Diggin' In The Digits

At 60 years old, Slick Rick dropped his 5th Studio Album and his 1st since 1999. He's a master storyteller, respected by everyone. So how TF is he still underrated?!

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:07)
Ben:

• Lil Tecca - Dopamine

Charlie - 

• Karl Benjamin - To What End?
• MRCY - VOLUME 2
• Jords - Mixtape J
• edbl - Archives Mixtape
• Syf of Talking Knots & Sir Nebula - Gravity
• A-F-R-O - Crimson Fury
• Kamaiyah - Fir...

G-Funk pioneer one of the most consistent dual artists in Hip-Hop history, it could be said that DJ Quik hasn't gotten the props his peers has, even though his quality of production and bars has (for the most part) been great, just as long as you jump over the mines labelled "Songs with oddly detailed sex bars".

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:49)
Ben:

• Lil Wayne - Tha Carter 6
• Little Simz - Lotus
• UntilJapan - t...

Whilst MC Shan spends a lot of his recent days lamenting the past in some form, he actually has a leg to stand on! Just not in the ways he thinks...

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:44)
Ben:

• Rome Streetz & Conductor Williams - Trainspotting
• Bruiser Wolf - POTLUCK
• Masta Killa - Balance

Charlie:

• Silas Short - LUSHLAND
• Rebecca Vasmant - Who We Are, Becoming
• Oddisee - En Route
• Premo Rice - Bad Muf*cka
• Obongja...

The legacy of dead prez - for better or worse - has been condensed down to their classic track in "Hip Hop". Zoom out a little and you'll find a classic song on a classic album that is definitely not talked about enough. Zoom out even more and you find... Actually, let's just stay at that first zoom out...

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:00)
Charlie:

• Syf of Talking Knots & Moe Town - 2 Sides to Every Stor...

After calling it a day being "The Fresh Prince", Will Smith went under his own name for his solo stint. The results are mixed; proving that Hip-Hop could go Pop, but even then managing to have frequent misfires within his music, creating a frustrating discography that gives more questions than answers...

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:10)
Ben:

• Amine - 13 Months of Sunshine
• Xzibit - Kingmaker
• Rico Nasty - Letha...

The legendary duo of Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince have been somewhat locked into this singular thought ever since their run ended in '93: That their music is squeaky clean, completely devoid of edge. But when you actually listen to some of the lyrics and subject matter told in the litany of storytelling tracks, they broach some interesting ground.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:07)
Ben:

• MIKE x Tony Selt...

The discography of Schoolly D is one of the most diverse and lengthy that we've ever covered on DITD. Where he begins providing the seeds of what eventually becomes known as "Gangsta Rap", he then goes through a more pro-Black phase in the 90s and nowadays operates as a relative experimentalist for somebody whose debut came out in 1985.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:15)
Ben:

• Benny the Butcher - Excelsior
• Yun...

In what is probably our shortest retrospective in DITD history, we cover another Treacherous Three member in Spoonie Gee who is apparently a precursor to Gangsta Rap but when listening to his work, it seems to paint a different picture...

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:49)
Ben:

• Wu-Tang - Black Samson
• Vinnie Paz - God Sent Vengeance

Charlie: 

• Bishop Nehru - Trapbap
• Uwade - Florilegium
• Coco Jones - Why Not...

Hello DITD listeners! Charlie here. As a bonus for this week, I have an interview for you to step to! I - along with "In Search Of Sauce" alum, Music Journalist Miki Hellerbach - talk to Ryder who broke out a few years back with his now iconic #Skeptacore series. Now, he's dropping a new series of EPs named "RYDERHOOD", the first edition dropping this Friday. In this interview which is dropping simultaneously over on the "...

After covering Kool Moe Dee last week, it seemed right to go back and look at the pioneering group that he was a member of: The Treacherous Three. With two albums 10 years apart, they serve as great markers in how much evolution happened from '84 to '94.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:10)
Charlie:

• namesbliss - Signature Sound
• Boog Brown - Super Useful Tools
• Adrian Younge - Adrian Younge presents Something Abou...

