Throwback Raps: Orko The Sycotik Alien – Wack As Fuck

September 25, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

I was just listening to this last night. My friend threw it on as we were on our way to recording a demo for his hardcore punk band. I think he was trying to get us all amped up and this song wouldn’t be a bad way of getting that done. Orko’s energy throughout the entire five minutes is vein-poppingly intense. Not to mention the near-perfect hook of “Yo! I remember you was wack as *FUCK!” It’s just hard and simple, straight to the point. Makes me wonder if Orko could ever pull off a punk record.

A couple other points: First, I don’t know why exactly, but the line “On a scale of 1-10, you a skeleton” always stood out to me as so stupidly ill. It just works on so many different levels. Like he establishes this generic system of grading but then he almost completely abandons that system to show how he exists way outside of generic ways of thought. But then at the same time, “skeleton” is still a pun of “scale of 10″ and a skeleton is basically an empty shell of a human so it’s like Orko’s giving you a grade of 0 out of 10 so he’s still manipulating the system to sorta speak in its terms. Then of course, on the surface, you’re a skeleton because Orko just bodied you. It’s just stupid how many ways you get dissed with this one oddball line.

Second, that’s a Future Shock diss in the last verse, right? And an Aceyalone diss? Anyone care to share stories behind those beefs?

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with ,

Old English’s Top 5 San Diego Hip-Hop Songs

September 1, 2011 by Quan Vu 7 Comments


The CityBeat article on Old English actually could’ve gone a completely separate way. My first idea for the article was to ask OE their Top 5 local hip-hop songs. I ask this of all rappers I interview, for sure. But if you follow OE on Facebook or their Tumblr, they always share obscure SD rap/hip-hop songs, which is the whole appeal of this blog anyway. They seem to be true advocates for and sincere fans of SD rap music.

Without further ado, here is OE’s Top 5 San Diego Hip-Hop Songs. The interview took place at The Armory. Nothin’less was fighting off a cold. King D makes a quick guest shot.

Sumach (Gonjasufi) “Southside”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Saviorself: A lot of people know him from his singing and shit but he’s got some hard-ass raps. This is off an album called Jungl Bulit. I think it was [originally] released in 2001. PWC put me up on this shit. I was like, Goddamn, that shit’s hard. He’s storytelling off-the-dome. He takes motherfuckers on a ride around the world and back to SD before he started traveling. He’s using the Law of Attraction to just put it out there and it came back to him. This was when he was in SD, not really super-cracking like he is now. That dude’s been through a lot of shit but he’s really doing it big right now. Read more of this post

Filed under Features, Throwback Raps Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Throwback Raps: Mad One, Filtered Souls, Skyline Records Clips

August 3, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

I found a slew of clips from what looks like an old documentary/promo DVD for the Filtered Souls project that CJ of Wrongkind mentioned during his interview. The clips come from the What’s Hot Magazine channel on Youtube. Like CJ said, they seemed to have done a good job promoting this album. The video above features rapper Mad One and his video for “Psycho,” which is definitely on the same tip as Black Mikey’s “Rubber Rooms.”

And what do you know? “Rubber Rooms” is also part of the same promo DVD. You can check that out after the jump. Also included: an interview with some of the producers behind the Filtered Souls project, a cheesy intro segment about Skyline Records that put out the project, and an old NBC 7/39 news story at the very bottom on Mad One, whose song was used as WCW wrestler Konnan’s intro music. Read more of this post

Filed under Throwback Raps, Videos Tagged with , ,

Throwback Raps: Video: Mitchy Slick – Triggeration Station

July 11, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

I’m currently sitting on a dope interview with the president of Wrongkind. Excuse me as I drop Mitchy Slick-related media all week. I think this is the only video off of Mitchy’s first album, Triggeration Station, which is being re-released to commemorate the album’s and the label’s 10-year anniversary. The song itself is a good introduction of both Mitchy and Southeast San Diego to the rest of the world. Mitchy sums himself up in third-person on the first verse. Then he speaks on San Diego and fits it in with ghettos around the nation on the second verse. And Mitchy comes through with another catchy hook.

