Big shout to my Turntable Lab family for the release of the new FREE EP, Secret Hangout Volume 2. This is a free compilation with joints by me and DJ Ayres along with our friends Thee Mike B, Blu Jemz, Michna and more. All the music is really good and fun, and my contribution is the Doobie Brothers edit that I did a couple of years ago that people were sweating. So now it’s time to grip it – on that other level.
Now this is slightly involved so pay attention. Here’s the directions on how to get it:
1) Go here http://digital.turntablelab.comand log in (or create an account if you don’t have one already).
2) Go to cart, click redeem promo code and enter “newfriend”
3) Checkout and voila! no purchase necessary!
So you might have wondered why I’m not updating much this month. First of all around my birthday I took a little time off. Also I’ve been spending time between hanging with my family, and working on a few projects. But the main reason is because the new site cosmobaker.com version 2.0 is about to launch, like probably in about 2 to 3 weeks. So I’ve been getting the content for the new site ready. Thanks for your loyalty and patience and I promise the new format is going to blow your minds.
Speaking of projects, here’s one that we just completed. For the July 9th’s Skratch Bastid Presents: Let’s Build party at The Drake in Toronto, I flew in early to send a couple days practicing routines with Bastid for the show. During one of our sessions him and I were playing the new Cam’ron & Vado heatrock “Speakin’ In Tongues” and I started chopping up different parts of the beat, flipping it inna dancehall stylee. We threw Cutty Ranks’ immortal “Limb By Limb” acapella over top of it and it and, as Bastid puts it, “instantly smoke filled the room and an airhorn sounded from the distance. Magical.” We performed it live at the show to a great response. Here is a studio remix of the cut, so that you can mash up the party wherever you play it, be it desktop, poolside or club. Check it:
Please feel free to VOTE for this track on HYPEM, post to your Twitter, or share on your Facebook page. All the love is much appreciated for sure… and that’s no lie! And for good measure, here’s some great Cutty Ranks yourtube videos… The man was always one of my favorites.
Big shout out to Skratch Bastid and Mike D for having me up, and shout to the folks at WeSC for helping make it happen (and for the nice headphones.) Also thanks as well to Andre and the Drake Hotel crew for consistently having great events in a comfortable room in a big city. That’s how it’s done. Check the photos here.
Happy Birthday to Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G., and always known to me simply as Biggie Smalls. My favorite rapper of all time. And if you don’t think he’s the greatest rapper of all time, stop smoking that shit.
I remember the first time I heard Biggie rap – I had just come home from buying the latest Heavy D & The Boyz record “Blue Funk” (A criminally underrated album by the way.) So I listened to the whole thing, and finally got to the last song on the album, the posse cut “A Buncha Ni66as” and heard this dude flow for the first time. He bodied the cut, even using the funny noise gimmick “Eeehhh” in his flow back then. But listening to the dude, you knew you were listening to greatness.
Over the course of the next couple years it was like every time you heard him drop a guest verse, whether it be on a Super Cat record or on a Mary J. Blige record, you knew you were listening to history being made. I’m a Philly dude, I’m not a native New Yorker, but listening to dude rap he was our champion doing it right before our eyes. Biggie Smalls songs were leaked all over mixtapes that we use to bring down from Harlem, and your man was a problem. Then the Big Mack promo dropped, complete in the old school styrofoam hamburger containers, and it was a wrap – nothing could stop Biggie. That was a mad exciting time for me and for everyone around me at the time, and for music in general. Of course he released 2 classic albums and changed rap history and will always be remember as one of – if not the – greatest rappers of all time (thank you Canibus for your one contribution to rap in your paltry career, the “March 9th” line.) But when I think of Biggie I always think of those early years. It was so exciting, and had so much electricity and promise. Miss that dude. There will never be another.
I did this remix a couple of years ago. Of course the original (both the original and the original remix) versions by Lord Finesse are classics. But I wanted to just do a little 21st Century update for the clubs, using the Flaming Arrow flip, and I had to painstakingly add in the samples from Doug E. Fresh and from The Last Poets as well. I always get a good reaction to this when I play it out. Hope you enjoy it.
Dante’s Hifi – Miami – April 20 
Happy Birthday to Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G., and always known to me simply as Biggie Smalls. My favorite rapper of all time. And if you don’t think he’s the greatest rapper of all time, stop smoking that shit.
Over the course of the next couple years it was like every time you heard him drop a guest verse, whether it be on a Super Cat record or on a Mary J. Blige record, you knew you were listening to history being made. I’m a Philly dude, I’m not a native New Yorker, but listening to dude rap he was our champion doing it right before our eyes. Biggie Smalls songs were leaked all over mixtapes that we use to bring down from Harlem, and your man was a problem. Then the Big Mack promo dropped, complete in the old school styrofoam hamburger containers, and it was a wrap – nothing could stop Biggie. That was a mad exciting time for me and for everyone around me at the time, and for music in general. Of course he released 2 classic albums and changed rap history and will always be remember as one of – if not the – greatest rappers of all time (thank you Canibus for your one contribution to rap in your paltry career, the “March 9th” line.) But when I think of Biggie I always think of those early years. It was so exciting, and had so much electricity and promise. Miss that dude. There will never be another.