Dad Bod Rap Pod

Nate, Dave, and Demone are joined this week by Philadelphia-based MC Curly Castro. The loquacious rapper shares stories about his childhood in Brooklyn, some funny encounters with rap royalty, and his dream of becoming the world’s greatest hypeman. Stay tuned til the end where we share new music from Castro and his collaborators PremRock, friend of the program Zilla Rocca, and Open Mike Eagle. First up is the track “Nitty at the Drew” by ShrapKnel (Castro and PremRock) followed by “Company Dro” by Grift Company (Castro and Zilla) feat. Open Mike Eagle.

This week we are joined by very special guest Nathaniel Friedman of GQ Magazine, Victory Journal, and formerly of revolutionary basketball blog Free Darko. We go deep on Madlib and Freddie Gibbs’ Bandana album, which Nathaniel covered in his brilliant Gibbs profile for GQ. We also talk about the NBA, record collecting, and having your takes, good and bad, memorialized on the internet.

This week we spoke to Mr. Len, a gifted DJ and producer with a long career in hip-hop that started as a member of underground legends Company Flow. We dig deep into Len’s catalog, starting with Funcrusher and moving forward into his solo work with Jean Grae and Breeze Brewin, his emo-rap project Roosevelt Franklin, and then we all giggle talking about his time in the Prince Paul project The Dix. In the first segment we talk about rap lists give our top 50 reasons why we don’t make them.

This week we are discussing sequels, especially rap album sequels. What are the best rap album sequels, what makes an album an official sequel, and some of our faves. Then we have a very special interview with Jazz, best known as Roc Marciano’s manager, who oversaw a groundbreaking release strategy for Roc’s sequel album Rosebudd’s Revenge 2. Jazz drops tons of knowledge about Roc’s many releases, how they met, and what a rap manager actually does. Stay tuned til the end for some exciting news about upcoming releases.

Slightly different format this week. Dave and Nate spoke with friends of the program DJ Cutso and Bay Area MC Big Hongry about their forthcoming collaborative project. Cutso is on a hot streak right now, having just released the Rapp Nite project with Lyrics Born. This is you opportunity to get to know Big Hongry, a skilled rapper with a wide variety of interests and life experiences.

In the first segment the guys do a brief run-through of some of the new rap releases. The second segment is an interview with rapper, producer, comedy show DJ, podcast host, hip-hop head, and extremely grounded self-aware person Donwill! He’s got a good new album out now called One Word No Space and an illustrious career as a solo artist and with his group Tanya Morgan. Beats for this week’s episode were provided by DJ Mentos from his new album Fresh Air.

The legendary record store Fat Beats, also an extremely important record label and indie distributor with a huge influence on hip-hop culture, recently celebrated their 25th Anniversary. We spend the first segment talking about hip-hop record stores in general, sharing some tweets from listeners, and Nate has a pretty dope story about an afternoon he spent at Fat Beats Amsterdam back in the day. Then we talk to DJ Eclipse, a hip-hop lifer and key figure in the Fat Beats story about his career and memories of the underground hip-hop movement.

This week we talk about the role of personas, aliases, and characters in hip-hop. Some of the genre’s greatest figures like Kool Keith, RZA, MF DOOM, and others have released entire projects in character. What does it all mean? We cap it off with a chat with an MC who is quite a character himself, Thirstin Howl the 3rd. Thirst is an MCs MC, a sharp rhyme writer and spitter who also brings a lot of humor into his music. These days he is focusing more of his energy on visual content for his YouTube channel but also has a new album out with the legendary Sadat X.

This week we have a Gravediggaz focused episode. The guys discuss their classic debut album 6 Feet Deep and interview The Gatekeeper, Frukwan, who was in Stetsasonic and still reps Gravediggaz.

Special episode this week, we have a sit-down interview with Jon Sklute who details his journey from Bay Area underground  MC and producer to NYC record store owner to re-issue label owner and major label musicologist. He worked hard, stayed true to the game, and took care of his family, a great example for all of us. He’s got great stories, especially about the customers at his former shop, the aptly named Good Records. Interspersed are snippets of music he has produced or had a hand in releasing, including one partial verse from a young teen who would go on to become an underground mainstay.