If you were to name a rapper that embodies the word 'confidence', you could probably name at least 10 rappers that fit the word. Is one of them Kool Moe Dee? A case could be made that he's the most confident sounding rapper on wax, all the way from his first album in 1986 to his last in '94.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:57)
Ben:

• Ken Carson - More chaos
• RJ Payne - Leatherface 4
• Lords of the Underground & ...

Another year, another DITD Anniversary! For our 6th anniversary, we look back at some of our favourite moments, with clips for you newer listeners. Episodes covered will be below if you want to get into them proper. And as always, whether you've been listening since Ep. 1 or since last week, we appreciate you listening. Here's to six years!

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:39)
Charlie:

• Rachel Chinouriri - Litt...

Jersey-centred trio Lords of the Underground represented a lot of what we now consider the hallmarks of the Golden Age of Hip-Hop: Youthful energy, fast flows and great sample-based production. This led to two great back-to-back projects and two other albums of varying quality.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:41)
Ben:

• Boldy James x Antt Beatz - Hommage
• Will Smith - Based on a True Story
• NAV - OMW2 Rexdale

C...

We finish our WHM celebrations with an artist that is never talked about. Maybe it's due to her not getting traction off her one studio album? Maybe the message fell on deaf ears? We get to the answer of course but regardless of reason, Queen Mother Rage is Hip-Hop history and we take this opportunity - to finish WHM - covering a small piece of the 90s Hip-Hop puzzle.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:05)
Ben:

• ...

With the recent passing of R&B legend Angie Stone, we thought it was a good time as any - in the midst of our WHM celebrations - to celebrate her pre-solo career with Cheryl "The Pearl" Cook and Gwendolyn "Blondie" Chisholm as the early 80s all-female Hip-Hop trailblazers The Sequence.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:44)
Ben:

• Playboi Carti - MUSIC
• Currensy x Harry Fraud - Never Catch Us
• Dave East x Ransom -...

Continuing our WHM celebrations, we get into MC Trouble who tragically died aged 21, leaving us with her 1990 debut studio album that featured her name on the production credits - a rarity for female rappers at the time - and provided a great thematic mixture of womanhood and Black solidarity.

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:50)
Ben:

• Black Soprano Family - The Outcome
• YoungBoy NBA - More Leaks

Charlie:

• ...

Hello DITD listeners! I have a bonus episode for you, coming via my Podcast "What's Good?". I talk to Dallas born & raised EB Rebel now sharpening their craft in New York City. We get into their beginnings, talented & gifted programs; their queerness, being 'genre-less' and of course their Top 5.

Thank you for listening! If you want to contribute to the show, whether it be sending me questions or voicing your opinio...

The story of Boss is one of subversion, devastatingly low levels of luck and an astronomical talent. How we only have one album and some hard-to-find mixtapes from such a skilled MC?

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (1:19)
Ben:

• KiLLOWEN - six missed calls 

Charlie:

• 1,000 UK Artists - Is This What We Want?
• KiLLOWEN - six missed calls
• The Doppelgangaz - Dumpster Dive, Vol. 2
• REASON - I Love You Again
• Andrew Mbar...

For the 16th Contemporary Cool, we get into what many consider to be Lupe Fiasco's best album and a J.PERIOD remix of Kendrick's "GNX".

TIMESTAMPS:
Weekly Music Roundup - (0:48)
Charlie:

• NAO - Jupiter
• Smif-N-Wessun - Infinity 
• Kelela - In The Blue Light
• Amindi - Luvr-but it's on guitar (live)

Tetsuo & Youth - (8:00)
"J.PERIOD Presents - REINCARNATED" - (39:34)
Lighter Note - (52:36)

Thanks for listening...