What I hope to be an increasingly popular trend, rap artists have increasingly been forming “super” groups. Of course, some, like Slaughterhouse, are more well-known than others, but usually, it’s a nice way to showcase and leave behind all the filler you get with 19 tracks can get from a solo artist. (Did it really take two years to make Loso’s Way, Fab?) The Los Angeles Unified Sound District (L.A.U.S.D.) consists of a grip of MCs and producers that include Diz Gibran, Blu, U-N-I, Pac Div and many others. The thread that ties them together here is the subject matter on this mixtape and the production: rhymes about mid-90s LA culture (post-Chronic era) over beats by Polyster, L4zy Lou and a few others. You can download the mixtape directly from their website here. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the quality of this “mixtape”. In the meantime I have included two of the tracks (the first one features Jack Davey from J*Davey on the guest vocals) I have in heavy rotation right now:
L.A.U.S.D. – iFeel (f/Blu, Jack Davey) | mixtape
L.A.U.S.D. – It’s Not Right (f/Smooth, Diz Gibran, El Prez, Polyster, Dnez, L.Iv) | mixtape
Back in 1993, Tame One and El da Sensei burst onto the scene with their classic ode to graf-writing, “Wrong Side of da Tracks”. The beat hit hard, the rhymes were fresh and the imagery, 
I took another look at this latest Wu-Tang release the other day and developed a new appreciation for the quality of the project. Here’s the deal: Brooklyn-based group, The Revelations, lays down the grooves, M.O.P.’s Fizzy Womack, also from Brooklyn, produces the tracks, and each track features at least one Wu-member (but not the GZA, the MZA or Masta Killa) and one New York veteran. Each track is also interspersed with a spoken-word joint by RZA. Kung Fu flick samples abound and most of the tracks work really well. The guest artists here make a lot more sense than, for example, The W. You may recognize The Revelations from
This duo out of Illinois and Michigan by way of Chicago has been doing their OWN thing for at least two years now. What I mean is, while inspired by rappers of the “Golden Age”, they really do have a style of their own: a laid back, syrupy flow with smooth and clever lyrics. They could be compared to Clipse, because of their metaphorical creativity. The Cool Kids aren’t afraid to be independent, and I encourage you to check out their latest Don Cannon-assisted mixtape. 
Back before he was The N, before he was Nas Escobar, before he was just plain Nas, he was Nasty. I got my hands on a few of his demo tracks recently so I thought I would share one. Most of them seem to come off of a 1997 J Love mixtape which I assume was made by mixing some actual cassettes. “Déjà Vu” sounds more refined than some of the other joints on the demo tape, so it might be just be an unreleased track from 1994 or so. You will notice a chunk of Nas’ “Verbal Intercourse” verse in this track as well. I have a bunch of other demos (Biggie Smalls, Artifacts, Common…) I promise to put more up if you want to hear them. Enjoy the nastiness:
This is my 
Courtesy of the good people at 
I first heard this cat on DJ Jazzy Jeff’s classic The Magnificent LP back in 2002. I didn’t start hearing any of his production work until Little Brother released their …and Justus for All mixtape a few years ago. Since then, he has worked with a number of artists including Freeway (for his Month of Madness in December), on last year’s mixtape EP with Hot97′s Peter Rosenberg, “A Rosenberg Oddisee” and then finally with DC-based Diamond District, a group he founded with XO and yU. Check out 
This talented team of eight (or nine, or ten…) from Virginia has been recording for 14 years already. Heavy in the horn section and light on the feet, this track from their latest album, Biónico, captures that Nuyorican brand of salsa that some have been retroactively tagging as “salsa-dura”. So while Bio Ritmo has you fantasizing about your old Fania records, don’t forget that they also play merengue, mambo and a whole bunch of other Latin styles really well. (And their latest 45, “Lisandra”, is on very pretty, Prince-purple vinyl!) They have a bunch of gigs coming up in the mid-Atlantic area, but nothing on the radar for New York right now. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy this brassy goodness: