Tim went into Black Market records (where he shopped at the time) saw it and bought up all the copies so no one would see it in the place where he shopped. Another has it that a memo went around Radio 1 saying no one was to play the track or anything Ruf, but John Peel played it anyway. I’m always getting asked about this track, even by people who haven’t fucking heard it. So let me set the record (ha ha ) straight. I have never met Tim Westwood, being from Manchester I’ve hardly ever heard his shows or ever seen him play. However from 1994 he got sent every single Ruf record I released but never played any or acknowledged I exist, which has pretty much continued to this day. I had seen him on early rap documentaries like Bad Meaning Good and on his Ensign video show and thought a lot of his mannerisms were kind of funny, but around 93/94 he was re-inventing himself as master of the ghetto slang, and the Ali G shadow he is to this day. Gangster rap just seemed to change him a lot even his shows started to become filled with major label backed bullshit commercial hip hop, when a few years previously he had been playing Ultra’s, Special Ed and all kinds of shit. Furthermore virtually every British hip hop group I met were NOT getting played at all, it seemed that unless you were a big black brother and looked the part he didn’t want to be down with you. He’d play Carnival and shout “Yo all you white guys hit the back I want my big dick black brothers down the front” and shit like that. The vast majority of the scene other than gangster wannabee’s and “heads” on lock down hated him but had no voice. When he got on Radio 1 no one could believe it, could it be a chance for uk rap,? Would it fuck, not when he could make more money by playing the big US stuff, ignoring home grown talent and playing parties for a few grand. So as the song says “enough is enough”, I stand by everything that’s on this record and unfortunately peoples shallow ness meant they spoke about the title rather than the contents. What alarmed me was the total lack of publicity it got though, I thought the press would be lining up to take pops at this cartoon character dj, but learnt that when you’ve got a show on radio 1 – few magazines want to take the risk of dissing you. I tried to get it reviewed or hook up interviews but to no avail, Matt C at Downlow then wouldn’t touch it as he had to get Tim playing records for Profile and couldn’t rock the boat, Touch had bad dealings and had received threats for previous editorial, there was no where. Until Andy C from HHC who supported the content, but couldn’t do an interview with me on it, decided to give me a 10 reasons why “Westwood is a twat” which was written anonymously, and yes this is the same Andy C and same HHC that now has him doing column to draw in them jiggy listeners. Still me, Mark One and backing rapper Loz had a right laugh performing this, the live crowd chant bit on the 12” was recorded at one gig in Brighton then played at the following at the infamous Concorde, where the first and only, head shouted out that “we couldn’t say that about my man Tim” I said “yes we could, and yes we have, he may not play our records on radio but he can’t stop us bringing them to you like this…. Raw”. We had an awful lot of fun with this track and even shot a budget video (on about £2.60) which came up with 3 characters not unlike Ali G mixed perhaps with a bit of the Fast Show’s brilliant character which we filmed around Manchester in classic lyrics on sheets style ending up out side the local BBC. Years later and it still has repercussions. I see the old hilarious photo of him with dodgy moustache (that was included in the later Limited “Twatpacks” in fans bedrooms, get asked to perform it at jams and when Tim finally got right up Def Jam UK’s arse and released a major backed “Westwood” compilation complete with Jeep and fat cigar planted firmly in gob, across HMV’s nationwide when shop assistants typed in “Westwood” it came up “is a twat” thanks to my release years previously. Since then everything has changed, he has broken his remit several times, been interviewed on an early Ali G show (which Channel 4 were forced not to use, but then they did have a key show with fellow Radio 1 presenter Jo Whiley) before getting shot at by some bad boy on a motorbike. The un-alleged rumour I heard was that he had refused to cover the local bad boys usual “clearing fee” at a BBC backed jam where he was getting a few grand. He had been warned not to play unless he paid up and when he didn’t hey were kind of pissed. What was mad was that loads of magazines called me up to comment (some of the same ones who wouldn’t touch me when the record came out), maybe they could smell blood. The scumbag press jumped on it digging out Tim’s Dad the Bishop and all kinds of shit. Finally after 3 years the track got a mention in the Times “a group called Mindbomb went so far as to release a record called…” etc. By now Ali G was becoming the fake star and Tim’s act was looking a little jaded. I’ve met many people who’ve been associated with Tim, Chris Rockall who used to dig up breaks for his Capitol shows, acts like Krispy and Icepick who have had the odd record championed but little continued support, and a few lucky dj’s and acts who are clearly have mixed feelings but need his radio plays. More tellingly when I met Bambaataa he told me Westwood was all up Zulu Nation ass before he got all the contacts he needed then having nothing to do with him. Chuck D told me that the guy is a punk, and KRS 1’s feelings blurted out live on air. To be honest at the moment I would just like there to be more variety on radio, there should be another show that would play some of the huge amount of hip hop that is out here (rather than the same old Sony poo). It’s interesting that recently he has had to start playing a few more UK tracks although I still doubt he’s really behind artists like Aspects and is probably doing it to seen to be up to date or to “keep heads happy” as his recent HHC chart stated. Personally now I have mixed feelings, I think it’s a shame that the 40 releases I sweated my arse off for were never supported by the only significant radio dj the hip hop scene here has, but I can’t be as angry any more, I live my life as I am, not as some weird homeboy cartoon character. Having said all this, with all the history that’s between us, I’d still be fascinated to have a pint with the man and find out what he’s really about. KILLA INSTINCT And now the screaming starts (off “escapism” EP) German Move 95 This is how I felt after instances of neglect like the one above (AAARRGGHHH!). Killa Instinct’s music gradually got darker and more horror inspired as they moved label to hit their (Brit) core market. Sadly only a few over here got this furious piece of wax that pretty much acted as their swansong. MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Stop your skemes SCRATCH REMIX 2x12” The Ruf Label 96 When I recorded Westwood – I also did 3 mixes of “Metacosmic Dimension”s and this scratch mix in a 2 day session. Andy Smith was starting to get known as Portishead’s tour dj and he’d played JEEP BEAT’s “The tekno hater” in his original megamix he dropped on tour in the USA with his group. However the original mix got bootlegged all over (including my track therefore) and Polygram US wanted to release his mix as “The document”. When Polygram only managed to clear about 13 of the original 30/40 track mix (you should see the tracklist!!) luckily he switched to using this track of mine. I got $1,000 advance which was about £650 , but better than that he mixed my track from Marvin Gaye’s “T Plays it cool” and into a Barry White Orchestra track, shit I even had a track on the same album as Tom Jones. I showed my Dad and tried to convince him I had finally made it – but he still wasn’t having it. When tracks get licensed like this you have to try & use it to your advantage and hence this track has been re-issued and re-licensed several times after. However I am still trying to get paid both publishing and royalties for the Mix cd, dealing with Polygram in the US isn’t easy you should see all the bullshit tax forms. SOLID ROX The struggler 12” Black plastic 98 This dropped out of the blue from a big beat label and takes forever to get into the verse but when beats are this funky and infectious it means I can mix them all over the place. I’ve always tried to champion these kinds of records that are hip hop to me, but with huge influences helping make them jam unique, to me this kind of British hip hop and these little one off releases are just as important as the latest big thing and are perhaps more honest in a lot of ways. The dour daily struggle he depicts here is one most mc’s have been through, lack of cash etc but how he drops it makes it hardly a sob story. Where this mc came from or went back to no one knows. GUNSHOT Return of the gunshot (off “Twilight’s last gleaming” lp/cd) Words of warning 97 By now on punk label Words Of Warning, its clear from this album that they wanted to get away from the full on fast sound that had steered their career so far. A mad Lp full of heavy influences plus an ace acid synth that most people missed due to bad distribution and the all too familiar lack of airplay. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE 4 the ho’s (“Return of the wildstyle”ep) The Ruf Label 97+cd 98 Bloody hell me & Mark 1 had a laugh when we did this, the fucked up sample of “Blow ya head” stretched out and messed up just cracked me up and we put all the funniest scratches in we could taking all the ho’s and ha’s out of context and basically having a bloody good time. The Ian Dury (r.i.p. friend and inspiration) ending still tickles me. TAPE 5, side A – 1996-1998 THE HERBALISER feat FABIAN Mr DJ 12”and on lp/cd Ninja Tune 96 Cracking 12” from the Herbs who quietly have built up an impressive collection of releases on Ninja Tune more often these days full on hip hop tunes rather than the clever cut n paste and jazzy live hip hop meets beats tracks they pioneered. The mc here seems to think its clever to diss a big name dj (cor blimey you’d never hear of me doing that) but is clever enough to drop a title without “Twat” in it. NUMSKULLZ Nothing but the music (b side of “Enough of that” 12”) High noon 96 The first self released track from the boys. I would have released this but they weren’t having any of it I’d have to wait until Ruf Diamonds 2 to get more tracks off them. RODNEY P Tour stories (off “Tings in time “ep) Pussyfoor 97 The only way the ex London Posse man could get tracks out at this time was via this big beat / experimental label set up by U2 and Bjork studio wiz Howie B. They pretty much flung this out there so only train spotting freaks like me checked it out at all. Shame though as apparently Rodney was waiting to get a full album out that never saw the light of day. DECKWRECKA Wrekin biz (London) EP Ronin 97 Meanwhile Deckwrecka was busting up some ruffneck instrumental business on a series of Kung Fu & film inspired ep’s like this one. Playing the cards right keeping it instrumental but building up a solid rep for chunky beats. The ICEPICK & DJ SUPREME Phenomenal criminal 12” (Backbone 97, re-issued Ruf Beats 99) After Hijack, Supreme was quiet for years but finally re-appeared with this intense work out with the London mc Icepick who dropped this killer tune on this label with little backing that soon got ripped off on the weaker follow up ep. As I’d taken a box or 2 of Phenominal eventually Icepick, Supreme & Grizzly came up and I agreed to re-release this on the flip of the new Dungeon Funk 12” BRAINTAX Deal with it (off “Future Years” EP) Low life 97 One of the tracks I’d actually funded originally but had been pulled after Jo saw “Westwood is a twat” on the track list for Ruf Diamonds 1. Here its remixed and brought up to date and was one of the all excellent tracks on the Future years Ep which helped resurrect Low Life. I love the energy in this, and feel it’s one of the elements that has been missing on his recent tracks, most hip hop artists I feel are taking things far too seriously and forgetting about having fun, that’s where the energy that listeners and fans buzz off comes from. KRISPY Listen up REMIX (off Various Artists “Ruf Diamonds Vol 2 “lp/cd) Ruf Beats 98 I interviewed Wiz for HHC at the same time as paying him a couple of hundred squid for the two tracks on RD Vol 2. I chose from a big fat tape full of funky at the time unreleased Krispy tracks and loved it to bits. Classic shit and very happy memories, it was so dope to be able to big up a crew I grew up listening to. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Cosmic symphony (off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 (Also into off Summer in space off same lp/12” mixed over next record. Both tracks were also released on the US Bomb Hip Hop anthology JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE “Technics Chainsaw Massacre” 99) 3xLP / 2xCd set. The first British act to get to No 1 on a US radio chart! Oh bloody hell that album. Again one my favourite albums got absolutely slept on. Yes it confused hip hop kids into thinking I’d lost the plot, Why? Well 2 things, firstly I’d stopped looping up huge chunks of big classic us hip hop and wanted to come at he Jeep Beat sound another way. Secondly at the time I was firmly a part of the big beast scene playing at the Blue Note, the End and nights up and down the UK so therefore that came into the singles “Summer in space” (Portishead on E) “Busta Bloodvessel” (Sex Pistols sampling fast break beat cut) “Lift” (a story of my recording career in a poem over some of the moodiest music you’ll hear. Did it blow up though? Did it fuck. No one got it, although it did get some nice reviews, I was trying to use the decks to create experimental cut n paste tracks In a fresh way – I think I succeeded if you listen to 8 of the tracks , maybe not on another 3. People didn’t get the cover either – HMV even filed it in the Jimi Hendrix section! At the time Mark Rae (Grand Central boss) had been doing some scratching and production for pop group Texas and offered the touring scratch dj duties with Texas to Mark 1. He never cut up again for me, always too busy to do stuff and busy earning crazy money with them. When Mark stopped showing up to practise at a time when it looked like things were really taking off, Loz also quit but only after losing £1,000 I’d given him to develop and try and make a living out of Radio Zero. What was worse was at the time I had spent serious money recording the singles for Athletico, who were a new big beat label on the block and we were waiting to sign a proper deal with them. With Mark & Loz leaving after a few blinding years within 2 months of each other I had no choice but to start doing dj shows by myself and had to finish recording this album by myself. It was heartbreaking but a book on Jimi Hendrix made me see how it was possible to keep going without key members, and it was those positive thoughts plus losing myself in Jimi’s music which made me make this album and dedicate it to his memory. If Jimi had turntables he would have fucking rocked them. Eventually it stood the test of time Dave Paul @ BOMB licensed the best of my first 3 Jeep Beat albums for an anthology release and I think finally now it sounds perfect, relieved from the genre boundaries that upset folk back then, ROOTS MANUVA Fever (his own solo debut – rare 12”) Armshouse 98 Other than his Skitz and previous IQ Procedure tracks this was his solo debut as far as I am aware. Yonks before “Brand new secondhand” this was further proof of Roots effortless dope style backed by another gem from up and coming fellow London mc Skeme. I remember hearing this round Disorda’s place and him buzzing his tits off to it. