Thoughts From The Rap Nest

vol081

Thoughts

I swear rap is trying to kill itself. Probably one of my biggest pet peeves, other than coloured vinyl of course, is the commodification of physical music. The idea of physical music as some sort of investment that appreciates in value is ludicrous to me. It is ruining music collecting. This shit was always supposed to be fun, when people buy music to just shelve it and post pictures of it, I have two ask myself what are we even doing anymore? I am not talking about people sharing their music collection on social media, as it is easy to discern the difference between music collectors and whatever the hell these people are. Physical music is meant to be held and played.

My homie signone put it very eloquently with this great analogy from the restaurant world.

1. Maximizing revenue while alienating client base. Not a sustainable business model.

2. Read: why restaurants fail

3. Check average goes up as guest counts slide. Closed in a year

Artists keep going to the well to extract everything they can each time from the well and then they wonder why the well is not as plentiful as it was before. They are destroying their own fan base. It is honestly getting tiresome and I can’t wait for this era to end. The music has never been better, the economic model has never been worse.

What spurred this is a Vertices Substack (it is super good and you should subscribe if you have nit already) post by Buck 65 where he talks about bringing vinyl copies of his two recent releases King of Drums and Super Dope to sell at an upcoming record convention. I own both of these releases in multiple formats so I am not coming at it from a woah is me collector perspective, I just see this is a huge problem and an unsustainable approach to what is is already a very small niche market. Just thinking big picture and the inevitable implosion that is coming. People are being priced out continualy and especially at point of entry. I can’t even imagine being a teenager and buying physical music these days. I am always shocked but excited to see teenagers at the record store excitedly buying music. Sometimes I want to tell them to put what they have in their hands down and just walk away.

I will be bringing copies of some of my albums (on vinyl) including Super Dope and King Of Drums. But here’s the deal: copies of King Of Drumswon’t be cheap. Only a very small run was pressed. I only have a few copies myself. And copies have already sold for $200+. I may only be able to scrounge two or three copies. They may be a bit pricey but I can guarantee you that their value will only increase. If nothing else, you can think of it as an investment.

Then in issue 005 of UGSMAG Buck 65 contradicts his Vertices Substack post and goes on to lament about the same thing in a sense that he is doing himself and at a price that he is reinforcing/justifying. You can charge whatever you want for your records, just don’t be a wiener about it and copout with some lame excuse that it is going for a lot on Discogs or from collectors. Just say this is the price, take it or leave it.

I deal with people more directly. There's still the odd thing that Ill buy on Discogs, and I think it's a double-edged sword, like I love it and hate it equally. It has really gotten out of hand recently, and I know people at Discogs are panick-ing, like "We got to get this under control because it's turning into just like, I don't know, it's gotten weirdly kind ofshitty lately- I think there's people trying to game things and affect markets on things and getting really manipula-tive. It's changed things. Every digger I know complains about it fairly regularly.You get two or three diggers together for a couple hours, and the topic of Discogs is bound to come up at some point and most will tell you that it was basically the best thing that ever happened, but that it also ruined everything, I mean, the mere concept of a record costing $3000 now, that's a Discogs thing.

Yeah. Pretty much. You can even now go deep out into the countryside into some antique shop where they have one milk crate on the floor with like 40 records in it. And even the old lady who runs that knows about Discogs. Like,"Well, on Discogs it's $250, But yeah, it's almost impossible to really, really come up these days...

I know I maybe being petty here and spitting hairs, but you can’t complain about it and then at the same time use it to justify your prices for your records as an investment. You are just supporting that broken manipulated system that has ruined Discogs, collecing, and supporting artisits in large part. Anyways, my love hate relationship with Buck 65 continues. Rap staying out of control and trying to implode itself remains undefeated.

UGSMAG issue 005 arrived in the mail yesterday! I quickly read two things. Noyz’s editorial which read like a Thoughts From The Rap Nest piece and of course the highly anticipated Buck 65 interview but the legendary Peter Agoston. Both were excellent. Looking forward to digesting the rest. Incredibly honoured once again to have contributed to this incredible community writers and artists. It is always really special and the feeling never gets old of opening each issue and seeing your name and article(s)/contributions in print! Huge shoutout and congratulations to the homie Noyz for all the hard work in making this happen! Buy it NOW!!

The Underground Vault is back with Issue 8 and the second in its book form. A really deep dive into the Detroit scene highlights this one! This one closes in at only 177 pages. Alex is truly one of a kind. Releasing book a month is insane to me. All the research, writing, conversations, transcribing that goes into releasing this monthly is mind blowing each and every month to me. I really hope it is catching on with folks. The print on demand model is really dope and ensures that it is always in stock, which is nice for when you discover something new and want to get there previous issues to releases. Buy it NOW!

