Have a favourite LP that you’re prone to wax lyrical on for hours on end regardless of whether is listening or not? Consider your prose a deft mix of Lester Bangs wylin’ out copy, Theodor Adorno’s perceptiveness and George Orwell’s preciseness?  Want to see your work published by one of the leading and authoratative independent publishers in the world (and I’m not talking Bonafide here)?

If the answer is yes, keep reading.

Bloombsury Academic are requesting proposals for their excellent 33 1/3 series. The 33 1/3 are brilliant companion pieces to some of the most influential albums ever produced. Typically written in a way that manages to be both intellectually rigorous and engaging, the help create a fuller understanding of how an album was conceived. In the past I’ve enjoyed reading Eliot Wilder’s exploration of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing and Dan le Roy’s dissection of how the Beastie Boys’ idiosyncratic approach to Paul’s Boutique – both books manage to bring you closer to the music and paint a picture of where music and popular culture of the time.

Check out the Bloomsbury blog for details on how to apply and view the full list of albums that have been covered so far – looking at my iTunes I reckon albums by A Tribe Called Quest, David Axelrod, Dr Dre, Massive Attack, The Streets, De La Soul, MIA or Quasimoto could be a good place to start if you’re thinking of contributing.

23 years after the first London show Erick Sermon and Parish Smith, AKA EPMD, return to the Big Smoke still making dollars and having fun, as Phillip Mylnar investigates.

With a funk-saturated sound formulated way out in Long Island, EPMD took their place up front as part of hip-hop’s fabled golden era back in 1987. Now nearly three decades deep in hip-hop history, rap innovators Erick Sermon and Parish Smith look back on the game-changing night they played London’s Brixton Academy, how the business of hip-hop taught them to break-up to make-up, and the lasting lesson the legendary Run-DMC taught them about always embracing rap’s new generation.

It’s 1988 and the Whistle Posse are in the house at London’s Brixton Academy. Their infernal siren fills up the venue’s atmosphere with a fevered anticipation. Back stage, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay is talking to Erick Sermon and Parish Smith two rookie rappers and producers from the suburban climes of Brentwood, Long Island who rap under the name of EPMD, an amalgam of their monikers and mission: Erick and Parish Making Dollars. Jay tells the duo, who have been invited along on the tour after Run is impressed by their debut album, Strictly Business, that they should consider using the talents of current New Musical Seminar DJ champion DJ Scratch to bolster their live show. It’s timely advice, with EPMD in need of a new vinyl-spinning back-bone after K La Boss, who’d established himself as the duo’s DJ-of-choice after Diamond J – who would eventually go on to spin for P Diddy – had briefly flirted with the position only to bail out of the tour and travel back to the US citing illness. Early commercial UK hip-hop success story Derek B had filled in for EPMD the other night, earning the respect of Erick and Parish for memorising their set. But after witnessing Scratch perform an incredible set, the offer to become EPMD’s permanent DJ is made solid.

After this, things will never be the same for EPMD, as the brothers from Brentwood take up their chance to perform nightly with not just Run-DMC, but also Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and Stetsasonic. Things will never be the same for hip-hop either: the golden era is in full effect. Outside, the Whistle Posse salutes.

After this, things will never be the same for EPMD, as the brothers from Brentwood take up their chance to perform nightly with not just Run-DMC, but also Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and Stetsasonic. Things will never be the same for hip-hop either: the golden era is in full effect.

The symbolism of that distant night is strong, and sums up a hip-hop era when the defining momentum was with the music, not the images of individual artists. Run telling Def Jam executive Lyor Cohen to track down EMPD and invite them on the road, and Jay recommending a fellow DJ to fit the group’s vibe, seems like one generation graciously embracing the spirit of the next. Run-DMC themselves had already been in that position, kick-starting a new movement by trading up the (often) disco- and dance-helmed grooves of hip-hop’s first recorded wave of old school music for harsh and sparse drum machine beats and abrasive raps. EPMD heralded their own arrival with thick, mid-tempo funk grooves inspired by cruising around the expanse of Long Island in a car with the low-end frequencies cushioning the ride, not being cooped up on a rattling city subway train. The rhymes were just as comfortable, with the MCs prioritising the effortless way they said something over any allusions to content. As Erick declared on the Zapp-sampling You Gots To Chill: “Relax your mind, let your conscience be free/And get down to the sounds of EPMD.” It could be the group’s motto.

