Bad Meaning Good

Here is the 1987 BBC film documenting early UK Hip hop culture.
Presented and produced by Tim Westwood.

Blue Boro Documentory - Lewisham

Finally found the full length version of this lovingly crafted film documenting Lewisham's urban music scene; Grime, Road Rap, R n'B etc. Youngers and olders talk about the boroughs black musical history and its lineage to the scene today.
 The doc also looks at the connection between 'the blue's' musical movement and the boroughs street gangs. It is interesting that the Woodpecker estate is constantly referred to as a birth place of the scene. Its one remaining tower stands tall on the landscape and is home to the Ghetto Boys, a street gang from New Cross who originally formed back in the mid to late 1970's.
 Theres a lot of talking heads in this doc but some interesting reflections and some solid bars from the likes of Big Cakes, Status, SRG [look for the old faded 'CASE' graffiti before his section, a local punk band active in the 1980's] and of course the mighty P Money among others.
 Shame Kozzie and Dot Rotten didn't feature and it would of been nice to see more of Saxon and the connection to those early days which Skeme touches on in his interview.
 Never the less, its great that this slept on scene has been documented in this way and younger mc's / producers are given a sense of history and context to the music they are making today.
 Blue boro stand up!



My Ends - Rapman Ft King Zion [Blue Borough]
 Why did they close down Yates?

Kool Fm - BBC Doc from '96

 Why i have i never found this 3 parter before?
 Kool Fm from Hackney are The undisputed king of London Pirates.
 Also contains interviews with Battersea's Dream Fm  and Tottenham's Rare Groove record shop.

London Pirate Folklore

  This is a link to Uncle Dugs's show 'Run Come Follow Friday'. This one is a pirate radio special to mark the 18th Birthday of East London's Rinse FM and tell the stations story.
It's an extra long show with interviews with some of the big names in London pirate radio history, such as Eastman and DJ Brockie from Kool Fm.
This is a great piece of aural folklore, with plenty of interesting and funny stories from the day.
Rinse is now a legal station, winning a community radio licence last year on the FM frequency.
 I cant stop playing this at the moment. So if you want to download it, copy and paste the link below and right click uncle dugs show. .. that rhymed.  .. and then Save link As.

 http://rinse.fm/2012/10/28th-29th-september/

Rinse FM History; London Pirate Radio Folklore

They are making one for each year Rinse has been running. The first with the station head honcho Geeneus here is especially a gooden. Also look out for the 1997 one with A Plus and the '99 with Plague to.

The infamous Dark n Cold tapes 2000 - 2002

Just having a little Youtube trawl for classic moments from the original Dark n Cold vids. Found a few uploaded.
 They were first just available on VHS from the small clothing store in Soho. The videos were made as a means to promote there clothing range but they were made with love and were/are deliciously underground and budget.
http://www.suspect-packages.com/merchandise/videos/index.php

The first two volumes; 'Uk Untapped' feature various uk hiphop artists of the time [the later volumes were more jiggy and then grime influenced] and pioneered the beautiful thing that is a great mc freestyling to a camera. No mic, no crowd. Just a beat and a camcorder. It is a true celebration of the art form at its most pure. Beautifully simple, intimate and exciting.
They were doing what [the now award winning, massive] SBTV have built on with their 'F64' series on Youtube but they were shottin it, on VHS tapes back in 2000!
 These short videos are like folk recordings, capturing various underground street legends of the time.
Here are a few;

 Skinnyman from Finsbury Park


Surplus - underground Mc from Bristol

Chester P - legendary freestlyer from Highbury

Fallacy - A South East London General [shame its only a little sample of his sick bars here.]


Skeme and Big P - from Deptford and Pecks respectively. 

 .. and Skeme again, still doing it right on the 'UK Legends' series for SBTV last year.

E8 Street Legends

 Hackneys legendary underground uk hiphop crew 12 Stone Productions.
 Original line up:
 G-Lansun - producer/mc   Cuba - mc/producer [with the cool lisp] Kulture - mc [a giant] and Kombiashi - mc
Active in the 90's and early 0's, the crew then disperse to follow individual projects but have recently reformed with an altered line up.  They are regarded by those that know, including other legends such as Taskforce, Skeme and Kelz to be among the original pioneers of the 'London sound' using there hackney grammer [rather than the fake american accents] in their bars. You can hear there influence on many later uk hip hop crews, most notably the former poster boy of 'Urban' movement [record company and the media's attempt to package together and market all the various contemporary black music genres and culture] another Hackney resident Klashnakoff.
 When they came out they sounded like no one else and indeed the inventive and 'ghetto' production still sounds of its own.

Classic radio cypher from North London Mc's

 These bars come from some of the cream of Londons underground Uk hip hop scene, back at the high tide mark of the movement, know as 'the golden age.'

Folk sounds from another era of the Blue Borough

Eksman and Herbzie [ Cyndicut 97.8 / 1998 ]

Two of Jungles and DnB's legendary mc's, tearing it up on Pirate Cyndicut Fm, dj logons show.

Devlin and Deeperman Spittin Bars/ Dagenham, Essex, U.K/ 2007 [Patterns and Slang] They murk the second track especially! :-]