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Childs play(off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 See Cosmic above. I think this song is one of the best produced British hip hop jams but it got sooo slept on, just because I was rhyming about trolls, goblins and fairies rather than guns and drugs. DOH! LEWIS PARKER Songs of the desert (off “Masquerades & silhouettes” mini lp) Melankolic 98 More proof of the excellent quality of production starting to drop around now, but another “now you see it now you don’t” release from Melankolic who never seemed arsed enough to promote him, but then again a lot of Lewis’s tracks are really made for underground heads with little commercial crossover so maybe they’ve all got it right and seem happy, who knows? NUMSKULLZ Difference Hombre 97 One of my all time favourite Numskullz jams for so many reasons. Fucking awesome when dropped in a club right, why jams like this aren’t rocked by the countries hip hop dj’s amazes me. Awesome HERBALISER Wall crunching giant insect breaks 12” Ninja Tune 98 Ollie and Jake were dropping dope breaks cut n paste jams at the same time as Shadow and Cut Chemist but for some strange reason (hey there is a pattern emerging here) it never got picked up on as much. Sacrilege when a track has this much madness and such a collection of freaky breaks. Ah well, we know. TAPE 5 side B – 1998-2001 SKITZ feat ROOTS MANUVA / PHI LIFE CYPHER / SKELETON & TONY VEGAS Fingerprints of the Gods 12” Ronin 98 A huge track for British hip hop cleverly pasting together the countries finest in this epic track with different beats perfectly matched up to the right mc’s to bless them. This is another huge bomb from Skitz, who repeated the trick later on Wordplay’s first compilation in 2001. Outstanding NUMSKULLZ Something worth listening to (off “The unexpected”ep Hombre 98 A blinding 6 track ep moving there distinguished career onwards. MINDBOMB Deconstruction of a falling star (off “Great British Beef” lp/cd) Ruf Beats 98 Moody space evolution rhymes from me here with me rhyming the lot twice one in left, one in right speakers for strange effects. This drops my science of mankinds place is the big scheme of things. This album to me has everything and was the first where I did absolutely everything music, production, rhymes and cuts. I think this album is a slept on classic that people could come back to for years and its title drew a vital comparison between the about to break beef crises and British hip hop, ie there’s a one in a million chance consuming it will kill you! MARK B & BLADE Insight magnificent (off “Hitmen for hire” 2x12” set) Jazz fudge 98 At first Mark B put out disjointed experimental beats not unlike his friend Vadim, before both of them started hooking up with the finest around and dropping butter tracks like these for their friends to drop rhymes on. Supercharged tracks like this you can’t mess with and Blade showed once again why he is one of hip hop’s best mc’s. MARK B & THE MUD FAMILY No time like the present (off “The half of it” ep) K Boro 98 Again hooking up expertly with these guys to produce a track that really fitted their gritty street tales and attitude like a glove. Off a corking ep that showed Mud Family had a lot to say and fuck off if you thought you could ignore them. LOST ISLAND What I like 12” Son 99 Thumping and bumping stabbed track from Nottingham duo who went on to drop a killer lp for Ninja Tune offshoot Son who continued to release top quality underground gems and still do. Dj Style C has got a vast armoury of beats and boy is he going to use them. BEANZ presents ASPECTS Indecent exposure 12” Hombre mapache 99 The ex parlour talk dj dropped some killer beats for these, Rola (from Numskullz) and Junior Disprol on this ace ep. I recently stayed with Beanz and he blitzed me with some of the dopest breaks I’d ever heard, shortly after overdosing with me on League Of Gentleman videos. What can I say, he’d just won the dj competition I’d judged at the Cooler and I didn’t have anywhere to stay until then. One of the countries best beat diggers and a true gent. Thanks DJ LIFE Zee plan (off “Some music” ep) Chop chop 98 Awesome beefy instrumental by this up and coming dj and producer with Def Tex / Beats in progress connections. The MEN FROM ATLANTIS Heavy water 12” Hombre 2000 More dope as fuck instrumental anthem that comes off like a super cool movie flick score. Awesome in the mix and crossed over with all the clued up break beat dj’s too. MINDBOMB Ruf Beats (lead single off “Great British Beef” lp/cd) Ruf Beats 98 My anthem for a while, summing up my career up to 1998 with lots of insights and great lines, only put a verse or so in as there’s so much other dope stuff to get through. But do us a favour and if you like it pick up the album it off because I love it and still have a more than what could be described as a few. Ta PARLOUR TALK Vacation 12” (off “Padlocked tonic” lp/cd) Acid Jazz 99 Awesome single showcasing Beanz’s crazy breaks once again off a very well rounded album that again got kind of slept on somewhat unfairly. MAD DOCTOR X feat BLACK TWANG etc DJ’s & MC’s Son 99 Huge up tempo posse cut that comes builds and build to the point where Black Twang rock the tits off it. The biggest selling single for Son at the time this track did some underground damage. DJ FORMAT English lesson 12” US Bomb hip hop 99 Joining the British artists on Bomb Hip Hop with this amazing break beat fuelled cut n paste track was the South Coast based dj with ties to First Down. Format has got some mad breaks and a large collection of portable turntables and his skills shine through this track. After re-re-returning the art form for Mo Wax Format has recently dropped a huge funky US/UK link up on the crazy “Ill Culinary behaviour” TAPE 6, side A – 1998-2001 THE HERBALISER feat BLADE Whose the realest (off “8 point agenda” 12” Ninja Tune 99 Not many knew about this on the hip hop scene but check the fine atmospheric bumping beats on this excellent collaboration. They got him up on stage with them at Glastonbury that year as well where Blade made a big triumphant return to live work after his self proclaimed last ever show at UK Fresh 97. LEFTFIELD feat ROOTS MANUVA Dusted 12” (off “Stealth” lp/cd) Hard hands 99 By now Rodney’s reputation was getting him on huge jams like this and taking his deep tones to many different audience’s open to the mans skills. Whilst their album did well, it didn’t regain the heights of their clubbing classic “Leftism” but Roots was on a roll, having just remixed the Message for Sugar Hill’s remix cash in. K DELIGHT How many DJ’s (off “Controlling the hip hop” EP) Ruf Beats 99 I’ve known K Delight for many, many years, way back to early 90’s when he first started dropping awesome mix tapes. He always came with mad ideas and very raw cutting that I liked and seemed influenced by similar music, even his humour was similar, and it can take you by surprise when after a heavy hip hop session he drops something surreal on you that Vic reeves would be proud of. Hence years before Ali G, Chris had his own pisstake super group Da Hard Bastards – some seriously funny moments on a classic tape. When Mark and Loz had gone their way Chris came in and added his dope scratching skills on 3 tracks off my “for Jimi Hendrix” album which helped take them further than I could have done alone. I’ve always supported him and had been saying for ages that he was almost there with his solo production when, splat, a record appeared on my doormat with him on it. “Warrior of hip hop” was on “Fades in flames” a largely instrumental based record but it stood head and shoulders