Browse by Category
New year means time to finally FINALLY organize / prune the 12K+ records in my apartment. I posted this on FB, and got a lot of great responses from fellow DJs and music heads, so I share it again here, with you.
I’m starting with Hip Hop. Step into the mind of an obsessive compulsive weirdo that seemingly and very foolishly never threw a record away in 35 years.
It’s an exhausting process that I’ve been high key dreading forever, but it must be done. And it’s a great way to rediscover songs that meant everything to me at some point in my life. I’m also just stumbling upon wax I straight up forgot about. (Dismasters' “Part Time Hustler”promo!). To aid in this process, I’ve established a new rule: if I look at the label, and I can’t immediately hear the song in my head, then it’s gotta go.
Thusfar there’s 3 major groups:
KEEP IT
Keeping all the stuff I love and still want to have in my apartment for lazy sundays and random gigs and drunken house parties.
STORE IT
Putting about half of it with the stash in my parents’ attic and basement. These are things I almost never listen to, but can't part with, for some dumb reason. Doubles of stuff I love, etc.
SELL IT
Getting rid of about 45 crates total, about 18 of which are Hip Hop. A smattering of triples I don’t need, some early/mid-90s Fat Beats type gems that I never listen to (that are oddly now worth actual money, who knew?), and thousands upon thousands of Rap & R&B promos that got heaped upon me back when I had regular gigs. Hoping to sell all of that, in bulk, to one buyer. Not sure if this plan is feasible LOL - Might have to just rent a truck and re-pave the BQE in the middle of the night.
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Going through it all, I decided I needed to come up with a new way to organize it on my shelves. I’ve decided to group most of it by “crew”, since this is kinda how my brain works. This is for groups where I have at least 15+ singles and/or LPs that I can’t live without. The stragglers, and there are many, will simply get alphabetized in some sort of general Hip Hop section.
Here’s my current running list of crews. Feel free to chime in:
5% NATION OF GODS & EARTHS
Rakim and Big Daddy Kane could be in here, but they are in a class by themselves IMO, and also lean more 80s, in my head. Wu Tang could technically be in here, as I believe many of them are/were peripheral 5% to a degree (no pun intended), but I have way too many Wu and Wu-related records, so they most def need their own category. These are some top contenders, but I’m sure more will come to mind as I dig around.
Brand Nubian
Poor Righteous Teachers
King Sun
Lakim Shabazz
Grand Puba solo (by association only, cuz that kid ain’t no Muslim).
If Puba is in, then so is Masters of Ceremony
Boogie Down Productions.
KRS One solo.
Mad Lion
Channel Live
D-Nice
Just Ice? Not BDP crew, but I feel like he’s kin.
BOOTCAMP CLIK
Being fellow Brooklynites, these cats are near and dear to me. Mostly Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, and Crown Heights. Black Moon, in particular, really ran shit in all 5 boros when they first dropped.
Black Moon
Buckshot solo stuff
Smif n Wessun
Heltah Skeltah
OGC
Bootcamp Clik
CHAPPELLE CREW
I began calling this crew the “Roots Crew”, but then I realized these are mostly artists that Dave Chappelle inadvertently lumped into an unofficial crew - so much so, that my brain now does that too. Dave has impeccable taste in Hip Hop and put all of these guys in the spotlight long before anybody else.
The Roots
Black Star
Mos Def
Common
Erykah Badu
Jill Scott
Should Bahamadia be here? Pre-Nazi Kanye?
DEF JAM 80s ALUMNI
I’m missing a bunch of people here, but this is a start. What the hell happened to Tashan...
Public Enemy
LL Cool J
Beastie Boys
The Junkyard Band
Slick Rick
Third Bass
Original Concept
Oran Juice Jones LOL
BIGGIE & BAD BOY
Fort Greene represent! My ex lived next door to Biggie on St James and my man Kas Is Nice used to spar with him on street corners long before he blew. Hard to convey the pride all of Fort Green felt when Biggie ruled the world. Like being from Chicago in the Jordan era. RIP.
Biggie Smalls
Junior Mafia
Lil Kim
Lil Cease
Craig Mack
Mase
DEF SQUAD / FLIPMODE SQUAD
Not sure why but I put these two together. Because they’re both "squads"? LOL. To complicate things, we have the Red/Meth collabs, which are problematic from a categorical perspective, but I feel I mist keep Method Man with his Wu fam.
EPMD
Redman
Busta Rhymes (SO MANY Busta 12”s)
Rah Digga
Keith Murray
Rampage the Last Boy Scout (literally the worst rapper name of all time)
DIGGIN IN THE CRATES
Diamond D
Showbiz & AG
Lord Finesse
Big L
OC
Buckwild
Fat Joe was technically down, but I tend to lump him in with the late 90s party records category below
NATIVE TONGUES
Tribe and De La alone make this maybe the best crew to ever do it. Maybe…
Tribe Called Quest
Jungle Brothers
De La Soul
Latifah
Monie Love LOL
Q Tip solo
DUNGEON FAMILY & DIRTY SOUTH
These are def not all one crew, but in my crates, they represented the dirty south records that I fucked with. Loved Mystical and Silk, but had little love for a lot of the other cash money cats. Outkast, on the other hand, are one of the best Hip Hop groups of all time.
