 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2006) |
The Ruthless Rap Assassins were a British hip hop group from Hulme, Manchester, England. The group was formed by MC Kermit La Freak (later simply Kermit - real name Paul Leveridge) and brothers Dangerous Hinds (real name Anderson Hinds) and Dangerous C (real name Carson Hinds).
Kermit grew up in Moss Side, Manchester - where he learnt to play violin at the age of 6 - and was briefly a DJ under the name of 'DJ la Freak', whilst doing a psychology degree at Manchester Polytechnic. He joined the breakdance crew Broken Glass, who moved into making records with "Style of the Street" following a meeting with Manchester DJ and producer Greg Wilson. The song was recorded for the Street Sounds Electro UK (Street Sounds, 1984) album, but the label owner Morgan Khan was impressed with their work and persuaded them to record more tunes for the album. In order to give the impression of a thriving British hip hop scene, the songs were recorded under a variety of aliases: in truth, of the seven tracks on the album, only one was not recorded by Broken Glass.
Kermit met the Hinds brothers - at the time calling themselves the Dangerous 2 - and together they decided to form the Assassins, with Greg Wilson staying with them as a producer. Their first release was the single "We Don't Kare" (Murdertone, 1987), which had as a B-side a song by Kiss AMC - an all-female Manchester rap group that featured Christine "Kiss" Leveridge, Kermit's sister. They followed this with two singles entirely of their own, "The Meltdown Session" (Murdertone, 1988) and "The Drone Session EP" (Murdertone, 1989) - in between which, Dangerous C performed a rap for a B-side remix of Kym Mazelle's "Useless (I Don't Need You Now)" (Syncopate, 1988).
Following this, the group released Killer Album (Murdertone/EMI, 1990). [1] The album was a mixture of social commentary ("Justice (Just Us)") and more comical tunes ("Jealous MC" or a high-octane cover of The Coaster's "Yakety Yak"). [1] It yielded two minor hit singles in "Just Mellow" and "And It Wasn't A Dream" (a duet with Tracey Carmen). The album received critical praise - UK hip hop magazine Hip Hop Connection (February 1991, No. 25) called it "the best rap album the UK had ever produced" - and even managed to get the single "And It Wasn't A Dream" (Murdertone/EMI, 1990) terrestrial television airplay. But despite making an impact within the scene, and getting crucial support from John Peel at BBC Radio 1 the album failed to translate this into sales. This album was reissued with extra tracks by Original Dope/Cherry Red in October 2010.
Trying again, the group went back to the studio to record their second album Th!nk, It Ain't Illegal Yet, introducing live percussion from Ged Lynch to their usual mix of social commentary ("No Tale, No Twist" told the story of life growing up in Manchester's urban slums, whilst "Down and Dirty" was a sex rhyme featuring "guest vocals" from Jealous MC). [1] Again, the album was liked by the critics and the industry - BBC Television had Dangerous C on an edition of Blue Peter to demonstrate the techniques of sampling and plug the album - but again, this good reception was not reflected in sales. The group split up shortly afterwards. [1]
Soon after the Assassins' split, Kermit and Ged joined Shaun Ryder to form the group Black Grape and earned pop success with them, before leaving the band after suffering from sepsis and being replaced by Psycho. Since then, Kermit has released records as Manmade and made guest appearances on other artists' songs, such as Bentley Rhythm Ace. His more recent project was Big Dog with Ged from Black Grape. Anderson Hinds left the music industry and worked as a teacher - although in a 2000 interview, [2] Kermit mentioned that the two of them were considering making more tunes together. Ged Lynch became a session musician.
Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. They are the first hip-hop group to have sold multi-platinum and platinum albums, having sold over 20 million albums worldwide. They are considered to be among the main progenitors of West Coast and 1990s hip hop. The group has been critically acclaimed for their first five albums. All of the group members advocate for medical and recreational use of cannabis in the United States. In 2019, Cypress Hill became the first hip hop group to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Latin hip hop or Latin rap is hip hop music recorded by Latin American artists in the United States and Spanish-speaking countries in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
West Coast hip hop is a regional genre of hip hop music that encompasses any artists or music that originated in the West Coast region of the United States. West Coast hip hop began to dominate from a radio play and sales standpoint during the early to-mid 1990s with the birth of G-funk and the emergence of record labels such as Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records, Ice Cube's Lench Mob Records and the continued success of Eazy-E's Ruthless Records, and others.