above the rest, furthermore this was the kind of track I knew would do well on my label, I just wasn’t sure why he hadn’t sent it to me first. This was basically the catalyst for me to stop pissing about and pump some cash into getting him out there properly. Not many groups come out with an EP this strong, but I really, really wanted an album, but it didn’t happen (yet, but will, I promise). This came out and got a nice 5/5 review in Touch, and in particular the Ruf Beats fan base in Japan have slowly caught on to it because 1. its better than most US instrumental hip hop and 2. Jeep Beat stuff was already known out there thanks to my hard work exporting all things Ruf. So over 2 years after it was released it has now done 2,000 which for a debut 12” is blinding. The ICEPICK Dungeon Funk 12” (also on Various “Thermonuclear Soundwars” CD) Ruf Beats 99 Released at the same time as the record above, this got all the press, but half the sales. I was really chuffed to have this on the label and enjoyed meeting them all. The deal was simple I’d put a 12” out, if it went well, we’d drop another and quickly get onto an album – the plan had been the same with K Delight as I wanted to make a noise with full length strong albums and really shake things up. So what happened, I pressed 1,000 and SRD my then distributor only sold 100 so I got on with selling it myself and sent 100 to Icepick after he told me his local shops didn’t have it. So I said yeh, but you’ve got to pay me for them as I might have to repress and I need cash for that (its quite hard to turn a repressing around fast when your deals with UK/foreign distributors are all 30 days end of the month, which actually means more like 3 months, if at all). He never paid me for these, said he was pissed off about the backbone sub-label logo being too small (he had a point there though). The track was starting to get a good reaction and people picked up on it quite a few Germans still reminiscing on his Hijack connections but feeling the new funk. So I called him about repressing it… many times no answer, not even the dignity of a reply in any shape or form. By this time I had signed a bigger distribution deal with Pinnacle and they had sales way above the stock left. I was left with this feeling of what’s the point, if the artist doesn’t appreciate your efforts why should I put my £2,000 into a one off 12”. Once again gutted, especially when someone told me Icepick had gone on a website saying how “Dungeon Funk” didn’t come out on Ruf Beats. Later I found out that Supreme was moving to Switzerland so the album was never on the cards anyway, it seems such a shame that they let things slip, as this 12” should have made a nice bit of dosh and set it up well for the future. Whilst its true that only albums (on lp, cd and any other format you can sell) really make money, it is incredibly hard to actually make one, no matter how committed you are, but the twist is that it takes an artist to release albums to prove to the scene that they are committed. Having bucket loads of enthusiasm and attitude is pointless if you misdirect it. I would’ve loved an album packed full of tracks of this quality but never mind shit happens. TASKFORCE feat SKINNYMAN its on you (off “New mic order” EP) K Boro 99 Raw out pouring of self-belief, from the mc’s joined by Skinnyman. This appeared on Mark B’s spin off label from Jazz Fudge as a 10 track album full of really hard cuts and gritty street rhymes as Mark B fulfilled his promise as a producer and kept picking up on the best talent around, MARK B & BLADE Nobody relates 12” Jazz fudge 98 This is the 12” that for me signalled they had the ability to crossover, even though it’s a super booming straight hip hop attack the confidence and clever statements set the scene for the forthcoming “The Unknown” album that would trouble the charts. You can feel on here that they knew what was coming, after all through their previous hook ups they now had the underground firmly behind them along with all the magazines, dj’s. Blade had even squashed his early 90’s beef with “Westwood” in order to move on and get some Radio 1 play on. It would take the Wordplay label to pump in the necessary before the assault would continue. THE NEXTMEN feat TY Turn it up a little 12” Scenario 2000 The Nextmen are one of those crews that seem to get loads of critical praise even though you never see their records anywhere (maybe because they sell immediately?) but here they had a track that dj loved to play out thanks to its oh so funky horn break and Ty’s effortless rhyme that has such a funky swagger to it you can’t help getting hooked, well, that is until he does his Biz Markie can’t Sing impression at the end. TOMMY EVANS Desert Island Discs (off “Time capsule” EP) YnR 2000 One of the early ultra Lo Fi records on YnR this got away with it thanks to a sublime lifting orchestra break, nice beats, immaculate concept and great Slick Rick inspired all time favourite hiphop LP’s run down by this imaginative rapper. Brilliant on a sunny day, pumped up and followed by any of the classic albums he mentions. Inspirational. RONI SIZE REPRAZENT Dirty beats (DJ SKITZ REMIX 12”) Talking loud 2000 The drum n bass supreme gave Skitz this to remix and fuck me, what a tune. Ruff crystal clear swinging drums rule this kickin track with giddy mc styles. A great example of how Brits should join together, leap across boundaries in order to win a wider audience, without ever having to water their music down. MC MELLO Hedz don’t know 12” Jazz fudge 99 Mello once again got crazy, returned out of no where and rocked this insane slangy style riddled jam before swiftly departing to study in Tunisia. I was on this can remember a few mad gigs in Europe getting asked what this was, normally when it was in the mix with Mos Def “Mathematics”. Recently heard he’s putting out tracks again and can’t wait to hear it. Come on man. NUMKULLZ Ad infinitum 12” (title of album but not on lp/cd) Hombre 2000 As if promoting an album isn’t hard enough the lads decided to confuse everyone and drop a single which had the same title as the album, but wasn’t actually even on it. This never works, even when I did the 2nd single of “great British beef” complete with 4 bonus tracks & a never done before 6 minute live beat boxing showcase it didn’t sell at all and remains the singularly most unsuccessful record I’ve put out even though its one of the best produced Mindbomb singles I’ve done. The lessons simple then, don’t call singles the same as your album, well unless you’ve recorded an album called “the Unknown”, oh shit that lesson is strictly true then is it? NO BRAINTAX Go there (off “The travel show” EP) Low Life 99 Great to here school kids on any track but this has lots of funky energy as well and helped build up their props level further by now everyone knew Low Life only came with butter beats. DEF TEX Obscure journey (b side of “Synchronise” 12”) Son 2001 Off their staggeringly inventive “Dune Bug” album and on the flip of the Synchronise 12” came this fast and furious twisting bomb that shows why Def Tex always represent ultimate mc’in. Always worth checking for them live too, especially if they are with the full band. JEEP BEAT EXPERIENCE Another bomb beat (off “Thermonuclear” 12” ep) Ruf Beats 99 After 7 years of being largely self distributed I finally got a decent deal when Pinnacle called me up prior to this release a 6 track EP along with a 17 track budget priced (should have been £5 in the shops – less than a 12”) CD packed full of recent & rare Ruf gems to act as a sampler for the shops who’d not checked for Ruf Beats before but could now order through Pinnacle. I pressed 2,000 vinyl and Cd’s, had dope great looking artwork thanks to my man TEMPER dropping a great graffiti gallery throughout, but still ended up having to sell most of it myself. 