Around 3rd quarter 2007, I saw Merlin Bronques’s rendition of 10cc’s Cry.  It was a nice remake with the usual party kids that you can see on Lastnightsparty.com.  A nice touch was having Xavier and Busy P making a guest appearance on the video.  But at the time, my main focus was who sang this beautiful track?  Above is the original video and song by 10CC, otherwise known as Godley and Creme. Enjoy. On a side note, the Bronques remake is no longer available online.

The Roots, easily one of my favorite Hip Hop groups of all time, have been a consistent main stay in the game. Their first album, Organix, debuted in ‘93. The album released in London and sold at their live shows, this grind helped them sell 150,000 copies and labels in the US took notice. This lead to the album Do You Want More?!!!??! and features one of my top Hip Hop songs “Proceed”. The next album was released in ‘96 and is easily top 10 - 15 on my list, Illadelph Halflife. This album helped break them into the mainstream, as they were always critically acclaimed, but never had the mainstream success. One of the all time best hip hop videos came from this album and that was for the song “What They Do”. The video was always thought of as The Roots making fun of the cliches in Hip Hop videos, but it was later revealed that the video was actually poking fun at Rock videos. The video was directed by Charles Stone, not sure who he is, well he’s the dude that did the whole “Whassup!” Budweiser commercials and director of AJK’s favorite movie of all time, that’s right Paid in Full.

Having recently seen the trailer for Quantum of Solace, I thought a Bond related Throwback Thursday would be appropriate.  And of course the first song that comes to mind is A View to a Kill, coming from the last Roger Moore Bond film of the same name.  The music video alone was a bit hard to grasp, but the track remains my favorite Bond theme song ever.

The year was 1994, the artist, a fairly unknown Nas. In celebration of him releasing his 9th studio album and our collective love for him on Killahbeez.com, we decided to dedicate this Throwback Thursday to the album that kicked it all of. The album, Illmatic, is one of the most classic Hip Hop albums to have ever been released, it received 5 mics from The Source, which back in those days actually meant something.The album featured production from Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, L.E.S and Dj Premier. The album saw three singles officially released including the one above, “The World Is Yours”. If for whatever reason you don’t have this album, do yourself a favor and cop it today and hear why everybody talks about this album as THE album. Oh and if you ain’t copped Untitled, do so now.

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This Throwback Thursday we’re featuring a group from Canada, specifically from Toronto. The year was 1992, the group Ghetto Concept, their first single “Certified” was released via indie label Groove-a-lot Records. It would take a few more years before Canadians would hear from these cats again as they re-appeared in ‘96 with their single “E-Z On Tha Motion” which won a Juno, which is the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy. It would take another two years before the group released their debut album Ghetto Concept, which featured the single “Heavy Metals” which featured Sticky Fingaz from Onyx.  Ask any hiphop head in Canada about what joint they use to bump when they was youngins and I can guarantee your ass they’ll name this song from Ghetto Concept. Peep it and if you don’t know, well now you know.

So I was completely  oblivious to this awesome collabo print by Shepard Fairey and Billy Idol.  Now market price is no less than $200 on ebay as opposed to the retail price of $50 on debut.  If you missed out like I did, you could always settle for the recently released cd, Idolize Yourself.  The cd art of course was also done by Shepard Fairey. In the meantime, check the back for my all time favorite Billy Idol single.

Image/text Source: Obey Giant

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Last night yours truly was invited by Sealed with a Kiss promotions to check out the RZA show that was held. The show was fiya and the RZA came out hyped straight from the beginning, but more on the review of the show over the next day or two. This week’s Throwback Thursday is one of the RZA’s first projects, Gravediggaz.  The group was formed in 1994 bringing together Prince Paul (The Undertaker) Frukwan (The Gatekeeper), Too Poetic (The Grym Reaper), and RZA (The Rzarector). I know there are a few hiphop heads out there that weren’t feelin’ this group from the get go with their dark sense of humor and abrasive, menacing soundscapes. The video above is for the song “1-800-SUICIDE”, which was the third single off of the debut album 6 Feet Deep.

I heard Pilooski’s edit to Gemini a few months back.  Having heard the snippet, it drew curiosity about the original artist, Del Shannon.  That and of course, I had to have the mp3.  To my surprise, there wasn’t too much deviation between the remix and original. Both contained sonically phenomenal instrumentals and Del Shannon’s voice is captivating.  According to Del Shannon, he had dubbed this sound, bathroom acoustics.  Gemini never quite made it in any charts like Runaway did,  but thats what makes this track a gem.