Straight flames from our man Maze, Lord Tariq still doing it rugged. Available digitally on Amazon and iTunes, but we’re hoping dude presses up some vinyl as well.

Like what we did with the title? So back in ‘89 Ice T founded the Rhyme Syndicate, a platform for already established artists such as  Donald D but brought to the fore a whole raft of eclectic new talent ranging from Low Profile (W.C. and DJ Aladdin) who went on to release their classic album ‘We’re In This Together’ through to Divine Styler, Nile Kings and Everlast. The Rhyme Syndicate compilation in ‘88 was helmed by Ice-T himself but then took a back seat role as his new artists, which included the UK’s very own Hijack, released moderately successful debut albums. None lasted much further then the mid 90’s except Everlast and W.C. of Low Profile but the Rhyme Syndicate was an honest attempt at breaking new talent, so hats off to Ice for that.

So back before the world went internuts record companies used to get us excited about new artists by putting music on very thin magic discs, printing words on them then placing said disc in a case. Then they would put it in an envelope, place a stamp on the enevlope along with your address and put it in the mail. That’s similar to electronic mail or e-mail but instead of Google sending you the mail, a man in a uniform would hand deliver it to your front door. It was all so quaint back then.

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Enjoy the throwback…(click images to enlarge)

DOWNLOAD SAMPLER 1

DOWNLOAD SAMPLER 2

Sasha’s a Bad girl and likes to Get Down and she’s Dangerous and she Can Give you More and she Wants You and she’ll Rock Your Bells and she Needs Love in her Big Ole Butt. [takes breath] She’ll also guarantee 6 Minutes of Pleasure and as for her knickers, she’s Droppin’ Em ready for your Milky Cereal, unless she’s on her blob AKA the Cheesy Rat Blues. And so forth.

Yes, our resident hottie is back rocking another vintage garm from the Fat Lace vaults, an official crew jacket from LL’s Walking With A Panther tour. While we’re at it, we’d like to know what vintage gear you’ve got whether it be promo T shirts, posters, old school flyers whatever. Floss your ephemera in the comments sekshun.

More rudeness after the jump….

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Of all the great things the Afrocentric era in rap taught us – namely that it sounds great when rappers talk bollocks, how much rappers will believe any old bollocks about black scientists creating the white race in a lab several thousand years ago, how ruinously expensive it is to try and get an X-Clan style carved staff custom-made in Leeds, and how even the fittest rap bint will look daft if you plonk a leather hat on her head adorned with the Ankh cross – the supreme alphabet isn’t one of them.

To be honest, we were a bit slow on the uptake with it. We didn’t have a clue what all this ‘arm-leg-leg-arm-head’ stuff was. Allah, since you ask. We just thought it was some black version of that primary school classic ‘heads, fingers, knees and toes, knees and toes’. We have subsequently learned at the School of Hard Knocks and Higher Edumacation that there’s a whole alphabet of this stuff developed by Clarence X for use by the Nation of Gods and Earth.

Clarence the Cross-Eyed 13X, earlier today.

Let’s be frank, however. It’s a right load of old shit. As a code, it’s about as complex as CB radio, and that’s coming from someone burning 37 candles. We already have a highly developed slang for police, choice epithets including the beast, po-po, one time and Jake. What do the supreme alphabeticians give us? Cee-Cipher-Power. We know that Cipher is ‘O’, but it begins with C, so to us that’s CCP, or the Chinese Communist Party. You can see our confusion. And how does the use of the supreme alphabet affect other aspects of everyday life? Do Nation of Islam dudes playing Scrabble simply put down the letter ‘Z’ before claiming that represents ‘Zig-Zag-Zig’ for 99 points with triple-word score? And what about alphabetti spaghetti? Won’t someone think of the children?

To be honest, we weren’t always entirely down on the idea of the Supreme Alphabet. At one point, before we launched Fat Lace as a print magazine (your grandad can tell you about those, Moonboy) we toyed with the idea of launching a Nation of Gods and Earths porn mag, using our knowledge of (top) s(h)elf. We even approached Queen Latifah about being our very first cover girl, but she objected to our cover story: Do Afrocentric chicks take it in the Born Universe Truth Truth?

