If you're looking for a good vinyl from the mid 90s for your record collection, here is the 12" released by the NYC-based group Puppets Of Chaos !
For the story if you don't know this group, in July 1992 they appeared in the unsigned hype section of the Source magazine when they dropped their demo tape. At that time Puppets Of Chaos consisted of 3 members, Skribe from Brooklyn, Sckala from Harlem and 7 Zark 7 from Queens.
In 1995 the group who became a duo only formed by Skribe & Sckala, dropped their debut 12". The wax came out on Pro-Amp Entertainment and consisted of the tracks "Tru Dat" on the A-side (Tru side) and "New & Improved" on the B-side (New side), which were both produced by Randy Nkonoki-Ward and DJ 3D, with cuts by Rob Swift on "New & Improved".
Randy Nkonoki-Ward : "I was listening to Stretch & Bobbito while I was sleeping. They played their demo "Make You Wanna Smack Your Mama", and it woke me from my sleep. I worked at Rush management at the time, and Bobbito worked upstairs at Def Jam, so I asked him if I could get their contact info. So he had them contact me. This was before mobile phones... 1992. 3D a.k.a André Bagley was a friend of mine who was a dope producer. He made the music for both songs on the single, I just polished things up."
Pro-Amp Entertainment was a record label managed by Randy Nkonoki-Ward and Mark Kotlinski. I don't know if these names talk to you but it should reminds you something...
Randy Nkonoki-Ward & Mark Kotlinski
"Call them the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of Net Radio. Childhood chums Mark Kotlinski, 27 and Randy Nkonoki-Ward, 28 are fast becoming the crown kings of hip-hop culture on the web, as co-creators and executive producers of 88HIPHOP.com, a national online web show devoted to hip-hop culture.
Originally next door neighbors from New Britain, Connecticut, Kotlinski and Nkonoki-Ward have been best friends since elementary school. After High School, Nkonoki-Ward moved to New York to work for a recording studio and break into the music business, while Kotlinski went on to college. But It didn’t take long before the two reunited.
Shortly after graduating college, Kotlinski moved to New York to team up with Nkonoki-Ward and start Pro-Amp, a record label focused on up-and-coming hip-hop artists. Then in late 1995, they got the idea to start a service that would promote the hip-hop community, 88hiphop started as a 900 phone line from Randy Nkonoki-Ward’s Brooklyn bedroom in January 1996."
Randy Nkonoki-Ward : "The challenges to promote that record led us to creating what would become 88HIPHOP.com. A streaming Hip-Hop show that started in my Brooklyn bedroom that we partnered with Pseudo one of the first online streaming networks in 1996. 88HIPHOP started to take off in a big way, and we never looked to do another record. At some point I brought Skribe on to be the host of our MC battle segment, MIC Wars."
Mad Props to Randy Nkonoki-Ward, thanks for your time.
Was always a big fan of these guys, even though hardly anything exists from them. Disappointed but not surprised that their demo hasn't surfaced yet. I have another Stretch & Bob freestyle from 1992 over the "Fakin' The Funk" instrumental that I've uploaded here. From the edits, I'm thinking was was from one of the WKCR freestyle tapes they used to put out.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sendspace.com/file/clyph6
I was a huge fan of 88HipHop back in the day. I had recorded most of the freestyles and battles but I gave those tapes away some years ago so they may still exist in somebody's collection. Back when streaming "Real Audio" was about as good as you were going to get. Kwest Tha Madd Lad, PackFM and Poison Pen were just eating cats in battles for weeks at a time, plus they had a lot of cool guests come up every week to introduce themselves and rhyme. Will always fondly remember those days.