You can cop Triggeration Station at Fam Mart. Can’t believe I forgot to pick one up this weekend.

Filed under Throwback Raps, Videos Tagged with ,

Throwback Raps: Nomad – Where The White Women At? x Snarp’s Theme

June 9, 2011 by Quan Vu 2 Comments


Nomad ft. Zero Gurl “Where The White Girls At?“
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Nomad “Snarp’s Theme“
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I recently got a chance to sit down with DJ Demon and Sketch from The Icons for an interview. And by “interview,” I mean I sat to the side while they kicked it back and forth with ill stories about The Improv, Future Shock vs. Future Shock beef, and like doing a super-group project pretty much because someone mistook a big b-boy battle for an emcee battle. Hopefully, I can somehow find time to transcribe some of it in the somewhat near future.

On top of all the dope stories, Demon also shared a bunch of tight music with me that I’m just barely scratching the surface of. The album that caught my attention the most on first glance was Nomad’s Where The White Women At? As Demon describes him, Nomad is a black rapper who hates black people but still happens to be really dope. That description immediately brought to mind one of my favorite Chappelle Show sketches (above). Add to that the South Park-inspired cover art with a Confederate flag and a couple KKKlan members and clearly, I had to listen to this first.

Nomad is fcking hilarious. He’s basically just talking mad shit and clowning real hard, rapping with a smug smile, a shock rapper sounding like if Cartman was way nerdier and could rap. Nomad raps about like hanging with crackers and getting head from a white chick while watching Malcolm X. Then his disses are just like deliciously juvenile bordering on absurd. Stuff like “Fuck you, your mom, and your daddy’s hairstyle” or “You would look 2% better if you used a smidgen of soap” is straight comedy. And he calls Orko a “black-ass Chia pet.” It’s another hilarious image in itself. But I guess I’m equally impressed to hear someone actually try to go after Orko, who has this kinda mythical, untouchable aura about him for some reason and I wouldn’t have thought anyone would ever beef with him.

The Where The White Women At? album comes from 2003 (unless you want to trust The Reader, which lists it at 1995). Nomad exists on both Myspace and Facebook if you’d like to say wassup. No idea if he’s still making music.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with ,

Throwback Raps: West Kraven – 7646 x Fill Me

April 18, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


West Kraven ft. Orko, Averb “7646“
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
West Kraven “Fill Me“
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Speaking of Orko and West Kraven, the dudes at the ghetto tyylit blog have been throwing up a gang of rare Masters of the Universe tapes and vinyl rips for a few months. Included in the heap of stuff is a couple West Kraven joints–Universe Horror Nites from 1998 and the Income EP from, uhhhh, sometime later. Listening to these tape rips is helping me envision Master of the Universe as like an SD version of Freestyle Fellowship (or maybe more like an SD version of CVE). You can hear how similar West Kraven is to Orko in his approach of the beat as like a strait-jacket to struggle out of with experimental flows and animated vocal tones.

Anyways, head over to ghetto tyylit for these two West Kraven releases as well as stuff from Johaz, Shamen 12, and Eklipse. And, uhhh, my bad if I just snitched on this blog and the artists tell them to take this shit down.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with , , ,

Throwback Raps: Parker And The Numberman – O At Nite

April 18, 2011 by Quan Vu 3 Comments


(WARNING: do not play in daylight. Best if used between the hrs of 7pm-5am)

released 11 April 2000
Sound Collage Music, K.Eliyse, P.Zappoli, P.Edison, A.Tryce, J.Smith, W.Kraven, D.Deville, DJ.Artistic, K.Akbar, S.Sayar, T.Skitzo, J.Energetik, M.Bo, D.Order, M.Joker, E.Sketch, K.Greene, M.Feats, M.Hemmz, O.Kane, M.Czech, M.Vale, K.A la fu, P.C.Herrera, Mr.Brady, B.Mikey, Sumach, A.Rude, LPSD and all the other acts that made the Improv the reason wackwriters stayed home sunday nites