Southern hip hop, also known as Southern rap, South Coast hip hop, or dirty south, is a blanket term for a regional genre of American hip hop music that emerged in the Southern United States and the Southeastern United States, especially in Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Memphis, and Miami—five cities which constitute the "Southern Network" in rap music.
Us3 is a British jazz-rap group founded in London in 1992. Their name was inspired by a Horace Parlan recording produced by Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. On their debut album, Hand on the Torch, Us3 exclusively used samples from the Blue Note Records catalogue, all originally produced by Lion.
Black Grape are an English rock band, featuring former members of Happy Mondays and Ruthless Rap Assassins. Their musical style fuses funk and electronic rock with electronic programming and samples.
Chicano rap is a subgenre of hip hop that embodies aspects of Southwest Mexican American or Chicano culture. It is typically performed by rappers and musicians of Mexican descent.
Lawrence Muggerud, professionally known by his stage name DJ Muggs, is an American DJ, audio engineer and record producer. He is a member of Cypress Hill, a member of the trip hop band Cross My Heart Hope To Die and the leader of hip hop and art collective Soul Assassins.
Irish hip hop is the response to the hip hop cultural movement that originated in New York City in the 1970s which, at that time, was most popular in the borough of The Bronx. In the 1980s, breakdancing and graffiti were the first elements of hip hop culture to preface the Irish hip hop movement, which had started to emerge in Ireland.
Louis Mario Freese, known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper. Since 1991, he has been one of two lead rappers in the hip hop group Cypress Hill, along with Sen Dog. He has also been a part of the rap metal band Kush (2000–2002), the hip hop supergroup Serial Killers (2013-present) and the rap rock supergroup Prophets of Rage (2016–2019). He has released a variety of solo mixtapes, as well as two solo albums: Smoke n Mirrors (2009) and Tell You Something (2020).
Mark Howard James professionally known as The 45 King, is an American hip hop record producer and disc jockey (DJ) from The Bronx borough of New York City. James began DJing in New Jersey, in the mid-1980s. His pseudonym, the 45 King, came from his ability to make beats using obscure 45 RPM records.
Robert Frazier, known professionally as Chill Rob G, is an American hip hop artist from Jersey City, New Jersey, United States.
Chopped and screwed is a technique of remixing hip hop music which developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the early 1990s by DJ Screw. The screwed technique involves slowing the tempo of a song down to 60 and 70 quarter-note beats per minute and applying techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and affecting portions of the original composition to create a "chopped-up" version of the song.
Greg Wilson is an English DJ and producer associated with both the early 1980s electro scene in Manchester and the current disco/re-edit movement. He is also a writer/commentator on dance music and popular culture.
Vincenzo Luvineri, better known as Vinnie Paz, is a Sicilian American rapper and the lyricist behind the Philadelphia underground hip hop group Jedi Mind Tricks. He is also the frontman of the hip hop collective Army of the Pharaohs.
The discography of American rapper Big Boi consists of three studio albums, one mixtape, twenty-two singles, five promotional singles and twenty-five music videos. Big Boi initially achieved success as a member of the hip hop duo Outkast with fellow rapper André 3000; they have recorded and released six studio albums together, and the singles "Ms. Jackson", "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move" have all topped the US Billboard Hot 100. In 1995, Big Boi made a guest appearance on the single "Dirty South" by American hip hop group Goodie Mob, which peaked at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, he made several other appearances on commercially successful singles, including "All n My Grill" by rapper Missy Elliott, "A.D.I.D.A.S." by rapper Killer Mike and "Girlfight" by singer Brooke Valentine; these songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
Victory is the fourth studio album by DJ Khaled. It was released on March 2, 2010, under his We the Best Music Group and Terror Squad Entertainment imprint of E1 Records.
Rob Kelly is an Irish rapper, record producer and MC.
Dijon Isaiah McFarlane, known professionally as Mustard, is an American record producer, DJ, record executive, beatmaker, and songwriter. He is a frequent collaborator of fellow California-bred artists YG and Ty Dolla Sign; among various other records for the hip hop and R&B genres since his entrance into mainstream music with Tyga's 2011 single, "Rack City".
Street Sounds UK Electro is the one and only release of UK based artists from the StreetSounds label. The album was released on LP and cassette in 1984 and contains seven electro music and old school hip hop tracks mixed by DJ Mastermind. Although each track has individual producer and artist credits, everything except B2 is actually the work of Manchester Electro-Funk DJ Greg Wilson and associates.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