“It was full of five huge TVs, Adidas sneakers with no strings all neatly lined up, nice meals the promoters would have waiting for them”

As Parish tells it, this willingness of stylistically-different artists to commingle was a main part of the reason the time would become enshrined as hip-hop’s golden era. So when he and Erick first walked in to Run-DMC’s tour bus, they reacted with the exhilaration of fans. “It was full of five huge TVs, Adidas sneakers with no strings all neatly lined up, nice meals the promoters would have waiting for them,” recalls Parish, who before that day had only seen Run-DMC on TV and in concert. But EPMD soon found themselves accepted as artists on an equal level of respect and camaraderie. “It was a tight clique that formed on that tour,” Parish continues. “Remember, this was Will Smith before he became a movie star, when he was hoping Parents Just Don’t Understand would take off, and then Public Enemy and Stet were there, and we’d all support each other and hang out. It was like one family.” Backing up the sentiment, he adds, “I mean, once you rolled up on those tour busses, we had basketball courts set up under the busses.” (Will Smith and his bodyguard, Charlie Mack, were kings of the court. As Parish remembers: “They’d be dunking and we were just like, ‘Yo, we was just trying to do a little shoot up!’”)

EPMD’s rise was quick, fateful, and a beneficiary of the times. Their profile was established after a first single, 1987′s It’s My Thing, was played by both DJ Red Alert and Mr. Magic on their influential – but rival – New York City rap radio shows; a debut album, the perfectly-composed ten-track Strictly Business – the first in what currently totals seven “business”-punned titles – was roundly received as a classic. (Between the two releases, the group’s name and logo were solidified, after either KRS-One or Biz Markie – the duo’s memory is hazy – told them the original spelling, EPEE MD, was too complicated, and designer Haze created for them a logo as enduringly iconic as Run-DMC’s own one.) Then came the tour with Run-DMC, the chance to help define an era with fellow Long Island natives Public Enemy (Nassau County) and Rakim (Wyandanch), and the opportunity to extend EPMD’s influence through the early-’90s by putting on their collection of Hit Squad associates: Redman, Keith Murray, K-Solo, and tongue-twisting duo Das-EFX. But as the ’90s moved on, EPMD started to notice changes in the industry around them, not least as bonds that used to be formed through little more than keen creative integration started to fray. “I think once it hit its height for us in about ’93 or ’94, then it became less about the music and the culture and the art-form and more about the financial thing,” says Parish. “When hip-hop first came out, the music industry largely looked at it as trash, said it wasn’t gonna be around. But once it looked super-lucrative to them, it was harder for the artists to stay on top of just the music – it became more about the money than the art. I remember meeting 2Pac out in the Bay Area when he was with Shock G and Digital Underground and thinking that it was a little easier for Erick and I to establish ourselves because when we came out you got respect simply on how dope your music was. But ‘Pac and those guys, they had a lot more to figure out.”

During that time of change, EPMD started to make more money – but at the expense of not being able to enjoy it. “You were constantly working,” says Parish, “and in between our own albums, we had Das-EFX and Redman and K-Solo and Keith Murray to take care of. We went from more or less just trying to define our art to taking care of business and touring the globe and not getting to see too much of what we were doing.”

After a fourth album, Business Never Personal, EPMD split up – business, sometimes, being capable of corrupting a personal relationship. It was 1997 before they released another studio album together, appropriately titled Back In Business.

Back stage at the Kentish Town Forum, with show time looming, talk turns to the group’s future plans. Erick enthuses about his production work on an upcoming album from the Wu-Tang Clan’s gravel-voiced Method Man; Parish says he’s working with the Snowgoons production troop from Germany, and putting the finishing touches to an EP with Necro-associate Sean Strange titled Boondocks – ”some real underground music,” as he calls it. There is, of course, a new EPMD album being recorded, although since they’ve reunited the musical spark between Erick and Parish has never been as natural – as telepathic, even – as it once was. But that’s common: It’s hard for any hip-hop artist to stay relevant through so many years, eras, fashions and fads. (Parish’s own history goes back to the early-’80s, when he called himself DJ Eazzy “P” and rolled with his older brother, Smitty D, the founder of the Rock Squad. “He had a good relationship with Afrika Bambaataa even before Planet Rock came out,” he says, adding that he’s “seen hip-hop since before they even called it hip-hop.”)

Instead, Erick and Parish are attempting to embrace their experience – their vintage status – without turning sour and bitter to the modern scene around them. Looking back over EPMD’s career – ups, downs, break-ups, reconciliations, and all – Parish says they have “no regrets.” Instead, he figures, “Now that we’re older, it looks like everything is a learning experience.” Then, with a similar humility to the way Run-DMC embraced EPMD’s generation back in ’88, Parish invokes the wisdom of an icon of the wave that followed them: “But I know this – if we stop writing, if we stop producing, then we don’t have a right to complain about the state hip-hop is in. So like I always say to E, ‘We need to keep on that 2Pac work ethic.’”

This article is exclusive to Bonafide and first appeared in print in Bonafide Magazine issue 05: Old-School vs New-School. Go get.