Can’t actually be sure how throwback this is. Bandcamp lists April 2000 but Parker has this quirk of labeling songs with somewhat arbitrary release dates (like how “1 of a kind” was released on Nov 2020). Still, the Jimmy Fallon on SNL reference seems to date this sometime around 2000. The song itself wins just for shouting out a bunch of SD acts and implying that Orko is better than Meth, Bobby Digital, Kool G Rap, and a slew of other acts. Plus, this blog gets tagged on this song’s Bandcamp page so obviously, I’m obliged to posting. Vanity 1, Objectivity 0, Journalism -5.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with

Throwback Raps: Orko Eloheim and Black Mikey rapping together

April 15, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Black Mikey ft. Orko The Sycotik Alien “Verbal Welfare”
Black Mikey ft. Orko Eloheim “When Aliens Attack”



Orko The Sycotik Alien ft. Black Mikey “Mark of the Beast”

So Tragedy Khadafi turned out to have disappeared off the face of the planet. Which was like meh to me. But then Black Mikey didn’t show for the Urban Underground show this Wednesday either and that like actually sucked. With Orko on the bill too, I’d hoped they’d at least share the stage long enough to perform one of these three songs (yeah, there are two songs in that ReverbNation player above).

I don’t have much info on the two Black Mikey tracks. “Verbal Warfare” dates back to 1995. “When Aliens Attack” sounds much newer and references “100 Barz” from Blackula, dating this probably in 2009 after Mikey got out of prison (hell, it even sounds like Mr. Ridley produced the beat [and yeah, 2009 isn't exactly "throwback"]). “Mark of The Beast” comes from Orko’s self-titled 1997 album, back when he was still Orko The Sycotik Alien.

What I like about these songs is that the two of them can meet together in the middle. Orko can sometimes lose you when he’s travelling at warp speed several light years into space on his experimental drum-n-bass tangents. Not that that’s necessarily bad; it’s just harder to digest. It seems like Mikey can ground him a little or at least bring him into orbit of mere Earthlings, rapping on more typical hip-hop beats, rhythms, and speeds. On the other hand, Mikey seems a lot more willing to rap about the Illuminati, aliens, microchips, and other paranoid shit in these songs with Orko, putting a spin on the gangsta bravado. It’s a good balance that I’m hoping they eventually flesh out over an entire album.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with , ,

Throwback Raps: Orko The Sycotik Alien – Mouth of Madness

April 7, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Orko The Sycotik Alien “Mouth of Madness”

I’m on an Orko kick until next Wednesday forever. This came on earlier today when I put my mp3 player on shuffle. Orko’s definitely on that hyper-experimental anything-goes Project Blowed shit here, rapping in all sorts of voices (I wonder if Nicki Minaj is a closet Orko fan?) with his flow constantly struggling to break free from the confines of the beat. He truly embodies his “Sycotik Alien” moniker. ORKO’S AN ALIEN, NOT A HUMAN BEING!

“Mouth of Madness” comes from Orko’s 1996 album, Crop Formations, which you can cop at Access. Ill Masters of the Universe flick courtesy of Odessa Kane’s Myspace.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with ,

Throwback Raps: Hound Foundation – B-Sting x Flame Flagging

March 21, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

In case you thought this site had just turned into a media outlet for, uhhhh, “Wiz Khalifa/Young Berg ass n*ggas,” here’s some more old school SD shit courtesy of Youtuber, Folgaz. The Hound Foundation consists of Black Mikey, Damu, and Lil B-Stone. They released an album like in 2002 or something and I gotta get my hands on a copy. Read more of this post

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts