“Hip Hop Collected” 2022, Music on Vinyl limited edition on red and white vinyl. A 25-track comp of hip hop from “the first 20 years of hip hop,” including early artists like Kurtis Blow (“The Breaks“) to Top 40 crossovers like Tone-Loc (“Wild Thing”). We don’t have much hip hop in our collection so having this 2-LP collection is a good start and has a few of my favorites plus plenty I’m not very familiar with though am quite sure I heard on the radio or on MTV in the 80’s and 90’s.

My top picks are the ones I am familiar with and loved when they were released, still do! Being honest, I definitely did not love Beastie Boys in the 80’s (mostly because I didn’t love the dude-bro jocks who seemed to be the ones listening to the Beasties) but their track “She’s on It” from ’85 which is on this comp is awesome. It was fifth single from the soundtrack to the 1985 film Krush Groove and hit #10 in the UK. Being a little more honest, the real reason I love “She’s on It” it because Jon Spencer Blues Explosion covered it on a 12″ mashup with “Jack the Ripper” (Link Wray) recorded in 2012, released in 2014.

“It’s Tricky” by Run-DMC is another all-time favorite. I was all about their ’86 album Raising Hell (though I only had it on a dubbed cassette in the 80’s) and this track was – and still is – a great ass-shaker. It went to #57 in the US (though to #21 on the hip hop charts) and to #16 in the UK. Reading about the track I discovered – and what should have been obvious to me years ago – the main guitar riff is sampled from the Knack’s “My Sharona” and the vocal structure borrowed from Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” both songs from the early 80’s that I know inside, outside and backwards.

LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” from 1990 absolutely reminds me of college. It was a huge hit, going to #17 in the US (#1 on the rap charts) and to #41 in the UK. It’s still considered one of the top hip hop and pop songs of all-time.

Tone Lōc seems to have only recorded one song and then re-packaged it over and over again (see “Funky Cold Medina,” etc), but what a song it is! “Wild Thing” is still hilarious, 35+ years on. From his 1988 album Lōc-ed After Dark, “Wild Thing” went all the way to #2 but was not without controversy. Tone used samples from Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Cryin'” without the band’s permission; it resulted in an out-of-court settlement for relative peanuts paid to Van Halen (not to worry, Van Halen ended up continuing to do just fine).

“Can I Kick It?” by A Tribe Called Quest from 1990 is another college-era track for me. My roommate loved A Tribe Called Quest so I heard this song from their debut People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm quite a bit in the early 90’s. Its samples from Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side” heavily but also transformed it to 90’s modernity; “Can I Kick It?” is considered one of the best singles from the 90’s.

Other tracks that I may or may not have heard back in the day from Hip Hop Collected but am loving today include the slinky and jazzy “La Raza” by Kid Frost (1990), Nas’ “NY State of Mind” and Warren G’s & Nate Dogg’s (cousin of Snoop) “Regulate” which is all smokey smooth and stoned 70’s groove which was Def Jam’s biggest single release (’94), hitting #2 on the US charts (#1 rap charts, #5 UK).