It is what it says on the tin but you know those records that are just as famous for their intro as the song itself? It could be a couple of words, a break, whatever but we asked the Fat Lace team for their top intro’s. We’re sure you’ll trump us in the comments section but we picked these not only for the intro but because they’re preludes to all time classics.

#1: LL Cool J ‘I’m Bad’

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The first time you heard “Calling all cars, calling all cars” coming in over ‘The Theme From S.W.A.T.’ you have to admit it gave you goosebumps. If it didn’t you’re either not in your late 30’s or flatlining right now. That intro to ‘I’m Bad’ enabled LL to bypass the notion of the sophomore jinx and on his merry way to rap superstardom.

#2: N.W.A. ‘Straight Outta Compton’

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In just 11 words Dr Dre changed the direction of hip-hop forever. “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowldege” was a defining moment in rap music, the first track off another sophomore album in a year when the streets reclaimed rap. Originally the B side to a more paliative ‘Express Yourself’ (just in case the group alientated pretty much every radio network), ‘Straight Outta…’ set the scene for not only a phenomenal career in entertainment for all concerned but for an anger and rebellion in rap which had waited almost a decade to boil over.

#3 Gangstarr ‘Full Clip’

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In less than 5 words DJ Premier used the hugely powerful platform that was the intro to Gangstarr’s biggest comeback record to make an indelible dedication to one of hip-hop’s greatest rappers. As soon as you hear those words in a club, on radio, on a mixtape or whatever, people unite. It was a statement against violence as much as it was the biggest accolade a rapper could get at the time, a few spoken words from DJ Premier. We also had to post the flyer that Premier uses in the video as the Fat Lace crew attended that party after Big Lamont’s passing.

#4: Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth ‘They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)’

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Another R.I.P. record dedicated to dancer Trouble T Roy (Troy Dixon)  but this time it was the sample used on the intro, namely ‘When She Made Me Promise’ by The Beginning Of The End, also famous for their record ‘Funky Nassau’. This was one of the first records in rap to let an unlooped, unsampled break play as the intro to a track. They were maybe only pipped at the post by Large Professor who used that technique a couple of times on the classic ‘Breaking Atoms’ album released earlier the same year. Rarely do you hear ‘T.R.O.Y.’ mixed in a club, it’s a record that needs to be heard in it’s entirety.

Btw, does anyone know if Troy Dixon and fellow Mt. Vernon artist Maxwell Dixon were related?

#5: Public Enemy ‘Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos’

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“Get in that cell n**a”. Not a sample you’d expect to be taken from a Stevie Wonder record (‘Living For The City’) but the context in which it was used was massively controversial at the time, as were the rest of the song’s lyrics. Where N.W.A. set out to reclaim the streets, Public Enemy sought to expose the deeper injustices of the system through politicised raps, imagery and the media. An uncoventional choice for the greatest rap intro’s of all time but if you copped this back in ‘88 you realised this track and in fact the whole album was light years ahead of the pack in terms of subject matter and the direction they were dragging rap music, albeit kicking and screaming.

Get those comments popping off, what did we miss?

Here at Fat Lace we like to revere our heroes before they cark it. Not to say Chuck won’t live a long healthy life but after Mr Magic we don’t want to take any chances so we’re bringing you a precis of his work so you can get familiar.  First up Chuck’s DJ skills popped up on the seminal ‘Two, Three, Break’ by the B Boys on Vincent Davis’ Vintertainment label, a minimal Electro classic and staple in any collection. The B Boys were also notable as one of the group members was a pre-Rhyme Syndicate member Donald D. Soon after that Chuck dropped his first solo record ‘Hip Hop On Wax Volume 1′, the first in a series which saw fellow Kiss FM DJ Red Alert make the follow up ‘Hip Hop On Wax Volume 2′.  Under an alias of D.J. Born Supreme Allah, Chillout then made the sequel to ‘Two, Three, Break’, the unofficial ‘Part 3′ of the ‘Hip Hop On Wax’ series.

D.J. Born Supreme Allah – Two, Three, Break (Part II – The Sequel) (DOWNLOAD)

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D.J. Chuck Chillout – Hip Hop On Wax Volume 1 (DOWNLOAD)

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Then came a couple of key productions, firstly he was behind the classic Dismasters record ‘Small Time Hustler’, a record that propelled label Urban Rock into the spotlight. A couple more Dismasters singles surfaced which also helped establish them on the world circuit. Next Chuck produced another classic record from the 1988 golden era by Deuces Wild called ‘Five Times The Rhymer’. Interestingly enough one half of Deuces (Derek Keyes) later went under the alias of Nine, switched up his voice and released a string of singles and an album for Profile Records. Just before that back in 1991 Nine, or as he was then called Nine Double M recorded a single with Chuck Chillout’s young protege DJ Funkmaster Flex. If you want to dig even deeper, before Nine’s earlier incarnation, the two rappers in Deuces were known as Ricochet And Centipede, look out for their only release ‘Charlie Brown’.

Deuces Wild – Five Times The Rhymer (DOWNLOAD)

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With a string of classic singles under his belt and one of New York’s most important Hip-Hop radio jocks, Chuck Chillout was already established in Hip-Hop’s hall of fame. Recently we spotted a rare acetate of a Kiss FM radio ident recorded for Chuck by The Ultramagnetic MC’s go for $2,827.00. Peep the link HERE.

Ultramagnetic MC’s Radio ID (for Chuck Chillout) (DOWNLOAD)

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In ‘89 Chuck teamed up with rapper Kool Chip to form a group which signed to Mercury. The ‘Masters Of The Rhythm’ album followed their first single ‘I’m Large’ taking the elements of the James Bond theme tune. The ‘Once In A Lifetime’ sampling ‘Rhythm Is The Master’ single followed although the sample had already made Talking Heads a hip-hop favourite after Sugar Bear sampled it on ‘Don’t Scandalize Mine’ a year before in ‘88. Their album drew from the massive rise in popularity of house music which never washed particularly well with the hip-hop fraternity but Chuck Chillout’s pedigree was already established so he seemed to escape any serious negative criticism. And that, as they say, is his-story.

If you ever get to read this Chuck, holla at us, we’d love to do a full interview sometime.

DJ Chuck Chillout & Kool Chip ‘Masters Of Rhythm’ album (DOWNLOAD)

More Chuck Chillout Video after the jump….

Also props to Hot As Balls, as we were researching we realised they did a similar post back in 2008 which we missed at the time, but no harm in updating.

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Ol’ Dirty’s Widow alledgedly sold his posthumous album ‘A Son Unique’ for a mere $10,000.00 then spent the proceeds. Full story HERE. You gotta love the NY Post’s headline too:  ‘Bastard’ Widow’s Dumb Deal.

By the way, did you ever hear this?

Ol’ Dirty Bastard ‘Jump’ (Van Halen Remix)

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Geto Boys ‘Gangster Of Love’

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DOWNLOAD

Geto Boys ‘Gangster Of Love’ OG Mix

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DOWNLOAD

And if that wasn’t enough of a treat for you today, here are the lyrics in pictoral form.

It’s an event record snitches, taken from Bun’s forthcoming ‘TIll O.G.’ album.

Bun B & Premier ‘Let Em Know’

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And you thought Fat Lace had gone into some sort of coma. Dead wrong son. Yep, Freaky Friday is upon us once again and we got plenty more of these shits in the baggy bag.  So just in case you have enjoyed Fat Lace for the last few years but never bought a single issue,  T Shirt or put one penny of gratitude in our Paypal account, here’s your chance. We repressed these shirts until the next one drops so cop one HERE. If you like Sasha’s assets, click HERE for loads more vintage Hip-Hop garms and tits.

Too Much Posse

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So here we have our new ‘house’ model Sasha rocking the Too Much Posse tee. Sasha hails from England’s ‘charming’ South coast and has just become Club International’s new regular girl, following in the footsteps of such ladies as Sandy, Stella, Lucy and, in the dayz of wayback, Andrea Clarke. Basically you’re the centrepiece for the mag that is home to the finest women in the world. And unlike in Nuts, you see everything on some Patrick Stewart in ‘Extras’ type ishtish.

More after the jump:

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