Cassette Only Bangers! – Day 1
Lord Finesse – “Hands In The Air, Mouth Shut“
from Return of The Funky Man Cassette (Giant, 1992)
Nas – “Silent Murder“
from It Was Written Cassette (Columbia, 1996)
Cocaine Blunts & Hip Hop Tapes is not just a name, hip hop tapes are my life, blood and essence (cocaine is too!). In my opinion, there’s never been a style of music better suited to a format than early-mid 90s boom bap hip hop to cassette tapes. Tape hiss has the uncanny ability to make certain records sound better. Unfortunately, very few others feel this way. Fortunately, over the years, labels have, for whatever reason, thrown this audience a bone on a rare occasion, with the exclusive cassette only banger here and there. And I’m here to throw that bone back at you stupid white earbudded ipod motherfuckers (and don’t even think about complaining about sound quality!):
Threading a tangent from yesterdays post, “Hands In The Air, Mouth Shut” is a lost tape only cut from Finesse’s classic Return Of The Funky Man. It’s just vintage Finesse – head nod beats and dope punchlines – “Fuck who’s my favorite rapper / i’m on my own dick”.
I’ve posted “Silent Murder” here before, but that was back when no one looked at this site. It is/would’ve been one of the tighter tracks on the critical failure It Was Written – less the mafia fantasy Nas Escobar explored elsewhere on the record and more of an early inkling of the overly paranoid political commentator that Nas has since grown to be.
Tommorow I’ll post the many cassette exclusives from Digital Underground’s Sex Packets. If you guys can think of any other cassette only cuts you’d want to see here, hit the comments section. Or if you want to dub/rip/burn/sell me the tape exclusives from the original version of The Click’s Down & Dirty you know how to reach me!
By the way – all you break records/rare groove/jazz/soul heads, hit up my Ebay Auctions, there’s some certified bangers up there and most of that money goes to me keeping this site runinng. Mention cocaineblunts.com and get a free pack of yo! cards with your order!
October 19th, 2004 at 10:23 pm
“Cocaine Blunts & Hip Hop Tapes is not just a name”
October 20th, 2004 at 9:21 am
Hey
i don’t own the 12″, so i can’t say, but is there any exclusive in my tape for Product of the Environment by 3rd Bass (Product of the Environment on side A with Project Remix/LP Version/Redfern Gowanus Mix and 3 Strikes 5000 on the b side with Vocal/Instrumental/Stimulated Dummies Bonus Beats)?
October 20th, 2004 at 1:06 pm
what about rubber car keys? and ids that’s fake?
October 20th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
cuz i don’t drink gin, I don’t drink beer.
You want that mr. Flamboyant w/o the blurred out audio samples huh? what movie was that from anyway.
on the luniz Lunatik Muzik, Yuk had a solo on the tape version, and Nummy num had the solo on the CD version.. (last tracks, respectively).. Nums was called 11-O’Clock news….bump that though, that yuk track on the tape was soooo ill.. befofe he started talking about flossing, and being godzilla.. he had that flow right there, pre raspy yuk, you feel me. i think it was called “Hell” or “living on hell”.
talking about how his dad was a pimp that ironically died of aids, and his mom died in a crackhouse fire (ironic too as she was trying to clean up i guess)….then he speaks on the late attorney Melvin Belli, and how he reprsented yuk and his sister.
off the meter.
October 20th, 2004 at 3:20 pm
there’s a whole album by Extra Prolific, (Snupe?) from Souls/Heiro crew w/a song called First Sermon.
my aunt knew him personally and sent me a copy in atl when i was in school. it had us juiced for a good 4 months, it was majorly mellow… just a good all around TAPE. never came out on cd.
October 20th, 2004 at 4:25 pm
darn, my whole message didn’t show up in my last comment. What I meant to say was:
“Cocaine Blunts and Hip Hop Tapes is not just a name”
Damn son, I didn’t know you were heavy into drugs like that….
October 20th, 2004 at 9:14 pm
Anybody have Nas’ “I’m a Villian”?
October 20th, 2004 at 9:22 pm
the 11 o’clock news – luniz is on the cd as well….
wonding if you have the public enemy maxi single for “fight the power” there was a “sax” version on there…
October 20th, 2004 at 10:32 pm
Nas – “I’m a villain”
Check Spine magazine for an mp3 of this. Search “Nas” under September 2004.
I don’t have it on cassette, if that’s what you’re after.
October 20th, 2004 at 10:52 pm
ha yeah thank spine for stealing my mp3 while you’re over there. it saves some bandwidth
October 20th, 2004 at 10:54 pm
thanks for bigging up cassettes, they’re still one of my primary formats for listening to music (in my car, at least).
I’m a big fan of the ‘UK version’ of “Ring Ring Ring”, which I’ve only seen on the cassette version of De La Soul Is Dead.
October 20th, 2004 at 11:32 pm
A J-
thanks
October 21st, 2004 at 2:20 am
kool g. rap’s “live and let die” has 2 or 3 extra tracks on cassette and the “above the rim” soundtrack has 3 extra tracks on cassette.
October 21st, 2004 at 3:17 am
If anyone is less enamoured of tapes than the man like Noz, they can find Silent Murder on teh UK/Euro original pressing of It Was Written.
Probably my 3rd favourite track on the album. For you wack emcees…
October 21st, 2004 at 3:17 pm
“silent murder” has been white labeled a few times, too. i got one.
i think i might have that lord finesse on white label, too.
i’m going to start an mp3 blog called “whiskey and white labels.” well, not really…
October 22nd, 2004 at 12:32 am
Good stuff there, Noz. I’ve always been a fan of tapes. Anything recorded to tape automatically gets that natural ‘tape compression’, creating that warm, fuzzy, grimy vibe. When I record stuff, sometimes I’ll record it digitally, then bounce it to tape for that warmth, and then re-record back to digital. Gotta love that warm hiss. Cocaine? Go easy man….we want this blog to keep runnin’..
October 22nd, 2004 at 2:59 am
yeah i was clearly joking about the cocaine thing homie…
October 22nd, 2004 at 11:46 am
That Lord Finesse track is ridiculous – thanks for posting this. Did they put this on that Crates to the Files comp? (or whatever it was called)
October 22nd, 2004 at 5:45 pm
i don’t think so, maybe it’s on the tape version
October 23rd, 2004 at 7:38 pm
turns out i don’t have that lord finesse track on vinyl. that shit is hot, it’s got those raw as fuck drums, almost sounds like an early solesides joint.
all praise be to cocaine blunts.
October 27th, 2004 at 5:39 am
I’ve got that Lord Finesse track on vinyl….gotta love bootleggers!
October 27th, 2004 at 6:29 am
the silent murder track was included as a bonus on the normal cd version of ‘it was written’ in australia… is that just here? or was it a bonus everywhere or just cassette only…. dope ass song either way… just thought that maybe down here in the land of aust we were finally getting some sort of bonuses…
September 27th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Remember those 4 songs from the Digital Underground (Sex Packets): Hip Hop Doll, Gutfest ‘89, Sound of the Underground, and A Tribute To The Early Days. Hit me up for the mp3s at alexpuentes28@hotmail.com
April 10th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
does anyone know where i could get the instrumental to that silent murder?