Words: Phillip Mlynar
Photography: Jimmy Mould

Love how agency Weareus have treated Wiley’s Boom Blast single. Shot against strong blocks of colour with equally bold typography and utlising gym users of various shapes, the vibe is retro, detached and abstract. Something that is amplified when it cuts to Wiley’s trademark intense delivery. Following on from their work on Wiley’s Numbers In Action single and much of the DELS promo, Weareus are creating a waves in the music promo world.

The Roots

The Roots’ tenth studio album, and second since their installation as Jimmy Fallon’s house band on the Late Show,  is intended to be a cinematic narrative following the life and death of the fictional Redford Stevens.

It starts securely in concept album territory with opener ‘Dun’: a flat-lining heart monitor reversing back into life and straight into the booming ‘Sleep’. It’s a tremendously confident move, one that matches the stark beginning of 2008′s Rising Down for its eschewing of bombast in favour of low-level menace. The entire of Undun is given over to similar exercises in finesse and it is apparent that a great deal of energy has gone into refining the lyrics and music to reflect the conceptual content. In spite of  all this, or perhaps as result, there is little variation in tone, with even the celebratory ‘Kool On’ feeling like it’s been written in the grip of a mild existential crisis. Not a problem of  itself, except the band’s signposting of the cinematic characterisation rather suggests that Redford Stevens would experience a range of emotions through the course of their audio ‘film’, rather than just a perpetual sense of pensive foreboding.

Hot like Pepper Sauce.

Hip-hop and food have a long, and if you excuse the pun, fruitful relationships. Highlights include the Beastie Boys Finger Lickin’ Good, Organized Confusion’s Who Stole My Last Piece of Chicken, Buck 65′s Square LP (which if memory serves includes a indulgent M+S style of delivery), Cut Chemist’s and DJ Shadow’s Brainfreeze… you get the idea, the list is pretty fruity.

Arriving at an opportune time to spice up a chilly January and giving the producers of Master Chef a chance to turn up the show’s aural heat, Inja’s Pepper Sauce is a joyous, bouncing track that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Taken from his forthcoming Bass Music/Escapism LP, Pepper Sauce is fittingly produced by DJ Edsik (Allouette Street Records) who hails from the home of crack sauciers, France.

Bullion has long since been cherished for his mash up album Pet Sounds: In The Key Of Dee and bassy floorfiller Get Familiar. His most recent release, You Drive Me To Plastic, released by Young Turks Records, is abeautifully sewn together 21 minute piece of music consisting of nine tracks drawing from leftfield disco, krautrock, exotica and afro inspired 70’s electronics that he preferred to call a ‘non-LP’.

Now we have Say Arr Ee / What Does She Know, a natural progression from the eclectic range of tastes from a producer who now appears to have, literally, found his voice.

Say Arr Ee / What Does She Know is out on R&S Recordings on January 30th and you can stream the single below.

Bullion – Say Arr Ee by bullionness

Free Akai MPC 2000 wallpaper from Markus Designs. Interior digital design for beat heads (comes ready made for made Smart phone, iPad etc etc.

Kevin Munoz’s type-led Flying Lotus limited edition screenprint is a super nice piece of design. Printed using metalic ink on black paper, it is in the Cali native’s own words, “super nerdy and way blingy.” Coming in at a mere $20 it’s as kind on your wallet as it would be to your wall.

Munoz has worked for the likes of Paul Frank and Converse and counts joker Jack Black as a fan of his Juan t-shirt. Check his artwork which has that relaxed, idiosyncratic vibe that is peculiar to Californian visual culture. His blog and bio also raise a smile.

Really enjoyed exploring the Project Thirty-Three blog produced by Jive Time Records, a Seattle-based store specializing in used vinyl.

Project Thirty-Three is an archive of vintage album covers that share the fact that they convey their message with simple shapes (circle, rectangles, squares and triangles), bold typography and concise copy. A site that showcases a genuine love for music and a treasure trove of inspiration. Well worth a look.

To tie in with this years Record Store Day on 21 April 2012, Talenthouse are holding the Secret 7 Competition.

This, not-to-be-sniffed at opportunity, requires those with creative minds and fingers to submit artwork for a 7″ piece of vinyl housing music by the likes of DJ Shadow, CSS or Bombay Bicycle Club. The created artwork needs to be based on an intrepretation of a selected track by one of these artists. If your design is chosen it will be produced in a limited run, displayed and sold – with profits going to the Teenage Cancer Trust - at Idea Generation Gallery, London.  Winners will also receive a signed copy of their artwork and, of course, the kind of kudos money can’t buy.

The competition closes 15 January 2012, check the Talenthouse website for full deets.