HDM - Da Professional / Real Mc's - 1997

If there is a good and cheap 12" which should be in every record collection, it could be this wax released by HDM a.k.a Hype Da Madman on Jungle Nills Records in 1997... 

12" - 1997 - Jungle Nills Records

A little resume for those who don't remember HDM, he began in the early 90s in a group from Staten Island called The Red Eye Krew, which was also composed of two other members : Oob and Jun Jak a.k.a Jungle Jak a.k.a Double J. Their first appearance on a magazine was in the Unsigned Hype Section of the Source magazine of March 1993, when they dropped their 4-Track demo. At that time HDM was under the moniker "Hype". 

Double J : "We grew up in the same Projects. HDM heard me spit, heard Oob do his thing, collaborated with Schott Free and formed The Redeye Crew."

From The Source - March 1993

The group was also affiliated with the Jungle Nills and with other artists like Legion Of D.U.M.E and Funky Jilz.

Double J :"We were all from Mariners Harbor Projects, home of The Force M.C.'s, later changed to the Force M.D.’s. Jillz is Big Bro from my hood ! actually a Solo artist, but we all rocked together. He actually founded the Darc Mind Inc project we all was on, Legion of Dume/Doom, Redeye Crew and Funky Jilz"

In 1994, HDM made his first solo appearance on the original Mobb Deep's Demo of "Right Back at You", but unfortunately the demo won't be the version on the album... 

Double J :"I was actually in the booth with him at the session ! One of my favorite days...that's me whistling in da background towards the end of his verse. Before I went to prison we were rocking hard with Mobb Deep..."

The story of that demo version has been told by Schott Free who produced the track, in the "The Making of Mobb Deep's 'The Infamous'" posted by Complex.com website in April 2011 :  

Schott Free : "I remember I said, ‘Yo let me throw one of these little Staten Island cats on.’ So he hit me with this kid named HDM, Hype Da Madman, and Hype had spit on it. Hav loved Hype and he wanted to leave it, but P was just like, 'I want him to say something else. Just tell him to come to the studio and lay down this other shit.' Hype—being the type of dude he was—was like, 'Fuck that. Fuck you. That version is hot man. I’m not changing shit.' So he didn't change the verse so Hav was like, 'He's gonna have to come up off of there. We'll do something else.’ So I said, 'If it's not gonna be him, let me keep it Staten Island. Let me get Rae or Ghost up on it.’ They was cool with that and he just called Rae and Ghost. You can imagine my boy HDM wish he woulda changed his verse right? This story coulda been different, but he didn't."

Double J & HDM - Photo courtesy of Anthony Jackson

 After that, Oob quitted the group, Double J has been locked up for three years and HDM went solo.
In 1997, he released the classic 12" single "Da Professionnal / Real MC's". The track "Da Professional" was produced by Monochrome (Shadowz in The Dark) and "Real Mc's" was produced by Nick Wiz. 

Mad Props to Anthony Jackson aka Double J