Missed Third Verse last night? No cohosts, buts still a great show this week and as always Ugsmag has you covered once again to stream or download NOW! Catch Third Verse on CFCR 90.5 fm in Saskatoon, SK every Wednesday 9-10:30pm CST. Stream online via CFCR.ca or Radio Garden.

As always the last 10 episodes of my other weekly radio show You Know Know the Rules on UMFM in Winnipeg airing every Sunday night 10:00pm -11pm CST. Episodes available NOW!

Record One

Quelle Chris & Cavalier - Death Tape 1: Black Cottonwood

This record is incredible. It will easily and criminally in my opinion go down as the most slept on record that that should be on every year end list for top albums of 2023. This record might be Quelle Chris’s best production to date a that is really saying something because he is really solidifying himself as as one of the premier mc/producers out there right now. This one was under the radar for me until I was scrolling a few Saturdays back and a tweet from Cavalier caught my attention and I clicked on the link because the tweet was about this record and I am instantly interested in anything Quelle Chris is on. The track Phat Beach transitioning into the Magic Interlude is an all timer for me. The production is incredible. Seriously click on the link and listen to those two tracks right now. If you listened to Third Verse live last night you would have heard them. Seriously, I cannot get enough if those songs. Like seriously repeat. The sample flip at the start of the track is everything I fell in love with hip hop for. This is just cool ass hip hop. Cavalier and Quelle Chris have great chemistry on the mic and perfectly complete each others cool. It is perfect like Pippen and Jordan. My Jams are of course Phat Beach and Magic Interlude. You better believe I got the Classic Black Vinyl variant.

Record Two

Nosaj from New Kingdom & step tipped dove - House Of Disorder

steel tipped dove is really having himself a really nice run of records he has produced over the past couple of years. He is really becoming a favourite and someone I am checking everything he is dropping. Fused Arrow Records which I believe is his label is off to a killer start with the first four albums. This is one of them. I am sure there are some New Kingdom fans who are reading this so you are familiar with Nosaj. This album is wild, like you would expect it to be and in the best ways. The Beatles track is a perfect example of this. Modern Man is my jam! Two for two like it should always be this week with another one on Classic Black Vinyl.

Classic Material

Technics SH-DJ1200

Another chapter to add to the ever evolving Mixer Migrations piece I did in Ugsmag DJ Mixer Migrations piece I wrote in issue 004.

I never owned this mixer when it dropped, however soso had one. I really liked using his. We, the Beatcombers crew often used soso’s set up for live events. He had flight cases, which no one else had at that time. He had two Technic 1200’s and this mixer. It was such a great set up. I got really comfortable with his mixer having used it so many times in that era. One of my favourite features of this mixer was the cueing. It had both a master mix which was great when you lacked a good monitor as well as the regular cue feature. My Vestax 05-Pro at the time did not have this feature.

The crossfader was also super nice on these and they were sturdy. The design is super clean and it is no surprise this became a very popular mixer. I have been watching on Ebay for quite a while for one at the right price, and in the the right shape. I was not looking to break the bank so I was not going to get one in perfect cosmetic shape but I was looking for one that had a nice looking face plate and that was in proper working order.

I found one and kept my eye on it for a bit. I got an email from the seller offering a discount and I accepted the offer. It cost my about 200$ CAD which included 2 day shipping via Fed Ex from Japan. I picked it up from Fed Ex and paid 18$ CAD duty/taxes and brought it home. After plugging it in and testing the power and hooking up a turntable to each line to ensure it was operational, it was time to clean the mixer and lubricate the faders.

Now I have had Vestax mixers most of my life and I am super comfortable with general maintenance on them. I figured the Technics would be similar in nature. Was that ever a lousy assumption on my part. I started removing screws to remove the faceplate so I could pull the faceplate to get at the faders.

I noticed the front panel was dented so I removed it and took it out to the garage and tapped it out with a ball hammer and straightened it with a vice. I took my time and made sure I didn't scratch the surface and used a heavy card stock to protect it while I manipulated the metal to bring it back in to alignment as best as I could without doing a deep dive restoration on it. I am really happy with the results.

There are a lot of screws in this mixer, so I just kept taking them off. However I couldn’t get the face plate off. So I do what I always do when I get stumped on something is hit the internet and download a service manual. I found one really quickly and it showed me the 4 screws that I missed to get remove the faceplate and I was able to remove it. I lubricated and cleaned the faders. I washed all the fader caps and tops and washed the faceplate. I put it all together and I am really happy with it and extra excited to have it in the arsenal.

Closing Ramblings

As always, thank you for reading and for the feedback!

**legal disclaimer all records and songs were run through the RAP NEST 5000 SUPER ANALYTIC COMPTROLLER MACHINE that is certified by the I.A.A.R.R.A (International Association of Analytical Rap Recordings Analysis) in layman’s terms, it means the machine is never wrong.

Catch you next week with more thoughts from the rap nest.

Peace

-chaps