I GOT SOME HIP HOP STORIES TO TELL...
- Thread starter Big Skilly Films
- Start date
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
Some ill stories in here 
I have a fair few - I've been making music on and off since I was a kid and doing music journalism for a minute. These are my favourite ones.
- A friend and I ended up freestyling with Kool Herc on the 1's and 2's in 1999. We hooked his brother up with some trees and we were all backstage rhyming, when he turns to us and says "I'm gonna put you guys on with Herc". We were
but 15 minutes later, it's on. All I remember is that I looked back at some point while we were rhyming on stage and Herc was 
. I have a photo of me with Herc and I'm cheesing hard on some 
shyt after the performance, somewhere on my facebook.
- Some good friends of mine used to run a hip-hop record store in central London. It started off small, but they started doing instores on Friday nights and word got out quick to the point that there were A-List cats from around the world stopping by on the regular.
I met Benny from 'City Of God' there. Saw Amy Winehouse perform around the time of her first album - it was all just random.
I was there early on assignment one day, chopping it up with the owners and Immortal Technique walks in. He'd only just been in The Source (maybe Unsigned Hype) at the time. Anyway he's cool. Maybe 15 minutes later Kool Keith walks in. Somehow, mics get found and plugged in and a little cypher starts with the three of us and a couple more cats who were around. Don't remember that much about the rhymes. Only that Keith's verse started "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12.13....
"
- My people at the same spot called me one Sunday like "Be up here this afternoon. If you miss what's about to go down....
"
I was free so I jumped in the whip and rolled over. I get there and A-Trak is spinning on the turntables behind the counter.
I was "This is it?
".
The homie, Vince who was one of the owners, told me "Nope - just wait
"
After about 20 minutes, John Legend appears from the office downstairs and starts playing a keyboard that had been set up by the register.
I was
"So, this is it?".
Vince told me "Nope - just wait"
20 minutes after that a cat wearing and army jacket and and a red hoody walks to the front of the store. Girls by the door start screaming and everyone else is
Nikka gets to the register, takes off the hood and it's Kanye. 'College Dropout' Kanye. The whole place goes nuts.
He starts rocking, and about 10 minutes into his set, Mos Def casually wanders in (He was in London filming Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy).
I turn to look at Vince like
and he just hits me with the .
And they all perfom together. Crazy.
I believe A-Trak became Kanye's DJ that day.
My absolute favorite one (which I've written up somewhere on here before) is the Ghostface story.
Through doing intrerviews and a good friend of mine over the years, I got to know Lewis. He's one of the pre-eminent UK hip-hop producers - has been for years - he was signed to Massive Attack's imprint at Virgin when most UK acts were still figuring out how to hustle independently. Over time, he'd got bored of London and moved to NY, but it sounded like he had been having a tough time breaking into the biz, Stateside.
Anyway - he's back for the summer and we're hanging at our mutual friend's house, and we find out that Ghostface is doing an instore at the record store I mentioned earlier. We decide to roll, because - shyt - it's Ghost. We get about 10 minutes down the road and Lewis tells my man that he forgot his beat CD. We were
because rush hour traffic was already thick, but I whip the car around, we go back and get it.
Long story short - we make it in time, Ghost is running late anyway. He performs and convinces some kid in the audience to give him some shrooms ( His exact words were "SHROOMS, NIKKA, SHROOMS!
") and just as he's about to bounce out the front door, Lewis hits him with the CD. We go home - don't think anything of it.
A couple of months later, Lewis' DJ gets a call trying to track him down. It was Ghost's management. Ghost had recorded - I think the final number was 7 - tracks to the beat CD he had given him and they were trying to find him.
I know a bunch of them didn't make it due to sample clearence issues, but this was probably the best known one:
I remember sitting in the car the first time I heard it being like
"My man really made it".
I have a fair few - I've been making music on and off since I was a kid and doing music journalism for a minute. These are my favourite ones.