3 years on and there’s about 500 left. It takes time but if you can play the long term game and can invest money in nice artwork and dope tracks it can pay off but only if you’re networking and making the necessary contacts. Its this side that can then stop you from making tracks in the first place and then before you know it, you’re doing 95% business and 5% music. This happened to me as me and Mrs Ruf had a kid and saved up to move house. Finally 2 years later, I am slowly getting those percentages anywhere near level. It’s a good job I am a super nuclear alien from Planet Rock who can live only off fruit, rice, scrambled egg, Guinness and Marijuana and on only 6 hours sleep others wise my hip hop productivity would be considerably lower and my 6 hour dj sets would be the stuff of dreams. Sometimes it’s nice just to press a few records and sell them without all the business bullshit, which quite often is nothing but an empty soulless distraction. TAPE 6 side B – 1998-2001 sorry this is so chop and changy but so many gems to fit in MARK B & BLADE ya don’t see the signs PHI LIFE CYPHER REMIX Wordplay 2001 This came out as the same time as the Feeder rock remix that charted, but this didn’t generate any of the controversy, Phi Life Cypher having dropped the excellent “millennium Metaphors” album and being untouchable for fast flow information overloads. Class to see Mark B cleverly bringing his groups up with him. DJ FINGERS May tricks (off Ep & lp “Robots Rebellion”) Syndicate 2000 One of the pioneers of dj’ing over here many were surprised at the vast selection of mc’s he found for this musically great full length cd album that only caught a limited vinyl release in bits and pieces. A shame because you really feel the full force of his talent over the full length set. LEWIS PARKER Sunflight (off ltd dj promo “The options” ep) Melankolic 2000 Still lovely. Still under promoted. Still does he care? TASKFORCE Intro (off “Voice of the great outdoors” ep) Low Life 2000 After the clever attention grabbing cheeky promo antics of “Wha Blow” and “Graff da busup” Low Life dropped this ace 6 track ep and went on to do T Shirts, limited cd’s, mix albums. Rumours of taskforce underpants have been heard but mine haven’t turned up yet. DEF TEX Poetic speech techniques 12” (and on the lp/cd) Son 2001 Moody stuttering track showing the crews depths of talent. UNDIVIDED ATTENTION In a change to the scheduled programming 12” UA 2000 Snuck out by the extended Parlour talk crew who I saw live featuring 3 dj’s, 3 mc’s and bass & guitars, bizarre but worked great and these boys really ruf it all up. ROOTS MANUVA Witness the fitness 12” (off “Run come save me” lp/cd) Big Dada 2001 After “The unknown” this was the next anthem to come through, and how, it was played everywhere, even immediately the Jurassic 5 gig! It’s so nice to have a UK tune to play out that people are waiting for and know actually what it is. Again the fusions on here are crazy and rightfully broke his 2nd lp “Run come save me” to the masses with it’s funny back to school video. Even the mellow introspective follow up “Dreamy days” works as an anthem too. I met Roots Manuva, Ty and Part 2 from New Flesh at their ninja / Big Dada showcase at Popkomm (big ugly music trade fair in Colne, Germany) last year where the venue was over packed and the dressing room rider under stocked, it was great to finally meet a few of the acts I’d been playing for years. FINGATHING Head to head (off “2 player” ep) Grand central 2000 Whilst most of Grand Central’s output is trendy instrumental tracks this crew have been innovative enough to make it onto here with this ace forceful double bass and scratch anthem that really gets pulses racing. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Northern rock (off “4 wheel drive” ep & lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 The lead single off the 5th Jeep Beat album dropped with awesome bass and tinkling filtered old skool samples up a lot. This was the first appearance of Jabba The Cut whose skills are as dope as his name. The album was full of raw tunes like this, but everything that could have gone wrong did. EMI shut down their vinyl plant as mine were going to press so all the early singles missed release dates after atrocious cuts, resulting in missed deadlines, confused distribution and general messed up marketing. The thing is however much you try to cover every outcome, 5 or 6 things will still fuck up in a quite magnificent manner. DOYEN & COCKA Cock deezal EP SFDB 2001 The Barnsley nutter I made tracks with 10 years back started releasing tracks everywhere on Erectified, Landscape before dropping this on new Same Ball bag Different Record label (great name lads). The venom and energy he’s renowned for is quite staggering when youngest him and realise he is big cheeky fat bastard. K DELIGHT Ignorant mc’s (off “1 man big band” ep) Ruf Beats 2001 Off his eclectic electric scaletrix 2nd ep note it wasn’t an LP, “I said I wanted an album Chris!!!!” Still when it’s this good you’ll forgive anything, the 3 dj scratch tracks were awesome too, but here check for Ultra from Universal Soldiers and Dr Veins getting freaky on the spooky track. RODNEY P Big tings we inna 12” Riddim killa 2001 Large sound system anthem and the 2nd killer release on Rodney’s low Life backed label. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Devil music (off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 Best heard incredibly loud when your head is seriously ready for scratch anarchy! GUNSHOT featuring BLADE, MC MELLO, ICEPICK, TASK FORCE, HUNT KILL BURY FINN & BEANZ The English patient (off “International rescue” cd) Words of warning Available only on CD this star packed anthem broke down the medical history case of UK rap. I would say from that and this 6 pack that contrary to reports in the press and media it has actually always been really good, its just that only a few dedicated souls wanted to dig for it. After all if you think of the sheer amount of bad American rap that’s flooded over here over the years you would see that on the whole our quality control has been better than theirs for ages. People in the UK are far to critical and hard to please, too many people want the moon on a stick. ASPECTS We get fowl 12” (off “Correct English” lp/cd) Hombre 2001 Recent anthem from these wacky boys that always creates a stir thanks to extra chicken power. A sense of humour has been lacking from many UK crews, it takes all kind of attitudes to make music entertaining for a wider group of people than the underground. As far as I’m concerned the more varied stuff there is the better. BRAINTAX feat TASKFORCE 3 Amigo’s (Music from the corner cd only!) Taskforce 2001 Limited CD only release off a full album of raw demo’s / finished tracks that shows why these guys have a dedicated fan base : even their demo’s are better than many crews slaved over tracks. JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Playing with the big boys – last verse off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd) Ruf Beats A very shabby mix to end the tape with this last verse telling you a dream of my ultimate jam. The whole track is a fantasy of where I could have been if things had ever taken off to daft extremes. Ends with the nice line “if we all stop dreaming then we might as well die” which sounds a bit like a Smiths lyric. ROOTS MANUVA Join the dots instrumental 12” Big Dada 2001 What’s more apt than playing out with 2 of the world’s best mc’s on one common joint. A pointer for the future as the world gets smaller and different hip hop communities start to connect up, its going to be an interesting time! And I think that’s about it, I am sorry for any mistakes and blunders I’ve made throughout this project but fuck, no one else has tried to do this