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Big L
Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous
20th Anniversary CD / 2-LP Vinyl Bundle
Deluxe CD box contains 72-page hardcover book (2LP includes 20-page softcover booklet instead) with liner notes by Chris Faraone.
NOTE:
Only 250 LP/CD Bundles (including a Poster) available in December.
2-LP with 20-page softcover booklet also available now.
2015 is the 20th Anniversary of this undisputed New York classic from the late, great, Harlem MC, featuring production from D.I.T.C. legends Showbiz, Buckwild and Lord Finesse. As fans have come to expect, Get On Down gives this incredible record the respect it deserves with this unique reissue package.
The album itself was another shot across the bow of mid-90s pundits who were prophesizing the death of New York's boom-bap dominance. Alongside recent classics from Nas, Biggie, Mobb Deep and Smif N Wessun, Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerouslaid out the ascendancy of another visionary MC who could throw down brags punchlines with the best of them, but who never veered away from truly thoughtful lyrical dialogue.
Most tracks on the album feature slower tempos, which gave the soon-to-be-immortalized MC the chance to fully explore a range of flows and approaches. Cases in point include the two commercial singles - "Put It On" and "MVP" - as well as the promo-only single "Street Struck," the latter produced by Lord Finesse and containing perhaps L's deepest rhymes on the album. There are also some great posse cuts here, starting with "8 Iz Enuff," which was all about exposing L's crew (including Herb McGruff, Mike Boogie and Buddah Bless); and the amazing "Da Graveyard," which let established peers like Lord Finesse and Grand Daddy I.U. flow alongside another newcomer to the scene named Jay-Z.
Less-renowned but no less crucial album cuts like "All Black" and "I Don't Understand It" help to tie it all up in a beautiful boom-bap package, with production by and from legends in the game that vaulted Big L into the national spotlight. L would be tragically taken from us in 1999, so this album - along with 2000's posthumous The Big Picture - will always be special to fans. Big L was a huge talent with the world in front of him, and it's only right to celebrate his life again on the 20th Anniversary of the album that started it all for him.
This unique set features an in-depth liner notes booklet written and compiled by journalist Chris Faraone for both 2-LP and CD editions. The CD configuration is housed in a deluxe outer box with original album artwork wrapped around the cover. The CD-plus-2-LP bundle includes a 18" x 24" album cover poster.
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Raekwon
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...
20th Anniversary Purple Tape Watch Box
In collaboration with Raekwon we present the 20th Anniversary Only Built 4 Cuban Linx "Purple Tape Watch Box" deluxe reissue on cassette.
FEATURES:
* 20th Anniversary edition released in collaboration with Raekwon, who designed the set's look & feel
* A Purple Cassette of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is housed in a premium, "Watch Box" display case with white stitching, an embossed silver-on-black Raekwon logo, and a "The Purple Tape" silver placard on front
* Full color outer box with wrap-around original cover artwork
* Cassette only: repressing of the original famed "Purple Tape," with full audio from 1995 album
* 118-page hardcover book, featuring lyrics to all songs and liner notes by Chris Faraone and Raekwon, plus photos and other visuals pertaining to album's 1995 release
* Only 1,995 copies available worldwide for this 2015 Anniversary pressing
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Hip-hop fans who will salivate at this reissue likely already know some of the backstory: in 1995, worldwide Wu-Tang frenzy was at an all-time high. First, of course, there had been the Wu-Tang's epic 1993 debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which changed the shape of hip-hop to come, with ripples that still resonate today. Then the solo albums, all produced by Wu patriarch RZA: first was Method Man's Tical (late 1994), then Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (spring 1995).
By the time Raekwon's debut was ready, fans were knocking each other over on album release day. And so, on August 1, 1995 as the legend goes, the first 10,000 cassette buyers ran home and opened their plastic cases to discover that the tape itself was an unexpected, stunning shade of lavender.
The rest, as they say, is history... and limited-edition history at that. After the initial purple versions, RCA Records switched to the usual clear plastic to house the legendary tape. The Purple Tape became an instant collector's item, a Holy Grail for Wu-Tang disciples, coveted by those who could claim to be the earliest devotees of Raekwon's lyrical genius. The album is still called "The Purple Tape" to this day, by Raekwon and other Wu-Tang members.
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Colors aside, though, let's not forget the album itself. Backed by arguably RZA's most wide-ranging, hard-hitting and at-times lush beats on any Wu-Tang family album before or since, Raekwon and co-MC Ghost Face Killer run the lyrical gamut, introducing "Wu-Gambinos" slang, dishing out "Ice Cream", and melting "Glaciers of Ice" along the way to influencing just about every MC who followed in their wake.
Beyond Ghost Face (who shines on 12 out of the album's 17 tracks), guest appearances from Nas, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Master Killa, RZA and the debut of Cappadonna (aka Cappachino) locked the album as an undisputed classic. It's a record that hit hard in 1995 and continues to resonate with new fans to this day.