- A friend and I ended up freestyling with Kool Herc on the 1's and 2's in 1999. We hooked his brother up with some trees and we were all backstage rhyming, when he turns to us and says "I'm gonna put you guys on with Herc". We were
but 15 minutes later, it's on. All I remember is that I looked back at some point while we were rhyming on stage and Herc was . I have a photo of me with Herc and I'm cheesing hard on some shyt after the performance, somewhere on my facebook.- Some good friends of mine used to run a hip-hop record store in central London. It started off small, but they started doing instores on Friday nights and word got out quick to the point that there were A-List cats from around the world stopping by on the regular.
I met Benny from 'City Of God' there. Saw Amy Winehouse perform around the time of her first album - it was all just random.
I was there early on assignment one day, chopping it up with the owners and Immortal Technique walks in. He'd only just been in The Source (maybe Unsigned Hype) at the time. Anyway he's cool. Maybe 15 minutes later Kool Keith walks in. Somehow, mics get found and plugged in and a little cypher starts with the three of us and a couple more cats who were around. Don't remember that much about the rhymes. Only that Keith's verse started "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12.13....
"- My people at the same spot called me one Sunday like "Be up here this afternoon. If you miss what's about to go down....
"I was free so I jumped in the whip and rolled over. I get there and A-Trak is spinning on the turntables behind the counter.
I was "This is it?
".The homie, Vince who was one of the owners, told me "Nope - just wait
"After about 20 minutes, John Legend appears from the office downstairs and starts playing a keyboard that had been set up by the register.
I was
"So, this is it?".Vince told me "Nope - just wait
"20 minutes after that a cat wearing and army jacket and and a red hoody walks to the front of the store. Girls by the door start screaming and everyone else is
Nikka gets to the register, takes off the hood and it's Kanye. 'College Dropout' Kanye. The whole place goes nuts.He starts rocking, and about 10 minutes into his set, Mos Def casually wanders in (He was in London filming Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy).
I turn to look at Vince like
and he just hits me with the .And they all perfom together. Crazy.
I believe A-Trak became Kanye's DJ that day.
My absolute favorite one (which I've written up somewhere on here before) is the Ghostface story.
Through doing intrerviews and a good friend of mine over the years, I got to know Lewis. He's one of the pre-eminent UK hip-hop producers - has been for years - he was signed to Massive Attack's imprint at Virgin when most UK acts were still figuring out how to hustle independently. Over time, he'd got bored of London and moved to NY, but it sounded like he had been having a tough time breaking into the biz, Stateside.
Anyway - he's back for the summer and we're hanging at our mutual friend's house, and we find out that Ghostface is doing an instore at the record store I mentioned earlier. We decide to roll, because - shyt - it's Ghost. We get about 10 minutes down the road and Lewis tells my man that he forgot his beat CD. We were
because rush hour traffic was already thick, but I whip the car around, we go back and get it.Long story short - we make it in time, Ghost is running late anyway. He performs and convinces some kid in the audience to give him some shrooms ( His exact words were "SHROOMS, NIKKA, SHROOMS!
") and just as he's about to bounce out the front door, Lewis hits him with the CD. We go home - don't think anything of it.A couple of months later, Lewis' DJ gets a call trying to track him down. It was Ghost's management. Ghost had recorded - I think the final number was 7 - tracks to the beat CD he had given him and they were trying to find him.
I know a bunch of them didn't make it due to sample clearence issues, but this was probably the best known one:
I remember sitting in the car the first time I heard it being like
"My man really made it".
Last edited:
Some ill stories in here
I have a fair few - I've been making music on and off since I was a kid and doing music journalism for a minute. These are my favourite ones.
- A friend and I ended up freestyling with Kool Herc on the 1's and 2's in 1999. We hooked his brother up with some trees and we were all backstage rhyming, when he turns to us and says "I'm gonna put you guys on with Herc". We were
- Some good friends of mine used to run a hip-hop record store in central London. It started off small, but they started doing instores on Friday nights and word got out quick to the point that there were A-List cats from around the world stopping by on the regular.
What's the name of the store breh?
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
It was the GOAT - Deal Real.
They've been shut down for awhile now, although they did a pop up store a couple of months ago at the old spot.