before, so bloody hard luck mate. I am up for any interviews to help promote this project, after all, this is just the tip of the Iceberg. Man, I’ve got books, films, video’s and TV shows in me I have, oh yes mate. All questions interested parties should call us here at Ruf Beats HQ. Finally I’d like to thank the entire hip hop community in this weird country especially anyone whose put up their hard earned for this document of a once struggling scene now finally growing up to play with the big boys. I hope we can grow and build further, if not then at least lets get together and have fun trying. Cheers for your time. Peace, love and unity Dave THE RUF 27th March 2002 I think the point of all this is your circumstances dictate your hunger, I couldn’t afford vinyl for years and when I did, BOOM! I was wanting to catch up on all the records I’d missed from way back, all the record’s coming out, everything. Buying collections, groups coming in selling me their new releases, distributors calling me to off-load all the UK hip hop that had stopped selling so quickly. The small growing UK scene had gone as far as it could, all the groups that had put out albums disappeared or told stories of never being paid, not reaching break-even, being ripped off by record deals, or albums being produced but never released due to withdrawn record company financing. Even in Europe and especially Germany, the hard-edged Britcore style became less important to them as the German’s started imitating US commercial hip hop more. Kold Sweat folded, Music of Life’s releases had dried up, no group had a record deal anymore. Furthermore hip hop on the whole had rapidly become flooded by weak gangster rap from the US, (backed initially independently before the majors cash flooded in and backed) which seemed attractive to the ghetto kids and “wannabee rebels” and slowly the whole scene started splitting into different types of hip hop. The cracks started to appear and then the walls broke, the few crews out there were flooded by this newfound public apathy. In 94 a new mentality hit a few artists, inspired by people like Blade who had released uncompromising records bugling the call to arms for groups to start doing it themselves. The new artists attitude was this, if no one was bothering to release records in the fickle record industry we are going to “give it a go” and who cares what anyone else thinks or says. I have been guilty of this as anyone and whilst it can be liberating, the ultimate result is you end up being skint and wondering why no one likes your music. By 94 I had already put out a couple of white label’s and tested the water. I had little idea just how difficult it was to even get a record made let alone in the public’s view. All that changed when 500 white frisbee’s turned up in shitty white sleeve’s with a big fuck off jump on the b side. I can remember opening them up playing one, “oh no that can’t be right” and another, “Shit” and then another, now trying to keep a tear in as I looked at my lady who consoled me. Utter frustration at the time but nothing compared to the mishaps and misadventures that would regularly punctuate my sanity over the label’s next 10 years (Christ you’d get less than that for killing someone). At the time I had a fun record shop and was supporting everyone and anyone I could, just happy to feel a part of things. In 1992 there was no one selling hip hop like I was, big adverts in HHC (some of which I even paid for) and I had racks and racks of old skool picked from collections as Manchester kids grew up and got families or worse still ditched their beloved B Boy 12”s and hitched a ride on the rave bandwagon. I noticed how everything was getting split up, people no longer seemed to be getting together for the love of music, all these categories, moody hip hop heads giving sweaty excited ravers evils or pirate station soul dj’s coming in thinking I wouldn’t tackle them over 20 records stuffed up they’re puffa jacket. I was doing everything releasing records, running the shops, on Soul Nation pirate station doing a weekly 3 hour hip hop show, that quickly alienated the bad boys by lightly dissin’ the genre with “granny Sasha’s gangster jam” in which my imaginary Granny bigged up a Gangster rap new release, like the early reaction to Ali G some didn’t get it. By now Manchester’s hip hop scene was non existent, thanks to many bad boys running round clubs, Ross Clark & Mark Rae’s “Fever” night closed after some dicks with guns thought they were proving something and it seemed impossible to do anything constructive, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. Any good tunes that came out on a British label I’d champion, Blue Eyes came in with his and Blade’s records (I remember selling 50 copies of his debut album in two months, paying up front with my own cash), Freshski & Mo Rock came in, Buzz B, mad Kermit came in pre-Black Grape (that’s a story in itself), Son of Noise did a pa off professional shitty badly recorded tape that kept blowing my amp up, Mr 45 dropped in with his wonderfully moody crew, Gunshot popped in for a signing session and early friends like Doyen Doy, Jehst, got on the mic. When Boom Tunes opened with Son Of Noise, some of my mail order customers travelled from miles away, London, Brighton, Bournemouth and I’d managed to get Tuff Tim Twist & Tommy from UK Rocksteady crew to do a load of painting and then breaking in the ridiculously confined space resulting in many pairs of knacker’s getting well and truly belted. Me, Mark (Treva Whatever), Steve (r.i.p. mate), Mrs Ruf and Bluntman Al had that place rammed all day and by the end knew it had been a resounding success. Then the biters came. If ever you have a good idea in music, people will be on your shit faster than a fly with a particularly insatiable appetite for eating shit. I couldn’t believe it, within weeks of the new shop opening it seemed everyone seemed to be selling loads of hip hop. Fat City was even part set up on my money after I’d paid off Ed Pitt (now label boss of Scenario) For a little bit of work he did in my Corn Exchange shop before pretty much insisting on becoming a partner over a drink. I liked Ed, tried doing a night called “Juice” with him but really I didn’t know him from Adam, whoever the fuck Adam was. I was selling loads of rare grooves and breaks for him and he promised me he was off to London to set a label up, so I handed the cash over that I owed him for his record sales on the one condition he wouldn’t set up a similar shop in Manchester. Within 3 weeks Fat City was open, within another few they were booking Rocksteady to dance in their shop (wonder where that idea came from) then I was making tunes with Mark 1 as MINDBOMB and JEEP BEAT dropping the first proper UK scratch hip hop group, and then hello they were making tunes with Mark 1. Then I had a label, then they had a label, boy it got annoying. Anything I’d do for a while they bloody did, only without any British Mc’s. Before you knew it, every shop that previously had fronted on hip hop was having sections set up and with my poxy two my business started to falter, not helped by a crooked landlord who now owns half the fucking ridiculously priced “City Centre Living” buildings in Manchester. By now I’d released both a really great Ruf N Rugged megamix Volume 1 and my debut THE RUF Northern Conquest but the shop was sending me under – I never stopped working, I was in that fucking freezing cold unit day & night sometimes. Heads that had said they would follow me to the new location obviously lied when a 10 minute walk confronted them and who could really blame them, who wants to walk under that dirty nasty stinking Arndale Bus station anyway, it gives me an Asthma attack just thinking about it! So finally, after the landlord tried to rip me off with a forged