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Words by DJ Prince—
New York’s DJ Prince recently caught our attention with Test My Sound, an upcoming, reggae-themed hip-hop album that taps into the underground rap selector/producer/MC’s West Indian roots. Read Prince’s reminiscence on one of his favorite hip-hop x reggae crossover joints, Bounty Killer’s “Hip-Hopera” (featuring The Fugees) below, and look out for Test My Sound, premiering on LargeUp soon.
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Words by Jesse Serwer, Photos by Aymann Ismail—
Like every other city, New York has seen most of its record stores close up shop in recent years. But, even as dancehall and reggae have seen some of the sharpest declines in sales, an overwhelming number of NYC’s remaining record shops are those specializing in Jamaican music. These include decades-old standbys Moodies Records in the Bronx and Keeling Reggae in Brooklyn, and more recent arrivals like Deadly Dragon and Miss Lily’s Variety. Something about the music’s deep roots and the sense of community between the shoppers and shopkeepers has helped them survive in an era where shops specializing in rock, jazz and rap largely have not.
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Words by Jesse Serwer—
In the South Bronx of the early 1970s, just around the time when Afrika Bambaataa and his Black Spades gang were refocusing their energies into community activism and music, the leaders of a nearby Puerto Rican street organization, Ghetto Brothers, followed a similar path. But where the hip-hop pioneers of Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation took their inspiration from James Brown and obscure breakbeats found in funk and rock records, the Ghetto Brothers’ were inspired by the melodies of the Beatles, doo-wop and the emerging Latin rock sound of the day.
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Words by Jesse Serwer—
New York City has become home to a thriving spirits business in recent years but this renaissance for the most part has not included rum. Recently, however, a local doctor of Puerto Rican heritage, Renee Hernandez, opened the first distillery in the Bronx since prohibition. And, though Hernandez’s company, Tirado, also makes three types of whiskeys and a maple liqueur, it specializes in pitorro, or canita—fruit-infused, Puerto Rican moonshine rum. The story of Tirado, which launched in 2011, is told in an article in Thursday’s New York Times, which you can read here.
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Words and Interview by Jesse Serwer
The Kid Daytona is one of New York hiphop’s best kept secrets. The dapper Antiguan MC from the Bronx balances style and substance in a fashion that reminds us of Slick Rick and Q-Tip, outerborough MCs of Caribbean heritage. Over the last few years, the Cipha Sounds protege has cultivated a rep through conceptually tight mixtapes like A Tribe Called Fresh, wherein Daytona and friends rhymed exclusively over classic ACTQ beats; and The Daytona 500, a mini-mixtape whose beats were all constructed from samples of Bob James’ “Nautilus.” His latest effort, The Interlude, takes a similar tack, turning musical interludes from classic rap albums like Illmatic and Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s The Main Ingredient into fresh, full-length jams like “NYA” (with Aloe Blacc) and “Fly Lullaby.” (Choice line: Dread in the mesh shirt/Chefing roti with goat meat in the Bahamas) New Yorkers who’ve had their ears to the street, though, might recall ‘Tona from his hiphop flip of the late Bogle’s “All Dem Deh” (featuring Jabba of Hot 97/Massive B) from way back in 2006. LargeUp recently chatted him up about his Antiguan heritage, Bronx backyard bashments and the Caribbean’s influence on hiphop…