As Raekwon explained in the original "Purple Tape Cassette Box" liner notes book (and in Brian Coleman's Check the Technique Volume 2): "A lot of rappers wasn't being creative [at that time] and we came with a potion that just shocked the game. We introduced shoes, we brought about different names and aliases. That record inspired maybe 95% of the game's lyrics [afterwards], and integrity on just making music, period. People from our era know how real it is. It's timeless."
20 years later, celebrate the majesty of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx with Get On Down's "Purple Tape Watch Box," a release you are sure to proudly display in your collection for decades to come.
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RUN-D.M.C.
The Singles Collection
45 Vinyl Box
5 "Big-Hole" Singles On Black Vinyl With Picture Sleeves.
10 Songs Total, Spanning The Legendary Group's '80's Heyday.
"It's Like That" / "Sucker M.C.'s (Krush-Groove 1)"
In a custom die-cut Profile 45 sleeve - [1983]
"Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse)" /
"Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse) [bleeped version]"
In custom die-cut Profile 45 sleeve -
[Recorded August 5, 1983 - released in 1985 only as a promo 12"]
First time ever on 7-inch
"Walk This Way" / "King Of Rock"
In a reproduction of the original single picture sleeve [1986]
"My Adidas" / "Peter Piper"
In a reproduction of the original single picture sleeve [1986]
"Run's House" / "Beats To The Rhyme"
In a reproduction of the original single picture sleeve [1988]
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In a musical world where heated debates rage constantly, here is a statement that no one can dispute - Run-DMC is one of the most important and influential groups in rap history. Forming in the early '80s and guided by Russell Simmons (who was, of course, Run's brother), the three-man unit were lyrical and musical pioneers from their first, Larry Smith-helmed foray: 1983's "It's Like That," with the world-shaking b-side, "Sucker M.C.'s."
With a string of gold and platinum albums that started with Run-DMC in 1984 and ran through 1988's Tougher Than Leather, the trio changed the course of music (and videos, and youth culture, and more) and ruled the genre outright, boasting sales numbers that were neck-and-neck with manufactured pop stars of the day. Part of their charm was their every-man appeal - they didn't dress like rock stars, and they didn't act like them either. They just made amazing music.
Get On Down, who celebrated 2014's Black Friday Record Store Day with their reissue of Run-DMC's "Christmas In Hollis," follows it up for 2015 with the deluxe 45 RPM vinyl "Singles Collection" box, which celebrates the group's glory days with a curated assortment of five smash singles that brought the group from New York to Tokyo, London to Sydney, and just about every corner of the Earth. With lovingly re-created 7-inch sleeves (taken from original 45s and 12-inches), the set is housed in a sturdy outer box with the group's name proudly overlaid across a map of their hometown: Hollis, Queens.
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SCHOOLLY D
"P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?)" / "Gucci Time"
Split Colored Vinyl (Clear & "Schoolly D Yellow)
Deluxe 30th Anniversary 12-inch, with Custom Sleeve, 4-page Liner Notes insert (featuring input from Schoolly-D) and Sticker Sheet with images drawn by Schoolly-D.
30 years ago, a booming sound was heard rumbling out of Philadelphia, PA. Starting with a trebled-out but thunderous TR-909 drum pattern and galloping forward with little more than a young man's nasal, arrogant flow, that blast was Schoolly-D's "P.S.K. What Does It Mean"? Released on his own Schoolly-D Records label in 1985, the song was - and still is - too powerful and unique to ignore. It took the rap world by storm that year, presenting a counterpoint to Melle Mel's more socially-conscious "The Message"; literally inventing "Gangsta Rap."
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Schoolly was a musician, drum-programming wizard and force of nature, and he would go on to shock the world with his in-your-face approach to making music - as bombastic lyrically as he was musically. He simply gave no f*cks, and listeners were drawn into his street-influenced vortex of "b-boy rhyme and riddle."
As noted in the liner notes to this special release: "The demand [for "P.S.K."] was so large that nationwide bootlegging was a major distribution avenue, albeit an unpaid one. 'Those bootleggers made me big because, when it came down to it, I didn't have the money to get the records out there,' Schoolly says. 'The person who helped me figure that sh*t out was Luke [Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew and Luke Skyywalker Records]. He took me all over Miami and showed me all the different bootlegged versions of my own records. It was crazy.'"
On the flipside of "P.S.K.," Schoolly gave the world another classic: "Gucci Time." Flexing brutal brag muscles, it was another gangsta masterpiece, furthering his legend and bringing even more 909 boom to the still expanding rap world. The opening lines are still quoted by scholars of the game today: "Lookin' at my Gucci / It's about that time."
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Get On Down presents this classic for the first time in deluxe form, which is also fully Schoolly-approved: a custom 12-inch sleeve adorned with Schoolly-D's famed artwork; unique split clear & yellow vinyl; a liner notes insert featuring Schoolly's own look back on the year 1985 as told to author Brian Coleman; and a unique sticker sheet with 8 images taken from the artwork on this 12-inch cover (which was first seen on his early
12-inches, as well as his 1985 Schoolly-D EP and 1986's Saturday Night: The Album).
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on a wide variety of great releases and reissues.
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on a wide variety of great releases and reissues.
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