signature I decided to fuck it all off, just start again, I’d settle my debts and get the label started properly so I could devote proper time to it. It is the biggest paradox of making music the D.I.Y. way – you need to have your fingers in lots of pies to bring home a decent amount of cash to live off, but you can only be truly successful in something if you are totally focused. Eventually after a year and a half I even had to quit my beloved “boomin System” show on Soul Nation after a stick up by bad boys… but that’s a whole story in itself. So in 1994, with a failed shop, no cash and a loving Mrs Ruf, we moved from Whalley Range back to my home town in Altrincham and began the unlikeliest and most successful story ever in UK hip hop. As I write this I have just decided to go back to recording under my orignal name RUFMOUTH and get back to doing only what I want to – on my terms, I am not playing their game anymore. It doesn’t work. Never did. The music business is a total dark and dirty lie built on young dreamers who lose it all and never get paid unless they pay the dirty stinking corporate cock. A corporate cock I’ve since learnt, that actually is allowed in effect to launder drug money. Sony – you are everything I always suspected FUCK YOU. Anyway hope you enjoyed my little dashed off stories and it’s given you ideas of where Uk hip hop came from, I’d suggest we all get back to sampling and having a scene motivated by the original Bambaataa ethic – Peace , Love Unity and Having Fun. The people in control want us to be jealous, rhyme only of guns and gangs and drugs and general self destruct what was, once, one of the most energetic and exciting music forms ever – with no musical boundaries and at first til those lawyers stepped in no sampling boundaries. I say music should be free. We need to take it back from the lawyers and accountants and place it gently with love back into the world’s hands. I have realised after 32 years that music is indeed love. To put a price on love is impossible… But still fool’s try. I dedicate this tape pack and the notes to every Uk artist that has ever or will ever exist. Thank you for your time Yours Rufmouth 25/6/2003 ADVERT FOR USE IN SHOPS / BUSINESSES ETC A Guide to Great British Hip Hop History The first ever incomplete but very in depth audio guide to an underated artform. 6 x 90 minutes tapes (9 hours) of some of the dopest British hip hop ever. Beautifully raw TEMPER graf full colour cover With FREE 36 page BOOK !!! (in the classic hitlist stlye)– with complete tracklsist, in-depth details and with a little story about each track herein. Lots of mad stories, hip hop humour throughout and insights into the crazy struggles of a misunderstood scene. Presented in a Video/Book style cased. Blended mix set up in ruf year groupings to give an idea of the changes throughout the genre with over 170 tunes. Great way of catching up on missed gems or on groups that paved the way for the current stars. Particularly dope on long car journeys or other forms of immaculate escapism Yours for £25 including P and P. There is no excuse for sleeping. Check the tracklist and prepare to shed those Queens Heads. TAPE 1 Up to 1990 National fucking anthem…MC MELLO Our Time (album “Thoughts released”)Republic 90 DADDY FREDDY & ASHER D Brutality 12”Music of life 88 HIJACK Style wars 12”Music of life 88 STEREO MC’s On the mike (SUBSONIC REMIX) 12”Gee St 89 BLADE Lyrical maniac 12”Raw Bass 89 OVERLORD X 14 days in May 12”Hardcore 88 MC BUZZ B How sleep the brave 12”Playhard 89 MC MELLO Comin’ correct 12”Republic 89 RICHIE RICH feat RUMBLE I can make you dance (album – title cut)Gee St 89 MC TUNES Back to attack (rare white)Hit Quad 87 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 B Boys B wise (off Monsoon 12”)2 the bone 89 THE SINDECUT Demanding cycle of a word bound hammerhead 12”Virgin 90 HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” INSTRUMENTAL off import copyUS Epic 88 HIJACK The badman is robbin’ 12” US/UK Epic 88 MC BUZZ B The sequel 12”Playhard 89 MC DUKE Miracles 12”Music of life 88 STEREO MC’s Lyrical machine INSTRUMENTAL off 12”Gee St 89 HARDNOISE Untitled 12”Music of life 90 OUTLAW POSSE Original dope 12”Gee St 89MC MARTEY & DJ DBM Beyond control 12”Gti Records 89 HIJACK present HUNTKILLBURY FINN, SHAKKA SHAZAM and The ICEPICK The burial proceedings in the coarse of three knights 12”Music of life 90 COOKIE CREW Born this way US 12” (rare US PRINCE PAUL REMIX) US Polygram 88 HIJACK Hold no hostage (released on Music of life and also on Ice T’s US Rhyme Sindecate) 88 HIJACK Doomsday of rap(released on Music of life and also on Ice T’s US Rhyme Sindecate) 88 2 THE TOP The matter at hand (b side of “Score to settle” 12”)President 90 MERLIN Bust da move (off Drop the weapon EP)Rhythm king 89 SILVER BULLET 20 seconds to comply 12”Tam Tam 89 BLADE Forward (off “Mind of an ordinary citizen” 12”)691 influential 90 SHE ROCKERS On stage 12 (backspun instrumentals)Jive 88 TAPE 2, 1990-1992 RUTHLESS RAP ASSASSINS Justice (Just Us) THE MASE REMIX 12”Emi 91 FRESH SI & MO ROCK A day of reckoning – off “The long awaited paraxysm ep”Conscious 91 11:59 In the shadows (off “Killing time” ep)Hum 91 KILLA INSTINCT Un-united kingdom (off Den of thieves 12”)Music of life 92 MC MELLO Firm stance (off “Mello gone crazy” ltd promo)Funki dred 92 DEMON BOYZ Glimmity glammity (off 12” and 2nd LP)Tribal bass 92 HIGH AUTHORITY I’m the man 12”Optimism 91 BRAINTAX Talk about the future (off “Fathead” EP)Low life 92 COOKIE CREW Secrets (of success) 12” COOKS MIXFFRR 91 BUSHKILLER Bushkiller draw (flip of “92 Salute” 12”)Danger 92 BLADE Rough it up EP691 Influential 91 HARDNOISE Serve tea then murder 12”Music of life 91 AKAPEL Pick it up EPPhlange 92 DEF TEX Bird land (Off “tutorial sessions” EP”)Soundclash 92 KRISPY 3 Destroy all the stereotypes 12”K3 91 REBEL MC Black meaning good – Slavery mix 12”Desire 91 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Rippin up the industry Part 2 (off 12”)Mango 91 SUBSONIC 2 Unsung heroes of hip hop 12”Unity 91 JC001 & D-ZIRE Sea of MC’s 12”Anxious 92 POINTS PROVEN feat FLY On the mic (off “only fools & horses” EP)Payday 92 CAVEMAN Cool – cos I don’t get upset REMIX (off “Victory” EP)Profile 91 SINDECUT Wisdom (b side of “Tell me why” & on album)Virgin 90 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Sign of the beast ltd REMIX 12” (whoops)Mango 91 CAVEMAN I’m ready 12”Profile 91 KRISPY 3 Don’t be misled EPK3 92 KATCH 22 Biting the hands that feeds (off “Return to the fundamentals”ep) Kold Sweat 92 OUTLAW Sons of the devil (the principles re-buriel) promo ltd 12”Promo 91 The BROTHERHOOD Just a manifester (off debut EP)Bite it 91 SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single)Little rascal 12” FIXED PENALTY All of us (off “The EP” !!)Fpt 91 SON OF NOISE Retrocide 93 (off “Crazy mad flow” single) – instrumental. Little rascal 12” TAPE 3, 1993-1995 MC MELLO Mello gone crazy 12”Funki dred 92 MINDBOMB Stop ya skemes(off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Bomb diffusal (off EP)Kold Sweat 93 KRISPY 3 Bubble gum 12” (and on album “Can’t melt the wax”)Kold Sweat 94 LONDON POSSE How’s life in London 12”Bullet 93 3:6 PHILLY Those flags offend me 12”Zoom 93 LORDS OF RAP Where does the xtra 3 quid go? (off “Stix n stones” EP)Madd dog 94 SCARY EIRE Dole Q 12”Eleven 95 K.I.D. Fatal attraction (off shared double 12” pack with BENJI)Kold Sweat 95 BLACK RADICAL MK 2 Hard times (off “This is war” EP)Copasetic 93 KOOL DJ MAXI JAZZ I got the blues (off rare EP)Chaiya 94 MC Ni Sit back relax 12”IQ Reecords 94 GUTTERSYNPES Who fell (off “trials of life” EP)Liberty grooves 94 MINDBOMB The Mindbomb (12” & off album “Trippin thru the minefield” Vol 1) The Ruf label 95 BLADE Bedroom demo (off “The lion goes from strength to strength” LP) 691 influential 93 