Paris is a San Francisco Bay Area rapper who first broke on the scene in 1990 with his hit single and album The Devil Made Me Do It and quickly earned the reputation as being one of most politically charged MC's in the game who didn't shy away from putting issues on the forefront.

His first single from that album, "Break The Grip of Shame," illustrated this as MTV made the decision to ban the video for being too controversial. Since then, his uncompromising stance on political issues, police brutality, gun violence and systematic oppression and racism haven't wavered and confronted on his latest album, "Pistol Politics".  After more than 25 years in the industry, the Black Panther of rap told me as a guest on Down With The Kings that he has seen very little advancement, "Not a a lot has changed at all, honestly. Police brutality is still pervasive, government malficence is still pervasive.  This really is a way to speak out to what's going on in a way that's entertaining"

Pistol Politics is described as a a musical statement of solidarity - and a much needed united front - against oppression and institutional racism in an age almost devoid of meaningful commentary in urban entertainment.

Krayzie Bone of the influential hip hop group, Bone Thugs N Harmony recently hung out with @TheAudman on Down With The Kings and provided some great insights into the origins of group, what it felt like to win a Grammy and some cool behind the scenes stories about Eazy-E, Biggie and Phil Collins.

"At that time, young rappers weren't really being respected in the business. I would say humbly that we opened the doors for a lot of young rappers in the business today. Cause it's not really a new thing now, all you see is young rappers. I think we opened the doors, at least we were one of the first to open the doors for young rappers to get that respect"

Chris Smith AKA Daddy Mac of Kris Kross

When you reflect on the 90's, there definitely was no shortage of  young rappers to hit the scene and left their mark on the industry.  While Kris Kross may not have been the first but they definitely made the biggest splash and their legacy is far reaching until this day.  The success of acts featuring minors like Immature, Da Youngsta's, 3-T, Lil Vicious and So For Real along with others others were somewhere along the line aided directly or indirectly by Mac Daddy & Daddy Mac and their backwards clothes fashion statement.

Kris Kross garnered a great deal of respect from the industry and by doing so shifted the spotlight towards the attention of young people and their skills. Here is just a sample some of their accomplishments:
Their smash hit "Jump", which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks and certified double platinum as a single becoming the first rap song to have achieved so long a run at the top at 11 and 12 years oldTheir debut album, Totally Krossed Out was released March 31 that year and sold four million copies in the U.SToured with Michael Jackson across Europe in 1992
Chris Smith AKA Daddy Mac was a guest on Down With The Kings and reflected on the legacy of Kris Kross, the passing of best friend Chris Kelly (Mac Daddy) and what is was like to tour with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

The hugely successful and popular Beatles were an iconic rock group from Liverpool, England. They are frequently cited as the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in modern history, with innovative music, a cultural impact that helped define the 1960s and an enormous influence on music that is still felt today.  If you take the millions of record sales out of the equation, Is NWA The Hip Hop Version of The Beatles? 

Big Hutch AKA Cold 187um of the west coast hip hop group Above The Law definitely seems to think so.  While he was a guest on "Down With The Kings", the godfather of the G-Funk sound expressed his heartfelt appreciation for what the mega group, NWA did for his career, "To me, they're like my Beatles. I got the whole blue print from them. A lot of people got the rock and roll blueprint from The Beatles, to me in hip hop - they're my Beatles" 

Much like The Beatles, NWA took the direction of hip hop into new frontiers by shining a spotlight on gangster rap and hardcore hip hop and as Big Hutch said, provided a "blueprint" for others to follow.  They made their own rules, did what they want and weren't going to let anyone tell them how to do it.  The impact of NWA is still felt to this  was going by  is still felt to this day which was evident by the recent success of the biopic smash feature length film, "Straight Outta Compton".

The success of the big screen biopic, "Straight Outta Compton" has certainly struck gold and also sparked a land slide of interest in having other hip hop stories told in similar fashion.  Conversations have rumored to be floating around about having the stories of Snoop Dogg, Outkast and Tupac recounted in Hollywood style. 

Since the release of the popular "The Book of Luke: My Fight for Prosperity, Truth, Justice and Liberty City", we can now add the story of Luther Campbell AKA Uncle Luke to the growing list of hip hop biopics in discussion.  Uncle Luke reveals during an interview on Down With The Kings that there is interest in having his story told.  He told The Audman, "I'm excited for the mere fact that a lot of movie production houses are calling up now because of the success of Compton so now people want to turn this book into a movie"

Considering the controversy, court cases and success that surrounded the very racy 2 Live Crew throughout the 90's, a recount of those events in movie form would certainly make an entertaining story.  Since Straight Outta Compton is considered the movie that started it all, the former CEO of Luke Records was asked to share his thoughts on the popular hip hop biopic. He simply said that it was a "great appetizer to my movie".

