BLACK SHEEP Vinyl & CDs

Review: Mr Bongo is back with more stone cold hip-hop. This one comes from 1991 and is a reissue of a UK only 7" from Black Sheep. The single was always a curio and remained in the shadows of the more catchy and commercially successful 'The Choice is Yours' but it does have a great hook and tumble-down charm to the production. Dres is the MC bringing the character and plenty of carefully dug out samples make this one standout above many of its peers. An original copy of this will set you back a fancy few quid so when you also add in the break fuelled remix on the flip you have an essential little pick up.

Review: Having previously re-issued the hard-to-find 45 of Black Sheep's 1991 anthem 'Strobelite Honey', Mr Bongo has now decided to issue the first ever seven-inch pressing of one of the duo's earlier singles, 'Flavor of the Month'. It's a breezy, boom-bap affair in which the duo exchange verses over a beat crafted from choice samples of records by Joe Farrell, Bubble Gum Machine and, most famously, Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. It comes backed with original flipside 'Butt in the Meantime', a slacker, jazzier and more laid-back affair notable for a superb piano hook, hazy bass and a tight electric piano riff.

Review: There's been plenty of great "golden era" hip-hop reissued on wax lately, mostly via tidy and on-point seven-inch singles. Here's another, as Mr Bongo offers up a replica edition of the increasingly scarce "45" of Black Sheep's 1991 scene anthem "Strobelite Honey" - a playful and fun-packed affair that still gets feet moving 29 years after it first hit clubs. On the A-side you'll find the superior "Maybe We Did Remix", in which Dres's entertaining lyrics about courting a woman at a club ride crunchy drums, scratches, squally high pitched horn sounds and a wealth of killer samples. Turn to the flip for the far funkier original version, which lifts warm, squelchy and groovy elements from early '80s disco cuts by Change and Luther Vandross.