Hip-Hop Cassette Tapes......

[BIG D O]

Update!

7/8/10:

today got one of my "mail-ins" as i like to put it...ordered this from my dude out on the east coast awhile back...

Many folks are very passionate about The Roots man and personally I see where they comin from...

to me, this album; their 3rd, released in 96', was their strongest effort ever as opposed to 1999's "Things Fall Apart"; a critic's favorite amongst their catalog...

The actual tape insert and cassette are in perfect condition, the case was a shabby, but i'll clean that up properly later on....was a lil disappointed that this tape wasn't one of the ones that were released that had the special tracklisting order that started at #34.

[BIG D O]

Update!!!!

7/29/2010:

ayooooo....it's been a minute, but today I stumbled upon a serious gem and some sturdy doubles....

I was runnin around town tryin to find someplace to cop some decent gear...the mall wasn't hittin so I came back thru to my neighborhood and while I was skating around I noticed a big ass sign on one of my usual thrift haunts advertising a special sale...99 cents for everything in the store...naturally I swooped in for a sec, originally thinking I'd just go ahead and cop some vinyl....

they had a bunch of new tapes and pretty quickly I scooped out 5 gems that were all in great condition....I found Illmatic, Doom and The Killarmy tapes first and I was kinda amp'd, I already have a copy of all three, but they're all a lil' harder to come by (especially Illmatic and the Mood tape) so I was happy with that, but then I started diggin deeper...

soon I found the gem of the day: La The Darkman's "Heist Of The Century"....besides being IMO one of, if not thee hardest Wu affiliate album ever, it's a rare ass find...I mean, it's getting difficult to even track down the CD of this jawn let alone the tape and when I do see the CD in spots they ain't never lettin it go cheap...ever...

I also spotted an S&S tape, that many heads prolly missed, but due to the fact that I'm an old school NYC mixtape fiend I know the name...I guess S&S actually dropped an album back in 99' (i don't remember him doin so) and this is it...Harlem World Order capitalizes on the Harlem World mania that was going on back then and while S&S features a bunch of obscure names on this, I mainly grabbed it b/c of Smoothe Da Hustler, OGC, G Dep and Tragedy Khadafi appearing on it, not to mention Kool DJ red Alert...It's rare that I actually encounter an album on tape that I haven't heard b4, but this was one of those moments...

I decided to be halfway decent and cop 3 of the tapes (the La, S&S and Illmatic) and shove the other two in my jacket lining...it was mad busy in there and in all liklihood I could've scaped' with em' all, but hey, my conscious got the better of me and since thrift stores are shutting down in my area like crazy I decided to support a bit...

on a side note, all three of the double tapes I'll take trade offers for....

[GhostfaceThaPharoahe]

I actually found Ready To Die on tape by accident. Is this rare at all, because I dont know much when it comes to buying tapes since not many sell them anymore. Im not trying to sell it or anything, just curious.

[BIG D O]

Originally Posted by GhostfaceThaPharoahe

I actually found Ready To Die on tape by accident. Is this rare at all, because I dont know much when it comes to buying tapes since not many sell them anymore. Im not trying to sell it or anything, just curious.

yup, pretty rare indeed....that album is out of print and actually I think it's restricted from being printed ever again as a result of a lawsuit that was brought against Diddy a few years back over sample clearances...a judge halted the sales of the album and actually had it pulled from stores....

you find a new copy of it you can cash in to the tune of $130 bucks....of course this broadly applied to just the CD format of the album, but the tape is pretty well regarded amongst heads/collectors too...depending on the condition of course, I've seen it go for about half that...

[Mr. R&B]

I'll be honest, I was never all that thrilled with Heist Of The Century.

I had it on CD back when it was released, paid a grip for it too.

It bored the shit out of me, maybe I should re-visit the album and see if I still feel that way.

[BIG D O]

Originally Posted by Divine_Complex

I'll be honest, I was never all that thrilled with Heist Of The Century.

I had it on CD back when it was released, paid a grip for it too.

It bored the shit out of me, maybe I should re-visit the album and see if I still feel that way.

yea, I can feel that perspective a bit....I mean La's rhyming is pretty one dimensional....really the production was my fav. aspect...that man Carlos Broady got down somethin serious on it... he's one of Hip-Hop's long slept-on boardsmen...

[Undiluted Karma]

Yeah the production was crazy. Hes a good rhymer.