Check out the entire interview...

As an artist coming out of the T-Dot, THRUST has held an important role as one of the early pioneers that helped cultivate and develop the culture of hip hop to where it is today. Long before Drake became a worldwide phenom, it was rappers like Thrust who were doing their part to shift this underground movement into mainstream.

“Toronto is a very special place in the history of hip. A lot of people don’t really know because we only caught the light obviously in the last 5-7 years with Drake’s movement. And before that we hit with the “Northern Touch”which was the first one that was on an international level. But before that, its been here since the late 70’s and 80’s because we’re one of those cities that’s super close to New York. Even me, all my hip hop, all my growth, all my whole thing is because I was always travelling to New York. How it started was people like me that had family in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan – we just be going there since we were kids and we kept hearing the music and we would bring it back on mixtapes.”

THRUST

Check out this interview with THRUST as he offers up some historical perspective on the birth of hip hop in Toronto as well as touch on the mega smash single, “Northern Touch” which he did in collaboration with Checkmate, Kardinal Offishall,  Rascalz and Choclair. Northern Touch goes down as one of the most important songs in the history of Canadian hip hop.

In the early days of Ruthless Records before N.W.A. and "Straight Outta Compton" hit the scene, Eazy-E signed a team of teenage female rappers called J.J. FAD who helped put West Coast hip-hop on the map.  Their smash single, "Supersonic," and success as a group made them the first all female rap group to receive a Grammy nomination. Despite the success, attention and money that J.J FAD generated for Ruthless Records, their existence isn't acknowledged anywhere in the blockbuster N.W.A. biopic "Straight Outta Compton."

MC JB spoke out in an interview on Down With The Kings and said, "Even though there was a time restraint on the movie, it doesn't mean that you couldn't have takeen .5 seconds to say J.J. FAD. I think as the first one out of the gate we deserved that."

There's no question that Ruthless Records owes the popular female group a debt of gratitude their contributions to the success for the company and while the feelings of resentment would be completely understandable, MC JB who referred to N.W.A. as their "brothers" still had praise for the movie and thought that it was brilliantly done.

"Loved the film thought that it was brilliantly done. A little hurt that we weren't mentioned in it especially since we were the first ones that come out and paved the way for them.  So that hurt our feelings a little bit but we understand that its a movie and its about N.W.A."

After more than a decade since the release of his last solo album, the legendary Daddy-O of the hip hop band Stetsasonic offers up his brand new solo effort #EverybodyButKRS.

The album title pays direct homage to the lyrical skills of another legend in the hip hop game, KRS-ONE while directly challenging his peers at the same time to step up their game and take back hip hop because as it stands, no one can even come close to challenging Daddy-O's lyricism...with the exception of one person.

As Daddy-O said in an interview with Down With The Kings, "The only guy I could give the ultimate props to is KRS - he's the only guy to me untouchable in hip hop. He's the only hip hop untouchable so I said well, everybody else is fair game."

The album is a collection of edgy hard hitting beats with a bevy of truthful and clever rhymes.  When asked what KRS-ONE thought of the show of respect Daddy-O said,"He's going to be surprised, He doesn't even know that I have that much respect for him. He knows I love him but he doesn't know that I have that much respect for him."

The fabulous Chi Ali joins Down With The Kings to reflect on his career that saw him break into hip hop at the age of 14.  His run in with the law at an early age was well publicized and it would lead to a conviction of manslaughter  only 10 years after entering the game.

Chi was incarcerated for 12 years in prison and was subsequently released. With that chapter of his life closed, Ali is intent on picking up the pieces and begin the work to revitalize his career.  Ali shares insights on his experiences and how he intends on taking what he's gone through to be a better person.

Down With The Kings can be heard exclusively every Wednesday night at 11pmEST on Maximum FM Hip Hop

Log on to MaximumFM.ca to check it out or download the MaximumFM app or listen on TuneIn Radio

Kool Rock Ski of The Fat Boys swings by and hangs out with The Audman on the next episode of Down With The Kings exclusively Maximum FM Hip Hop. He talks about the group’s initial rise in the early days, what is like filming the classic hip hop movie, Krush Groove and the personal impact the passing of Human Beatbox had on him.

Down With The Kings can be heard exclusively every Wednesday night at 11pmEST on Maximum FM Hip Hop

Log on to MaximumFM.ca to check it out or download the MaximumFM app or listen on TuneIn Radio