Dad Bod Rap Pod

We welcome special guest @djcutso back to the show this week. He is not only a phenomenal DJ and producer, but one of our real life homies. Cutso has been on a tear the past few weeks, performing on Sway in the Morning and all over the Bay Area and NYC. We talk about the state of the DJ game and premier an exclusive track off of his upcoming EP with rapper @big-hongry entitled Paper! Cutso also produced all of the beats you hear on the show this week. This was a fun one, check it out.

What is gangster rap? Is it a sub-genre, its own lane, or something else entirely? Who is the physical embodiment of gangster rap? We talk about all of this and then interview Soren Baker, the man who literally wrote the book on the subject. The History of Gangster Rap is available wherever books are sold right now, cop that.

This week we discuss the amazing Quincy Jones documentary on Netflix and recommend some Q songs and the rap songs that he inspired. In the second segment we talk to friend of the program Zilla Rocca about his new record Future Former Rapper out soon on POW Recordings, as well as the general state of the rap game and his beloved 76ers. Beats for today’s show were submitted by Charles Edison from the UK, check out his page charlesedison.bandcamp.com for more heat.

The word legend is thrown around a lot in hip-hop but what makes someone a true legend in the game? We contemplate this question in the first segment. In the back half we have a special interview with The Rhyme Inspector Percee P. Percee takes us through his life and career, explaining in depth about his, dare we say, legendary battle with Lord Finesse.

It’s all about the beats this week, as we interview the prolific and dope producer Blockhead about his process, his love of hoops, and his upcoming tour! In the back half of the show we recommend some of our favorite instrumental hip-hop gems.

This week we are nerding out with our fellow podcasters Uncommon Nasa and Samurai Banana of Dope Sh!t Podcast. We appeared on their show earlier this week, in a podcast crossover event of epic proportions. We talk the intersection of hip-hop music with them as well as a second segment featuring an in-studio interview with Seattle’s WayStyles, a DMC champ DJ who also works as a programmer.

Disclaimer: We are far from expert on Chicago’s thriving hip-hop scene, just admirers from afar. That said, this week we are recommending some great songs by Chicago artists and talking to one of the most creative MCs working there now, Chris Crack.

We’re joined by journalist Paul Thompson to talk about the career of the recently departed Mac Miller and his great Pitchfork review of the new Armand Hammer record, Paraffin. The second segment is an interview with Brian Coleman, the author and editor of Rakim Told Me and Check the Technique vols. 1&2, which are indispensable deep dive interviews with the creators of classic hip-hop albums. We appreciate the beat submissions from Son Raw and Books One.

How many of the top 10 best selling rap albums are actually good? We discuss that with journalist Shaka Shaw live in studio. The second segment is a wide-ranging conversation with journalist Jeff Weiss of Passion of the Weiss, the Washington Post, and soon The LAnd, a new magazine that is emerging from the ashes of the disgraced LA Weekly. We’d like to thank Jumbled for submitting the beats we used in between segments this week. Give him a listen on Soundcloud.

In the first segment we pay tribute to the Queen of Soul, the dearly departed Aretha Franklin. We spend some time on her life and music and we recommend tracks to help folks understand the connections between her music and some classic hip-hop productions. In the second segment we interview Apani B Fly MC, a standout of the late-90’s, early-2000’s New York underground scene. We are big fans of her music, her voice, her writing, and she makes a few announcements that will be great news for her fans. Beats this week were submitted by Son Raw, a beatmaker and journalist out of Montreal, heard here for the first time. Follow him on Twitter @sonraw for the imminent drop of his new beat tape. We also continue our cross-promotion with the Dope Sh!t Podcast out of New York. It’s been really rewarding to build with all of these like-minded folks. Thanks for listening.