‘Third Degree Burns’ Mixshow w/ Masters of the Universe

June 23, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment


“Third Degree Burns” Dirty Mixshow 5/5/11 by DjThirdRaiLooksOne
Guests: Delon Deville and Orko Eloheim

“Third Degree Burns” Dirty Mixshow 5/26/11 by DjThirdRailLooks1
Guests: Odessa Kane and Orko Eloheim

Continuing on with Media Week, DJ Third Rail recently started up this mixshow called “Third Degree Burns” on 96.1FM San Diego and also on HipHopPhilosophy.com Radio. The show runs on Thursday nights from 8-11pm. The bad news is that I can’t actually find the show anywhere on HipHopPhilosophy.com (which isn’t updated very frequently anyway). Third Rail sent me links to each of his mixshows through Soundcloud but each mixshow is associated with a different Soundcloud account that are slight variations on spelling and punctuation with DJ Third Rail’s name. So basically, unless you’re listening to 96.1FM at exactly 8-11pm on Thursdays or Third Rail happens to personally shoot you a Soundcloud link, there’s pretty much no way to access future shows.

The good news is that Third Rail plays ill hip-hop and frequently features Masters of the Universe on his mixshows. You can check out two shows above featuring Delon Deville, Odessa Kane, and Orko Eloheim. They show off their music, chat about MotU, and freestyle for ages. They’re really long shows so I bookmarked the spots where the guests or the guests’ music comes in.

If you’re interested, Third Rail also has shows featuring Masters of the Universe extended family Scatterbrain, Aims, and Banish. And of course, all things lead to Parker & The Numberman as well.

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Throwback Raps: West Kraven – 7646 x Fill Me

April 18, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


West Kraven ft. Orko, Averb “7646“
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West Kraven “Fill Me“
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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.

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Gonjasufi Interview @ Passion of the Weiss

September 1, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment

I’m about six months late but I just peeped a great interview with (former?) Masters of the Universe member, Gonjasufi, over at the Passion of the Weiss blog. Gonjasufi drops some San Diego hip-hop history in the midst of speaking on his album, A Sufi and A Killer, which was released earlier this year with the aid of another San Diego alum (though you wouldn’t know it), The Gaslamp Killer. Check out a few nuggets below and read the rest here:

What was the scene like in San Diego. I imagine you must’ve stood out considering it can be a pretty conservative crew-cut type city, especially in the Gaslamp District.
It didn’t become like that until 2000. This was in the early 90s and during that era, the Gaslamp was the spot to be, it was where all the underground acts were coming through. Tres cho (sic?) C-4 Villains … it was actually an artistic spot with all sorts of thrift shops and shit. It wasn’t until around ’99 and 2000 when shit changed. They started reconstructing it, put the ballpark up, and the crew-cut crowd moved in.

…

Other than Jayo Felony and Mitchy Slick, San Diego hip-hop never got much love outside of the city. Did you feel that was the case?
For sure. There was a lot of dope shit. Mitchy Slick, NMS with Orko Eloheim and Big Jus from Company Flow was big and Masters of the Universe. But those were the main cats, Jayo, Mitchy, and and the NMS project, that’s Masters of the Universe right there. Those were the cats: Jayo, Mitchy, and Ol’ Gold and Big June. But everyone in the Masters of the Universe is brutal. We get more love in France and elsewhere overseas then we get in America.

Is it just a matter of Los Angeles being so close that it overshadows everything in Diego?
LA is two hours away and casts a big shadow, but there was a crossover. The Project Blowed shit was brutal and all The Freestyle Fellowship dudes came down to Diego all the time, but it seemed like it was always about the Bay to LA and back. No one understood Diego. Abstract Rude would come down all the time to hang out with us and show up at the Underground Improv. His cousin stayed out here during the early 90s and that’s how I met him. But it was just like the LA scene was so strong that they deserved it. But at the same time, I think my exposure right now will bring Diego the attention it deserves.

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Interview: Black Mikey & San Diego Rap History, pt. 2

May 30, 2010 by Quan Vu 9 Comments

In this installment, Black Mikey (aka C-Wax, Kid Loose, Mikey C.K., and Black Michael) continues to speak on the San Diego rap scene as well as his unique role in it. We also hear from both Mikey and Mr. Ridley about their new collaboration album, Killafornia Infection. If you missed it, check out part 1 of this Black Mikey interview here.

SDRaps.com: You’re one of the only rappers in San Diego that can tow the line between the gangsta world and the underground world. How do you do that?
Black Mikey: Because hip-hop has always been in me, homie. Regardless of the neighborhood I was raised in, we were always b-boys first. Even if we were in khakis and stars and gangbanging in our hood, we always met up and congregated at the park where that cardboard was laid down, that box was slapping that 2-3 break by Chuck Chillout or something like that. Everybody was doing the windmills and nickels and the halos and footwork and that uprock and we was all doing it. It’s in us. And it’s in me to be more than just my geographical location. Just like Orko and Anti-Citizens are emcees and griots, so am I. So I can be on both sides because I am both sides. It’s a lot of other emcees out there that won’t say it but they are both sides as well. My boy Damu is both sides. He emcees his ass off. It’s a lot of us that they say is just gangsta. If you listen to the albums, you’ll see we are more than just gangsta rappers. …… Read more of this post

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Review: Infinity Gauntlet the quiet assassin on ‘Pistol Opera’

April 14, 2010 by Quan Vu 3 Comments


Infinity Gauntlet “Gala”
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Can we just designate Infinity Gauntlet as the namer of all things ever? First, he takes up the moniker, Infinity Gauntlet, which is the dopest name you could ever have for a producer, if you’re up on your Marvel Comics game. Then he names his latest instrumental album, Pistol Opera, which is so goddamn gangster even before I found out what the reference was.

Producer Infinity Gauntlet has deep roots in San Diego hip-hop. He is/was part of the seemingly mythical Masters of the Universe clique that dates all the way back to the beginning of SD rap history and more or less includes/included anyone who ever even thought about rhyming who lived in San Diego. Seriously, the list of Masters of the U members probably outnumbers the black student population at UCSD (ouch ……). More recently, he’s put in work on Pedalay’s solid Why So Serious? mixtape from last year.

Pistol Opera is an extremely short instrumental album Infinity Gauntlet recently released (try 10 tracks clocking in at roughly 15 minutes). Pistol Opera takes its name from a 2001 Japanese action flick about a small league of assassins and the internal struggle for power that goes on between the assassins. From what I understand, it’s a throwback to kinda cheesy 70s action flicks. It’s in the same vein as something like Kill Bill.

And just as those movies revel in their unabashed gore, ruthlessness, and stylized dismemberments, so does Infinity Gauntlet’s album. Pistol Opera sets out to kill and to sound really cool doing it. The songs alternate between this sort of stoic, calm prowl and the thrill of rushing in and pouncing on your prey. Before I realized that the title referenced a movie, the music made me think of various anime samurai like Afro Samurai or Jin from Samurai Champloo: deadly but possessing an ice cold, unfeeling attitude about it. Like those samurai, Infinity Gauntlet is a man of few words. Which is probably why this is an instrumental album.

“Gala” is one of the stoic prowling sections of Pistol Opera. It showcases the strong Eastern influence, though to me it sounds more like a Mid-Eastern sound than Far Eastern. After the jump, the trailer for the Pistol Opera movie. Read more of this post

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