OG Talk
Archived
Clubbing in Atlanta in the late 90s/early 2000s I've had casual run ins with so many celebrities it would take too long to mention..Rappers, athletes, R&B singers were everywhere. You could be at a Barnes and Noble or Publix and run into someone..
But something that stands out the most happened when I was much younger..
I met Pac when I was like 14 at the Black Expo in Indianapolis... My best friends pops was a writer for the Indy Star and got us credentials to be interns for the week.
Before Pac was about to do a speech he was complaining he had a real bad headache, so they sent my boy to get him some aspirin.. It didn't work but Andre and Big Boi came through (before anyone knew who Outkast was) and rolled Pac a blunt.. They smoked out then Pac went on stage and gave a crazy passionate speech..
I had Polaroid pictures of him somewhere but lost them over the years..I used to bring them to school to use to kick it to girls "You know who I was chillin with last summer shorty?"
We passed the pics around so much I think I lost them way before he died.. To this day its one of the few possessions I would have kept.. He wasnt "2 Pac The Icon" at the time so I didn't treat it as any big deal..
But something that stands out the most happened when I was much younger..
I met Pac when I was like 14 at the Black Expo in Indianapolis... My best friends pops was a writer for the Indy Star and got us credentials to be interns for the week.
Before Pac was about to do a speech he was complaining he had a real bad headache, so they sent my boy to get him some aspirin.. It didn't work but Andre and Big Boi came through (before anyone knew who Outkast was) and rolled Pac a blunt.. They smoked out then Pac went on stage and gave a crazy passionate speech..
I had Polaroid pictures of him somewhere but lost them over the years..I used to bring them to school to use to kick it to girls "You know who I was chillin with last summer shorty?"
We passed the pics around so much I think I lost them way before he died.. To this day its one of the few possessions I would have kept.. He wasnt "2 Pac The Icon" at the time so I didn't treat it as any big deal..
@PlayerNinety_Nine your boy made the shakey dog and outta town shyt beats 
i actually remember hearing fishscale was supposed to be even better but some samples didnt clear
i actually remember hearing fishscale was supposed to be even better but some samples didnt clear
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
@PlayerNinety_Nine your boy made the shakey dog and outta town shyt beats
Indeed he did.
Wildest shyt was we used to freestyle to the beats at our other homie's spot before he burned them to the CD.
There was a beat that Lewis said that Ghost fukked with, which bodied those songs too. It sounded like some psychedelic Spaghetti Western shyt. I think that got shut down because of sample clearances.
Closest thing I ever saw to someone's hip-hop dreams coming true.
It was the GOAT - Deal Real.
They've been shut down for awhile now, although they did a pop up store a couple of months ago at the old spot.
I remember that place. I used to get DJ Semtex mixtapes (actual cassette tapes
) there back in the day.
did he eat well off the credits?Indeed he did.
Wildest shyt was we used to freestyle to the beats at our other homie's spot before he burned them to the CD.
There was a beat that Lewis said that Ghost fukked with, which bodied those songs too. It sounded like some psychedelic Spaghetti Western shyt. I think that got shut down because of sample clearances.
Closest thing I ever saw to someone's hip-hop dreams coming true.
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
I remember that place. I used to get DJ Semtex mixtapes (actual cassette tapes
The little community built around the store was so dope. It was one of my favourite places in the world to be on a Friday night. You literally never knew who was going to show. And I use to stop at the Chinese spot by Oxford Circus for the beef in black bean sauce 
. Did you know any of the cats who worked there?Mr. Hudson ended up working with Kanye because of that place - one of the owners was managing him at the time.
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
That I couldn't tell you - he's been aight for a minute as far as I know - that summer was the last time we really hung out tuff. I moved to Canada a couple of years later. Our mutual friend still kicks it with him all the time.
I know he has joints with Trife, Sadat, Steele from Smif N Wessun and he got to record Slick Rick one time, off the strength though.
I don't have any hip hop stories.
Mr. Hudson ended up working with Kanye because of that place - one of the owners was managing him at the time.
Nah I was only 15 or so at the time. That place was so authentically Hip Hop that it intimidated me slightly even though the people were all cool. i wish i could have seen those Friday night sessions though. that sounds crazy.