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Interception (lp“Attack of the wildstyle beatfreaks”Ruf label 95 HEARTS OF DARKNESS A taste of venom 12”The Ruf 94 GUNSHOT Colourcode 12”Vinyl Solution 94 MINDBOMB Expletives deleted (off “Chameleon vibes” ep)The Ruf Label 95 TRANSCRIPT CARRIERS Diggsat (off “The haemorrhoid fry up” ep)Undivided 93 The PRINCIPLE feat SILENT ECLIPSE The damned EPBlueprint 94 499 – 499 is here EPProfile 95 BUSHKILLER Music in motiom (off “Trouble makers”EP)Danger 94 KILLA INSTINCT Thieves rush in where th efools lay dead 12”European 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Put em up (off “It ain’t clever” ep)Kold Sweat 93 BLADE Clear the way 12” (ltd 12 with pre ordered lp’s!)691 influential 93 FIRST DOWN Let the battle begin (off EP)Ill gotten gains 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Nah, nope it’s dope 12”The Ruf Label 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE The bomb drops (off “seconds to detonation”ep) The Ruf Label 95 TAPE 4,– 1993-1995 ( a few 96 jams too) HEARTS OF DARKNESS What you waited for 12”The Ruf Label 95 UNANIMOUS DECISION Disappoint me (off “It ain’t clever” double 12” ep)Kold sweat 93 M C MELLO Radics delight (off “The first chronicles of dett” ep)Natural response 94 HIDDEN IDENTITY Return of the red eye (off “blunted bumpkin buskers” EP) Pure rudeness 94 LONDON POSSE Pass the rizla (off Various Artsists “British underground” EP)XL 94 KATCH 22 Lifestyles of the poor & ruffneck (lp “Dark tales from two cities”)Kold Sweat 93 GUNSHOT Social psychotic Double 12”Vinyl Solution 93 BLADE Planned and executed MINI LP691 influential 95 KRISPY 3 On tempo 94 Lick REMIXKold Sweat 94 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Scream – boomsday of rap (off lp/cd “Attack of the..”) The Ruf Label 95 DJ KRASH SLAUGHTA Always remain hardcore EPX Records 95? LEE CURITS CONNECTION Hip Journey EPBlindside 95 BROTHERHOOD One shot 96 REMIX 12”Bite it 96 LEWIS PARKER Visions of splendour (b side of “Rise” 12”Bite it 96 NUMSKULLZ Signs of the end – Instrumental 12”Hombre 97 NUMSKULLZ Trouble on my mind (debut off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp/cd) The Ruf Label 96 MINDBOMB Man’s life (off “Trippin thru the minefield Volume 2”lp/cd)The Ruf Label 96 The CREATORS feat Marga Marl J – Weird old world (off “Masterplan” ep) Blindside 96 PARLOUR TALK Colouring 12”Acid Jazz 97 UNANIMOUS Freshest on the mic REMIX (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Hip hop love (off V/A Ruf Diamonds 1 lp in 96 and re-released in 2000 on the “Thermonuclear Soundwars” EP & budget priced CD. The Ruf Label / Ruf Beats SKITZ & ROOTS MANUVA Blessed be thy manner 12”Ronin 96 MUD FAMILY Mud files EPRonin 97 MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Westwood is a twat 2x12” + on RD Vol 1 lp The Ruf Label 96 KILLA INSTINCT And now the screaming starts (off “escapism” EP)German Move 95 MINDBOMB vs JEEP BEAT Stop your skemes SCRATCH REMIX 2x12” The Ruf Label 96 SOLID ROX The struggler 12”Black plastic 98 GUNSHOT Return of the gunshot (off “Twilight’s last gleaming” lp/cd)Words of warning 97 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE 4 the ho’s (“Return of the wildstyle”ep) The Ruf Label 97+cd 98 TAPE 5, 1996-1998 THE HERBALISER feat FABIAN Mr DJ 12”and on lp/cdNinja Tune 96 NUMSKULLZ Nothing but the music (b side of “Enough of that” 12”)High noon 96 RODNEY P Tour stories (off “Tings in time “ep)Pussyfoor 97 DECKWRECKA Wrekin biz (London) EPRonin 97 The ICEPICK & DJ SUPREME Phenomenal criminal 12” (Backbone 97, re-issued Ruf Beats 99) BRAINTAX Deal with it (off “Future Years” EP)Low life 97 KRISPY Listen up REMIX (off Various Artists “Ruf Diamonds Vol 2 “lp/cd)Ruf Beats 98 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Cosmic symphony (off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 Also into off Summer in space off same lp/12” mixed over next record. Both tracks were also released on the US Bomb Hip Hop anthology JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE “Technics Chainsaw Massacre” 99 3xLP / 2xCd set. The first British act to get to No 1 on a US radio chart! ROOT S MANUVA Fever (his own solo debut – rare 12”)Armshouse 98 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Childs play(off 2xlp/cd “for Jimi Hendrix”) Ruf Beats 98 LEWIS PARKER Songs of the desert (off “Masquerades & silhouettes” mini lp) Melankolic 98 NUMSKULLZ DifferenceHombre 97 HERBALISER Wall crunching giant insect breaks 12”Ninja Tune 98 SKITZ feat ROOTS MANUVA / PHI LIFE CYPHER / SKELETON & TONY VEGAS Fingerprints of the Gods 12”Ronin 98 NUMSKULLZ Something worth listening to (off “The unexpected”epHombre 98 MINDBOMB Deconstruction of a falling star (off “Great British Beef” lp/cd) Ruf Beats 98 MARK B & BLADE Insight magnificent (off “Hitmen for hire” 2x12” set) Jazz fudge 98 MARK B & THE MUD FAMILY No time like the present (off 2The half of it” ep K Boro 98 LOST ISLAND What I like 12”Son 99 BEANZ presents ASPECTS Indecent exposure 12”Hombre mapache 99 DJ LIFE Zee plan (off “Some music” ep)Chop chop 98 The MEN FROM ATLANTIS Heavy water 12”Hombre 2000 MINDBOMB Ruf Beats (lead single off “Great British Beef” lp/cd)Ruf Beats 98 PARLOUR TALK Vacation 12” (off “Padlocked tonic” lp/cd)Acid Jazz 99 MAD DOCTOR X feat BLACK TWANG etc DJ’s & MC’s Son 99 DJ FORMAT English lesson 12”US Bomb hip hop 99 TAPE 6, 1998-2001 THE HERBALISER feat BLADE Whose the realest (off “8 point agenda” 12”Ninja Tune 99 LEFTFIELD feat ROOTS MANUVA Dusted 12” (off “Stealth” lp/cd)Hard hands 99 K DELIGHT How many DJ’s (off “Controlling the hip hop” EP)Ruf Beats 99 The ICEPICK Dungeon Funk 12” (also on Various “Thermonuclear Soundwars” CD) Ruf Beats 99 TASKFORCE feat SKINNYMAN its on you (off “New mic order” EP)K Boro 99 MARK B & BLADE Nobody relates 12”Jazz fudge 98 THE NEXTMEN feat TY Turn it up a little 12”Scenario 2000 TOMMY EVANS Desert Island Discs (off “Time capsule” EP)YnR 2000 RONI SIZE REPRAZENT Dirty beats (DJ SKITZ REMIX 12”)Talking loud 2000 MC MELLO Hedz don’t know 12”Jazz fudge 99 NUMKULLZ Ad infinitum 12” (title of album but not on lp/cd)Hombre 2000 BRAINTAX Go there (off “The travel show” EP)Low Life 99 DEF TEX Obscure journey (b side of “Synchronise” 12”)Son 2001 JEEP BEAT EXPERIENCE Another bomb beat (off “Thermonuclear” 12” ep) Ruf Beats 99 MARK B & BLADE ya don’t see the signs PHI LIFE CYPHET REMIX Jazz fudge 2001 DJ FINGERS May tricks (off Ep & lp “Robots Rebeliion”)Syndicate 2000 LEWIS PARKER Sunflight (off ltd dj promo “The options” ep)Melankolic 2000 TASKFORCE Intro (off “Voice of the great outdoors” ep)Low Life 2000 DEF TEX Poetic speech techniques 12” (and on the lp/cd)Son 2001 UNDIVIDED ATTENTION In a change to the scheduled programming 12” UA 2000 ROOTS MANUVA Witness the fitness 12” (off “Run come save me” lp/cd) Big Dada 2001 FINGATHING Head to head (off “2 player” ep)Grand central 2000 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Northern rock (off “4 wheel drive” ep & lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 DOYEN & COCKA Cock deezal EPSFDB 2001 K DELIGHT Ignorant mc’s (off “1 man big band” ep) Ruf Beats 2001 RODNEY P Big tings we inna 12”Riddim killa 2001 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Devil music (off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd)Ruf Beats 2001 GUNSHOT featuring BLADE, MC MELLO, ICEPICK, TASK FORCE, HUNT KILL BURY FINN & BEANZ Th eenglish patient (off “International rescue” cd) Words of warning ASPECTS We get fowl 12” (off “Correct English” lp/cd)Homre 2001 BRAINTAX feat TASKFORCE 3 Amigo’s (unreleased to date !)Low Life 2001 JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE Playing with the big boys – last verse off “Death Race 2001”lp/cd) Ruf Beats 2001 ROOTS MANUVA Join the dots instrumental 12” Big Dada 2001 Mixed live by Dave THE RUF March 2002. For more info Contact The Ruf