Another mysterious StepSun release. Unlike Death Camp, this looks to be a mass produced "test pressing". What a strange label: Troubleneck Brothers, Motion Man and Paul Mooney? Ill shit. I know next to nothing about this record. Post a comment if you have some insight.
One of my all time favorite 12"'s to play out. The winning combo of old school beats with O.G.C. at the top of their game paired with the Cutty Ranks anthem. Perfection. I through something extra in the folder for all the Fab 5 fans in the house. 
Bought this off the ebay machine. Not sure what the origin of it is. The seller was guessing these may be radio tapes pressed on wax and labeled the disc himself after some research. There are 4 tracks but only 2 were rugged enough for Ripped Open. Public Enemy's "Bring The Noise" sounds like the skeleton of an unfinished megamix while BDP's "My Philosophy gets the Latin Rascals splice style edit.
This has always been one of my favorite Tragedy verses since I first heard it on Stretch Armstrong and DJ EV's classic "Back 2 Back" mixtape. You can't really go wrong when the Foul Mahdi teams up with the soul brother Pete Rock to give a state of the union address on the hip hop industry in the late 90's. There was a slightly different version on "Soul Survivor" with additional verses by Cappadonna and Sticky Fingaz, but I've always preferred this one (who's the last MC on this version?). Fucking Pete Rock, man. Dude takes the very last couple of seconds of David Axelrod's "Smile" (as it's fading out, no less) and comes up with this. "Awake to harps and flutes and eat strange fruits."
I'm sure most of you caught the recent 3 part T-Ray interview over at Unkut where he discusses how the Ghetto Pros LP was supposed to be the first release on his Warner Brothers distributed label until all sorts of drama went down and it never came to be. Someone ended up bootlegging the finished product and ironically I came across it at Amoeba the same day the I read the Unkut post linked above. I had heard of it years ago, but had never come across a copy online or in real life. I gotta say it's definitely a slicker and slighty more mainstream Ghetto Pros sound than you may be used to if you followed V.I.C. and Mike's previous Hydra and Rawkus related productions. It may be the case that the large budget played a big part in ruining that sound. Instead of making the best of what you have available , suddenly it becomes the sky's the limit. Personally I think hip hop sounds best when produced under extreme limitations and that's probably why this is some of my least favorite Ghetto Pros material. Featured MC's are Kurupt, Jo-ell Ortiz, Kool G Rap, The Beatnuts, Nate Dogg, Big L, Brand Nubian, B Real, Dead Prez and Tha Alkaholiks, among others. The only track I've seen officially released elsewhere is the Dead Prez one which T-Ray released as a split 12" with Milano on his Beatdown Recordings label. 
