EPMD Vinyl & CDs

Review: A 7" is all about having a perfect nugget of music on the most compact of wax, and here Mr Bongo pick out two of the best cuts from one of the greatest crews to touch the mic. EPMD were on their finest form when they dropped Unfinished Business in 1989, doubling down on the runaway success of their debut Strictly Business, and here we get two of the album's hottest joints for your instant gratification. 'The Big Payback' piles the funk on heavy, keeping it moody in the low end for EPMD to do their thing over the top, while original opening track 'So Wat Cha Sayin' nestles on the B side with one of the wildest rub downs Erick and Parrish ever committed to record. Truly essential hip hop from the golden era.

Review: EPMD arrived as an almost unbelievably well-formed hip hop group in the 1980s. Right from the moment they dropped their 1989 debut - 'Strictly Business' - they soared, immediately backed it up with 'Unfinished Business' in 1989 then came more big hitters like 'The Big Payback.' But 'Strictly Business' remains one of the NYC duo's most significant and best-loved singles and it is pressed up here to its own 7" courtesy of hardcore fans Mr Bongo. It's a track with tons of samples, scratching, smooth bars and churning beats. Flip it over for an instrumental.

Review: A 7" is all about having a perfect nugget of music on the most compact of wax, and here Mr Bongo pick out two of the best cuts from one of the greatest crews to touch the mic. EPMD were on their finest form when they dropped Unfinished Business in 1989, doubling down on the runaway success of their debut Strictly Business, and here we get two of the album's hottest joints for your instant gratification. 'The Big Payback' piles the funk on heavy, keeping it moody in the low end for EPMD to do their thing over the top, while original opening track 'So Wat Cha Sayin' nestles on the B side with one of the wildest rub downs Erick and Parrish ever committed to record. Truly essential hip hop from the golden era.

Review: Mr Bongo's EPMD reissue series continues with a fresh pressing of one of the NYC duo's most significant and best-loved singles, 1988's 'You Gots To Chill'. Predating much of the West Coast G-funk material that later covered similar sonic ground, it sees the duo delivering some of their rap verses over a beat crafted from samples of Zapp's P-funk classic 'More Bounce To The Ounce' and Kool & The Gang party classic 'Jungle Boogie'. This time round, it comes backed by another EPMD classic from the same period: the mid-tempo, JB's-sampling head-nodder that is 'Let The Funk Flow'. That's never appeared on a single before, making this "45" even more desirable.

Review: Although it was originally released at the height of hip-house mania (1988 to be exact), EPMD's 'I'm Housin' is not a rap-sporting house record. It is, though, a bona-fide club classic, with E Double E and PMD trading verses atop a rolling, dancefloor-friendly groove built from elements of Aretha Franklin's 1971 soul classic 'Rock Steady'. All these years on, it still sounds fresh - as this Mr Bongo reissue of the rare 1989 UK seven-inch version proves. In a word: essential.

Review: An original 7" of this gem will cost you upwards of 100 quid so Know How are doing us all a favour here. As EPMD, Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith were a red hot duo who served up many quintessential rap gems. "So Watcha Sayin'" is taken from their second album "Unfinished Business", imbued with scratching by DJ Scratch, deeply buried chords and of course a slick verse that is pure old school. While flipside "You Gots To Chill" has some fresh vocoder work, dusty drum loops and body popping bass, the a-side takes all the glory here.