HERC's high-bias allegiance to the TDK SA 90 is no secret. The tapes never gave him any problems or issues and they sounded as good as he could hope in his various boomboxes, car stereos and home stereo. Plus The Price Club sold them in bulk/bricks at a sweet discount. Still, HERC wasn't adverse to trying other tapes based on recommendations or sale prices. One such tape, picked up on the cheap from Wilson Audio, HERC's favorite local high-end stereo store back in the day (and still open today), was the Denon HD8/100. If you Google the tape, it is well-loved and cherished by tapeheads and audiophiles all over the world as one of the best sounding cassettes ever manufactured. Who knew?
HERC surely didn't. He remembers buying a couple cases, 20 tapes in total. Today's mixtape is one of those tapes and like it says in the heading of this post, HERC titled the tape BUST DE BEAT.
There is no memory attached to this tape. In hindsight, HERC can't help but wonder what he was thinking when selecting the tracks. He would not have blurred the lines between the different ages of rap and given the time the tape was probably dubbed in late 1988 or early 1989, he would have included more of his favorites from the time such as Eric B & Rakim, EPMD, Eazy-E, N.W.A. and Kid N Play. The tape comes off as a rare unplanned mix, with the A-side running out of time barely two minutes into a song. And then HERC repeated the song from the beginning on the B-side. Here is that song:
"Rappin' Duke" is one of two songs from BUST DE BEAT currently not in Spotify's library. The other song was featured in the movie and on the soundtrack album for Krush Groove and had it's own 12" single release as the soundtrack for the video below:
HERC would definitely do things differently if he was to make a tape like this today. More than half the songs wouldn't make the cut but almost 30 years ago they must have been kinda sorta hot, right? Check the playlist in full below before listening to the Spotify playlist at the bottom of this post. Let HERC have it in the comments. He deserves it. "Da-ha, da-ha."
SIDE A | 50:00 | |||
1981 | The Adventures Of...On The Wheels Of Steel | Grandmaster Flash | 07:10 | |
1986 | Brass Monkey | Beastie Boys | 02:37 | |
1988 | Bring The Noise | Public Enemy | 03:46 | |
1988 | Colors | Ice-T | 04:26 | |
1987 | Go Cut Creator Go | LL Cool J | 03:57 | |
1987 | Going Back To Cali | LL Cool J | 04:10 | |
1983 | Haunted House Of Rock | Whodini | 06:32 | |
1984 | Jam On It | Newcleus | 06:24 | |
1988 | Parents Just Don't Understand | DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince | 05:14 | |
1986 | Paul Revere | Beastie Boys | 03:41 | |
1984 | Rappin' Duke | Rappin' Duke | 02:03 | |
SIDE B | 50:47 | |||
1984 | Rappin' Duke | Rappin' Duke | 06:35 | |
1984 | Rock Box | Run-DMC | 05:31 | |
1985 | Roxanne, Roxanne | UTFO | 05:11 | |
1985 | She's On It | Beastie Boys | 03:32 | |
1986 | Square Dance Rap | Sir Mix-A-Lot | 04:18 | |
1988 | Tougher Than Leather | Run-DMC | 04:23 | |
1985 | Vice | Grandmaster & Melle Mel | 05:04 | |
1983 | White Lines | Grandmaster & Melle Mel | 07:27 | |
1987 | Wild Wild West | Kool Moe Dee | 04:41 | |
1987 | You're Gonna Get Yours | Public Enemy | 04:05 |
I will "let you have" it, Herc, but only mildly. I have always enjoyed Rappin' Duke as I think it's one of the best novelty rap songs of the time, alongside Rappin' Rodney, which somehow didn't make the cut for this mixtape. To me the true travesty on this mix is the inclusion of Grandmaster's Vice track, which I've already railed against over on the CDP. To make matters worse, it's coupled with the classic White Lines.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't think any mix with White Lines, Run-DMC, Brass Monkey, and, yes, Rappin' Duke can be a complete failure.