Alison Fensterstock and Aubrey Edwards’ Where They At archive is now available online. It’s a pretty impressive archive of New Orleans bounce and rap music featuring photos, ephemera and excerpts of interviews with the likes of DJ Jimi, Mia X, Mannie Fresh and more (hopefully the full text will be available in some form in the future?) I haven’t gotten too too deep into the site yet, but I did notice this interesting point brought up by one time Young Money and Psychoward DJ Raj Smoov:

Even still now, I don’t think hip-hop and rap are too widely accepted as… I think it’s still looked down upon. Even within the city, jazz music and brass band music – and there is a lot of culture – New Orleans has its own hip-hop. It has its own history of it, but people don’t really look or pay too much attention to that because it’s not, I guess, traditional. Right now jazz is what everybody knows New Orleans for being for. But back in the day when jazz first started, it was looked down upon by its predecessors. We’re kind of going through that same cycle now. I think there eventually will be a point where all the people that grew up on hip-hop that are my age, once they start getting in positions of power – they are handing out the grants and they are doing the stories and memorials and they have the power to do different things – you’ll see a lot more happening with hip hop because that is our music. That will be the traditional music at some point.

Raj’s comments immediately brought to mind the most visible representation of New Orleans music today – David Simon’s HBO series Treme. Though not entirely unexpected, it’s been disappointing to see how New Orleans bounce and hip hop has been almost entirely unacknowledged on the show so far. (more…)

Very quickly, here are some loose joints that have been collecting dust on the hard drive.

A Tribe Called Quest – “Georgie Porgie“

from Low End Theory Sessions (Jive Unreleased, 1991)

By much delayed request. “Show Buisness” seems like one of the more “conscious” moments of Tribe’s career, educating misled youth on how to not get took by shiesty record execs. In reality they were just hurt because some TI wouldn’t let them “holler down faggots,” as a K-Mart intern once so artfully put it. Industry rule #4081: ignorance fuels everything. I’ve often theorized that part of the reason Brand Nubian isn’t as revered as the Natives because they were so explicitly anti-gay at points. It’s fun to imagine how Tribe’s legacy might have been rewritten had this track ended up on LET. Would much of their headwrap fanbase, proudly comfortable kicking it with ADAM AND STEVE types, have accepted such hatred? Maybe they should be thanking their label for scrapping this. (via Vincent, I thimk)

Ju’C – “Eat The Cat“

from Eat The Cat 12″ (Ready Or Not, 1992)

News of another unfortunate death this week: T&G’s Jib Kidder informed me that New Orleans Bounce emcee Cicely “Ju’C” Crawford McCallon was shot and killed last month at the age of just 37. Ju’C was one of the earliest females recording bounce music and was married to short-term No Limit Signee Tre-8. “Eat The Cat” is her awesome response to Lil Elt’s “Get The Gat.” I’ve been meaning to post this track forever, it’s a shame that I ended up doing so on such a sad note. (more…)

…cause it ain’t your face.

Late night youtube stumbling onto NO classics.

Alright grown ups, in betweens, children and babies, I’m back with part two of the Mannie interview. Here Elvis Freshly talks about a record that he himself sampled dozens of times, New Orleans Bounce archetype (by way of Queens) The Showboys’ “Drag Rap (Triggerman)”. Click here if you missed part one of the interview.

When did “Triggerman” first catch on in New Orleans?
I guess from the release date of that song. It always was a hot song in New Orleans. I want to say Memphis, as well. Memphis and New Orleans. It was just one of those songs that was embraced. And I guess what made it so hot around New Orleans was just the 808, you know it’s two different drum sets in it. You got one with a hard kick, a hard snare and then it just breaks down into this 808 beat. And you know, down south that’s been the favorite drum machine for forever, the 808. And they’re some New York cats, but nobody ever knew they was from New York. And the whole way the song was formatted – it’s story rap and it’s got that southern feel to it. (more…)

Gregory D & DJ Mannie Fresh – “Buck Jump Time“

from Buck Jump Time 12″ (Yo?, 1989)

Waaah. AIN’T MY VAULT is a new poorly titled and hopefully semi regular series of from-the-archives interviews that I never took the time to transcribe or publish. First up is a conversation with the great man Mannie Fresh about everything from his days with New York Incorporated and Gregory D to the personal and musical impact of Hurricane Katrina. What follows the second half of an hour long conversation that amounted to one quote in “The Big Bang”, a piece I wrote about The Showboy’s proto-bounce classic “Drag Rap (Triggerman)” for Scratch. (Originally conducted 6/1/07)

Noz: So tell me a little about New York Incorporated.
Mannie Fresh: That was my homeboy, Denny D. He came down from New York and they had a mobile DJ thing that was going on. I was doing my own thing, I was doing local things before I got turned on to them. Denny D is my homie DJ Wop’s cousin and Wop was like my cousin got all the schools on lock and they want to check you out. So I came to the dudes crib, did a little audition, showed him what I was made of, what I could do. And they was like “holy shit, you the youngest dude right now and the table’s are on fire” so they put me down with their crew. So all love to New York Incorporated, that was my first family, my first DJ group and we pretty much ran the city from the 80s to the 90s. Ain’t a house we ain’t been to, ain’t a school dance we didn’t do. (more…)