Outkast
Goodie Mobb
Crucial Conflict
Ludacris
Mystikal
Silk The Shocker
GANG STARR FAM
Another deep Brooklyn crew. Guru was a regular at my Soul Sunday Lounge parties in the mid 90s. Kind of a lush, to put it nicely, if I’m being honest. Primo wasn’t always with him, but when he was, I was always star struck. And I never get star struck.
Gang Starr
Jeru
MOP
Group Home
Primo beats / productions
Big Shug LOL
Jazzmatazz, I guess…
ERIC B & RAKIM
Rakim and company get their own category because, like Marley Marl, they remain in a class by themselves.
DR DRE & 90s WEST COAST
Being a NY head my west coast collection is shamefully light. I slept on many of the stuff that wasn’t Pharcyde and/or backpack-adjacent. And tbh, I didn’t love a lot of the LA gang banger stuff beyond Dre and company. So I lump them all together, but believe me, I realize there is just as much nuance and crew delineation with West Coast Hip Hop. NWA. Ice Cube. Dre & Snoop. Warren G. Tupac. Cypress Hill. Xibit. Too Short. Digital Underground.
JAY Z & ROCAFELLA
Jay Z. Beanie Sigel. Memphis Bleek. Freeway. Etc.
JUICE CREW
Kane. Biz. G Rap. Masta Ace. Craig G. MC Chan. Roxanne Shante. Tragedy?
NEPTUNES
Clipse. Pharell. Kelis. Could maybe put Nore in here too, but he’s in the late 90s bangers below.
PHARCYDE & HEIROGLYPHICS
Pharcyde. Souls of Mischief. Hieroglyphics. Casual. Etc.
QUEENSBRIDGE
Nas. Mobb Deep. AZ. The Rapper Noid LOL
REFUGEE CAMP
Fugees. Lauryn Hill. Wyclef. Pras. * fuck John Forte LOL.
RUN DMC
Get their own category fosho.
TIMBALAND
Missy Elliot. Aaliyah. Magoo. Tweet. Ms Jade. Bubba Sparxx LMAO? Gwen Stefani? Yeesh.
WU TANG
Wu Tang. ODB. Method Man. Raekwon The Chef. Ghostface Killa. Capadonna. Inspectah Deck. Masta Killa. RZA. U God. All the Wu offshoots my god… why are there so many…
NYC 90s+ CLUB BANGERS
Many of these tracks didn’t age well for me, but some I have real nostalgia for. Sam Hyde calls these “NY’s Last Stand” and that’s sadly kinda true. 50 Cent. Big Pun. Cam’ron. Jadakiss. Mr Cheeks. DMX. Fat Joe. Joe Budden. Lord Tariq / Peter Gunz. Lloyd Banks. Lost Boyz. Lox. Ruff Ryderz. Terror Squad. All that late 90s / early 2000s Swizz Beats shit (that I grew to loathe). I will prob also include the least sucky fringes of the No Limit /Dirty South stuff like Trick Daddy, BG etc
MISC 80s
T-La Rock. Jimmy Spicer. Crash Crew. Sugarhill Gang. Funky Four +1. Treacherous Three. Fantasy Three. Sequence. Mantronix. Whodini. Etc. And then there’s cats like Dana Dane. School D. Steady B. Doug E Fresh. The Dismasters. Stezo. Mid-to-late-80s but not quite part of the post Run DMC “new school” IMO. I only really have a handful of true old school Hip Hop crates. Not to self: Need to build up my collection of first wave joints.
MISC 90s
And then, of course, there are hundreds of records that defy crew categorization but remain essential cornerstones of my Hip Hop collection. Pete rock & CL Smooth. Main source. Blahzay Blahzay. Cru. Special Ed. Bahamadia. Luniz. Audio Two. Superlover Cee & Cassanova Rud. Diggable Planets. Dilla. Mad Skillz. Dead Prez. Slum Village. Beatniks. Alkaholiks. Black Sheep. I could go on for hours, literally.
PARTY RECORDS / BREAKBEATS
Fatman Scoop, Kenny Dope, Nubian Crackers LOL. Ultimate Breaks n Beats. All those DJ Smash / Giant Step / Jazzy Nice type instrumental records from 8 Ball, New Breed, etc
R&B
Man I haven’t even touched on this. So much crossover with Hip Hop, and truly inseparable when you think about it. R&B categorization is gonna be mostly Boys VS Girls, with Mary J & D’Angelo prob getting their own sections. I did find a sealed copy of Maxwell’s first LP, which made me very happy.
NOTE TO SELF 01
need more Dilla vinyl
NOTE TO SELF 02
WTF do you do with R Kelly records now LOL? I have tons. I feel like perhaps, one day, “Step In The Name of Love” and “Your Body’s Calling’” and “Ignition” Remix will get a pass. But “Thoia Thoing”? Nah. Oh well.
A QUESTION THAT PLAGUES ME
Are there enough Hotep rappers for their own crew? Probably.
NEXT UP: THE REGGAE