Mixtape Memories/Summer of '95

It was the summer of ’95 Raekwon’s "Incarcerated Scarfaces" was booming from just about every car stereo or apartment building. You have to remember this particular summer if you’re a Hip Hop head. Illmatic, Enter the 36 Chambers, Ready To Die, and Enta Da Stage had all dropped plus the mixtape DJ’s were putting out classic street albums.

This was a different world, we didn’t even have Reasonable Doubt yet but we did have Doo Wop, Double R, S&S, and others all holding us down with classics cuts … like the first time I heard the “Method Man remix”! We were on our way to the Willis Ave. spot to cop like six nicks each (yeap in ’95 you could still get fat nicks in the BX) and when that song came on the S&S tape I must have rewound that shit like eleven times.

“Yo Miz! You killing my batteries nigga! Fuck! Next you gonna be rewinding that Black Moon shit.”

Boobie was right because “Shit Iz Real” to this day has me reciting every lyric in time with Buck Shot like we're doing Hip Hop karaoke.

But my favorite mixtape cat was Doo Wop & The Bounce Squad. Not only did I get the Bounce Squad setting the tape off but I got mad joints by Money Boss Players (an extremely personal favorite). Minnesota was a beast on their beats and Lord Tariq & Eddie Cheeba were talking that slick “SEX, MONEY, MURDER” shit back when the only place to hear it was on the mixtapes. Gangsta Rap was still getting minimal airplay during daytime hours in “the old days”.

I think the mixtape (which were CD’s by this time) that gave the official coronation, as King for me was Doo Wop’s Wopduizm Pt. One. This joint had a super hero type track listing.

Doo Wop started off with the “Ten Tape Commandments”, freestyles from Money Boss Players, Bounce Squad members Uneek & Don Black (Uneek was a monster and Don Black had a real slick style).

Ok and that was just the warm up because of the AWESOME track “Keep Your Hand High” by Tracey Lee and Biggie. That’s when BIG spit the infamous “them rings and things you sing about bring em out its hard to yell when the barrels in your mouth”. That was such a hard song, it never really got airplay and it seems like a forgotten Biggie verse to me.

Any way Smoothe Da Hustler & Trigger Tha Gambelr spit on “Smith Bros.”, which is like the last song I think I ever heard from either of them. “Beast From The East” Redman and Canibus on the same fucking track! That’s all I have to say on that song. “De Ja Vu” long before the video and song were everywhere, the “Step Into A World” remix KRS & Puff Daddy … yo, I’m just saying. And “Triumph” before it was getting play and I know I was still looking forward to any Wu releases back then.

That is a champion mixtape.

But back to the summer of ’95 I was still so young and raw and this shit was the soundtrack to my life. The best of my rooftop or project hallway smoke/slap boxing/freestyle sessions were in full motion during this summer. It was all about “the women, the weed/sticky green” even though BIG hadn’t gone back to Cali yet. That was back when the most anticipated album by me was Method Man’s Tical. I mean every time Meth was on the mic on any song it was going to be fire. It was pretty hard to find cats who disagreed with that sentiment.

So much has changed in Hip Hop since then but I will always love the Golden Era, which for me goes from ’86 to ’98 (which still allows The Score, Capitol Punishment, Hard Knock Life, and a few others).

Yes, the Golden Age does end suspiciously for me after BIG is murdered and Big Pun dies.

But more on that later.


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