Easily my favorite joint off his White Van Music album. The beat sends a chill up my spine to be honest. Video is perfect… shouts out to Jake, Supreme, Vitamin, and the entire city of Seattle!

My old homie, acclaimed rapper and all around swell guy MURS breaks it down and makes it look easy. Perfect rap song, perfect video.

Cuts by DJ Quick ftw!

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings take on Shuggie Otis.

We have no right to have something this awesome in our midst.  Amazing!

Thanks to Fred Wilson for the tip.

Severe nastiness from Young Chris, on a throwback vibe. Thanks to Herm for the tip…

New African LPs hitting the shop NOW.

New eBay list up Monday.

GO GO GO GO GO

Man, they won’t even let Jay get through his verse. This gave me goosebumps. Ho Happy Day!

A new shipment just arrived from Lagos. The first from a new connection that will bear fruit for a long time… assist courtesy of a certain Franc O of Voodoo Funk

Deep highlife, afrobeat, boogie and funk pieces from the motherland. Collectors, come see me in the shop or hit me up via email. These will move quickly!

Additionally, an eBay list will be up, like, Tuesday and sh*t… stay tuned.

In this blog’s quest for its own identity, we’ve experimented with several different styles. Olde soul, nu funk, Afro-disco, spiritual jazz. This time we are just on some straight up hip-hop goodness. Proof that hip-hop didn’t die with Paul’s Boutique or Donuts or Hell Hath No Fury or whatever you goatee’d tight-sag hosers are claiming is The Last Great Hip-Hop Record this week. It flows from commercial to underground, south to north, east to west and so on. Snakes keeps it enjoyable and takes no shorts in the meantime.

I don’t even know this cat but I bumped the mix and trilly enjoyed it. And those that know me know: I’m not one to take 2 and not pass. Enjoy.

Download Here

Track list below the fold.

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It seems odd to make an appreciation post so late in the game - I mean, it’s nowhere but up for this cat. But he’s been around the block a few times, you know?

Anyway, here’s a photo of Jacob (and the boy Zvi lurking on the bench!) from back when my shop barely had furniture. So you know we all go back like that.

And here’s the debut video from White Van Music, “The Truth” featuring Freeway (one of my favorite rappers in the game), and Brother Ali - a cat who I’ve known about but can’t say I ever really messed with. I guess I’m one of those guys that rarely gives a mention but zooms in and respects him as a legend, eh?

Funny thing, the first time I ever heard of Jake was back when I was I was working at SandboxAutomatic. We got a run of the Conmen “Smooth Criminals” mixtape, and I took one to “review”. I let the tape rock ’til the tape popped - from the hooptie to the rooftop boombox, that schitt was on smash.

History: as a young dude I was finding out about records from trial and error, hearsay, and a few friends who were nice enough to pass something on as they were digging. I found out about Phill The Soulman’s column around that time, and the homies Cosmo Baker and Ben Velez had their thing in On The Go too. But these kids out of Seattle were on That Next Shit! It was like all the records that were just rumored to exist at NYC record shops, The Roosevelt Show, the houses of Biz Markie and John Carrara and… anyway, it was like they were all out there on the west coast for the taking at thrift shops and dollar bins everywhere.

As fate would have it, Zvi is my family from days of old, and he and Jake hooked up, and Jake started coming down to my fledgling record shop. Since then we’ve hung out a buch and become friends. And I take great pride in my mention (Ralph!) on the liners to his new record.

Of course, the album itself features a who’s who of rappers who might’ve never been on the same record were it not thought up in some rap nerd’s daydream … M.O.P., Posdnous, Keak The Sneak, Slum Village, Ish (of Digable Planets and Cherrywine fame), Young Buck, Casual, D. Black … and they all represent lovely over The best beats the game has heard in a long minute. No exaduration. If I’m lying I’m dying.

So, in addition to the things that are freely available on the internets to JakeOne stans everywhere, I thought I’d also upload something you DON’T have. Jake wrote in the liners that he gave Keak a whole CD of tracks and that Keak recorded over all of them. Now, I don’t have all of them! But I did get a couple tracks from a while back, one of which makes the album in the form of “Soil Raps”. The other, however … never seen before, heard before, the uncut raw! Now I must warn you this is on some Town Shit. If the rumors of a JakeOne-helmed Mob Music album are true, maybe this is a precursor? I, for one, am geeked.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Just a quick note, not to detract from full frontal promotion of Fire Keep On Burnin… which you all need to check out and cop asap. But (as the man himself has noted,) a good chunk of the record collection belonging to one Sasha Frere-Jones - musician, scribe, bloggeur, and great collectro - now resides in the bins of Good Records NYC.

It’s been a real fun collection to work on because of the sheer breadth: The Fall meets Maggotron inna dub style with MF Doom on the mic, Timbaland on the drums, Scientist on the mix and The Slits singing back-up. Without a doubt, a lot of cool stuff has been corsing through the shop over the last couple weeks since it came in, and there’s more to come…

Photo Journal below the fold. (more…)