Killa Sin and La The Darkman has to be in the top 20 Killa bee songs, crazy beats and rhymes

[claaa7]

Originally Posted by BIG D O

yup, pretty rare indeed....that album is out of print and actually I think it's restricted from being printed ever again as a result of a lawsuit that was brought against Diddy a few years back over sample clearances...a judge halted the sales of the album and actually had it pulled from stores....

the original white cover issue was pulled from shelves but i'm pretty sure it wasn't over no sample clearance issues cuz the black cover remaster w. dvd is still on sale and it's the exact same music on there. i remember reading that "Ready to Die" is the most stealed album in musics history tho haha.

btw, rep on "Illadelph Halflife" - one of the illest LP's ever released.

[BIG D O]

Originally Posted by claaa7

the original white cover issue was pulled from shelves but i'm pretty sure it wasn't over no sample clearance issues cuz the black cover remaster w. dvd is still on sale and it's the exact same music on there. i remember reading that "Ready to Die" is the most stealed album in musics history tho haha.

btw, rep on "Illadelph Halflife" - one of the illest LP's ever released.

i'm pretty sure Puf settled out of court and was able to secure the re-release or something....I'll have to read up and see what the fall out was, but rest assured the reason the original was pulled was over sample clearances: http://www.chartattack.com/news/4078...mpling-lawsuit


thanks for the rep...Illadelph is indeed a great, great reecord...

[BIG D O]

Update!!!!

8/6/2010:

Yoooooo....I think i'mma keep on just diggin for vinyl, b/c lately everytime I've gone diggin for it I come away with some ill tapes...Today was no exception, I headed out looking for vinyl w/ my digging buddy and after we exhausted the massive amount of crates in this thrift store waay out on the westside of town I peeped out that there was a healthy ass couple of boxes of cassettes just chillin'....

I went to work and after rumaging a bit I spotted Ant Banks' 1994 "The Big Bad Ass"...For those not knowing, Ant is one of the west coast's all time great producers...ever. Another thing you may not know bout Ant is that he also rhymed quite a good deal and put out some studio albums of his own....This Jive release is marked by Ant's g funk'd, Okaland production....."Streets Of Oakland" is a joint I remember from this and decided it made the rest all worthwhile....I admit i never really dug Ant's rhyming all that tuff and teh Dangerous Crew was an after thought to me when it came to Oakland rap acts...i much more preferred Heiro and whatnot, which brings me to my next tape....

2nd tape I spotted made my day, truly did....it was Del The Funkee Homosapien's debut album "I WIsh My Brother George Was Here" laying under a pile of country tapes...lol...what a find...one of my last "must have" tapes that I always wanted to own my own copy of....condition was really decent too...case was a lil' dogged, but that ain't no thing....

[fatboybrandon]

Originally Posted by BIG D O

I was runnin around town tryin to find someplace to cop some decent gear...the mall wasn't hittin so I came back thru to my neighborhood and while I was skating around I noticed a big ass sign on one of my usual thrift haunts advertising a special sale...99 cents for everything in the store...naturally I swooped in for a sec, originally thinking I'd just go ahead and cop some vinyl....

ain't nothin like traveling around on a good day with nothing else on your mind but buying some good music and gear. Those are some good buys D O, it's inspiring to see someone who appreciates digging, especially for cassettes.

I've seen some Japan vinyl stores that also sell 90's cassettes, check those if you haven't already, they hold onto that same type of nostalgic value for Hip Hop.

[OPTIMUS]

Originally Posted by fatboybrandon

ain't nothin like traveling around on a good day with nothing else on your mind but buying some good music and gear. Those are some good buys D O, it's inspiring to see someone who appreciates digging, especially for cassettes.

I've seen some Japan vinyl stores that also sell 90's cassettes, check those if you haven't already, they hold onto that same type of nostalgic value for Hip Hop.

Or even stealing as it seems to be. im not sure i understand the quest for tapes, vinyl sure but tapes??

[BIG D O]

Originally Posted by fatboybrandon

ain't nothin like traveling around on a good day with nothing else on your mind but buying some good music and gear. Those are some good buys D O, it's inspiring to see someone who appreciates digging, especially for cassettes.

I've seen some Japan vinyl stores that also sell 90's cassettes, check those if you haven't already, they hold onto that same type of nostalgic value for Hip Hop.

ain't nuthin like it indeed! TY my dude...it's important to me to uphold that tape culture from years past....

some ppl will just never understand yo...*shrugs*

[djskillz]

I wanna go to this place called "Into the Music" up here. Got alot of Funkadelic records I wanna go get and I know they'll have other shit that I'll enjoy once I get there. They actually have the Eddie Hazel album on vinyl if I'm not mistaken.

[BIG D O]

bumpin'.....

expect some updates soon!