"Originally due to be released in 1995, the lost 2nd album from Trends of Culture 'When Trend Men Come' has finally arrived courtesy of GRR/Heavy Jewelz and is a must-have for 90s rap fanatics. Featuring the original 11 track album (remastered from the impossible-to-obtain promo tape and sounding great) Plus 3 bonus demo tracks from the same era (the demos are pretty rough but have been restored as best as possible)." - Gentleman's Relief Records
Tracklist:
1. Trends Anthem
2. Make A Move
3. What I'm Feeling
4. Always and Forever
5. Lavish Lifestyle
6. Who Got My Back (Remix)
7. On & On
8. Spread It All Over
9. Swinger Man
10. Other Man Lover Man
11. New Habits
12. Gunshot (Bonus Demo)
13. M.P.F. (The Game) (Bonus Demo) 14. Real MC (Bonus Demo)
Three years ago Maze83 uploaded two radio shows from December 1995. It seems these shows are on the same tape, The Awesome Two Show on the A-Side and the The Hank Love & Half Pint on the B-Side. If you listen carefully to the first show, The Awesome Two show stops at around 14:30 and is followed by a hidden Kevin Keith & The Dirty Dozen radio show. During this show were invited indie artists like Medicine Kabinet or Middle Finger. It stops in the middle of the B-side and is followed by a Hank Love & Half Pint Radio Show. Of course, feel free to help for the missing track IDs ! Peace
Side A :
The Awesome Two Show - 105.9 WNWK
Mobb Deep - Still Shinin’
Bounty Killer - Suicide or Murder / Blend
Talk Break
Mytee G Poetic - Com'n Wit Nuff Ruffness
Mic Geronimo - Lifecheck
Talk Break
Nubian Crackers - Clap Your Hands Everybody
Kevin Keith & The Dirty Dozen - 105.9 WNWK
14:30 ? - Kevin Keith & The Dirty Dozen Promo
15:30 ? - Kevin Keith & The Dirty Dozen Promo
Bahamadia - True Honey Buns
20:20 ?
Fat Joe - Fat Joe’s in Town
Onyx - All We Got Iz Us (Evil Streets)
Hillfiguzes - Break It On Down
Black Moon - Murder Mc’s Instrumental
Talk Break
Medicine Kabinet Interview
Medicine Kabinet - The World is coming to an End Demo
Let's talk about this hip-hop duo named Secret Invasion. In 1994, they released their first and only 12" called 'the Unknown Zone' on BZ Music Recording, a record label managed by Tom Mulreaney. Last time I saw their wax for sale on ebay, it was in 2017 and it was sold for 1225 US$... crazy... isn't it ?
For those who don't know Secret Invasion, it consisted of David Charles aka Righteous and Myron Brinkley aka Profet, hailing from North West Philadelphia, Pottstown PA also known as P-Town.
All the tracks of the 12" were produced by Tyrell Wilkerson aka Blade and Todd Wright aka Cheese. I've been lucky to talk with David Charles recently and he gave me more details about their story.
Righteous : "Everything in the group started from Myron Brinkley. Myron was called the profet, he was one of the most popular rappers in the Pottstown area. Myron was a writer and he was also a thinker and a reader. Myron was a solo rap artist, I was a local dancer in the Pottstown community. I had a passion for dancing and some rapping.. I heard Myron was the best out there.. so me and a friend name Ernston Clemons approached Myron at a local community center called the Ricketts center... we asked to audition for him to be his dancers... he told us to meet him at his house on Monday of the next week... so we left and practiced to get ready for the audition. Monday came and we went to Myron’s house. We auditioned and he said cool. You guys are good. Let’s do this.
So after that, we started to try to book shows at different places in the tri state area... Philadelphia, Maryland and Jersey etc... but we needed a name to promote... we thought about it a lot, and because we were from the suburbs 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia, we thought our talent was kept secret. But we knew we had something special and we thought we would invade the world with our sound. So everywhere we went, people liked what we did but they never heard of Pottstown. So we settled on the name 'Secret Invasion'.
Myron became a huge influence on my life in every way. A mentor, best friend, a brother. But it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that Myron asked me to write a rap. I was like no I’m not a rapper I’m a dancer. He said you’ve been around me long enough write a rap. So I did and it was called 'Scotty I don’t want none'. This was about saying no to doing drugs. Where we come from People strung out on drugs, alcohol, crack... Everything you could think of. So 'Scotty I don’t want none' came from probably thinking about old KRS and BDP sayings of beam me up to Scotty.
I wrote the rap in between Myron’s first verse and last verse. Myron likes it and then he said your my partner for now on... so I started rapping more. That’s how Secret Invasion and the name really came about... when I started rapping with him... We were officially a group.
Tyrell and Todd Wright were a few years older than Myron and myself. Tyrell was a local producer and beat maker. We all looked up Tyrell because he may beat on MPC and other forms of making tracks. He had a long history of working with different artist and a local town called Norristown Pennsylvania. So we all knew of Tyrell and his nickname was Blade... because he could scratch records. Tyrell was like a local beat making celebrity in our area.
Todd was the local hip-hop head and was also my cousin. He had a ear for music as well. We brought Todd in to help with remixing the songs. Everyone new of each other and liked each other, this project just gave us a chance to work together.
Todd and Tyrell weren’t part of the group... the group was more Myron and myself but blade was a huge part of everything we did, he was the one who made our tracks... blade and a guy named Rex were the ones who helped us to start producing records. Rex played keys and was good with-sounds and laying things down... Rex and Blade were like best friends... that’s where our sound originated from Rex and Blade.
Pottstown is not that big, We probably live 2 to 3 miles from each other maybe even a mile. Pottstown is a small suburb 30 mins from Philadelphia. 22,000 people, maybe more back then.. but there was one area called downtown which was 2 miles east of the place we called Penn Village. I was born and raised in Penn Village which is a housing project, more low income. A lot of us came from that area and then migrated downtown to more single homes or row homes.We all lived downtown during the time of this creation of 'Unknown Zone'."
Mad Props to David Charles, thanks for your time !
"Our 94th release is from Legendary Bay Area MC / Hieroglyphics member, CASUAL! Casual's "Demo Sessions" features 6 tracks from Casual's vaults recorded between 1991 -1992, all pre-dating his classic Debut LP "Fear Itself." This is the first time these tracks have officially been available on wax. Taken from the original tapes, we got the best possible existing versions of all of these tracks, and remastered them for this vinyl release. " - Dope Folks Records
500 copies only ... (100 Red Colored Vinyl / 400 Standard Black Vinyl)
"Previously unreleased from the Skye archives (1998) 'Feel This' is a collaboration between London producer Skye and Newark's El Da Sensai, mastered and available for the first time on 7" with vocal and instrumental versions.
The second in a series of Skye sessions on Backatcha, this single also comes with label art by Dan 'Duce' Lish illustrated exclusively for this release. Produced by Skye in his native East London studio, this track is one of many he collaborated on with fellow hip-hop heads from across the pond during this period." - Backatcha Records
3rd single released by the Fabulous Chi-Ali in 1992. The wax is pretty cheap and contains the excellent remix version of "Funky Lemonade" produced by the Beatnuts. No doubt the B-Side wins for this 12", the production done by the Queens based duo is mad dope. It contains samples of "Down Here on the Ground" performed by Grant Green and "Submission" performed by Tyrone Washington.
On the A-side, you can listen to "Let The Horns Blow" which is also produced by the Beatnuts and featuring Dres, Phife Dawg and Trugoy The Dove. This version is a little bit different from the original version ... it is without Fashion's verse and contains Chi-Ali's new verse.
