Juno Recommends Hip Hop / R&B Best of 2019

Review: Since launching last year, Lil Static has offered up new, lightly altered editions of classic tracks from Jeru the Damaja, Kraftwerk, Run-DMC, Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. Here they continue to serve up vital beats for break-digging DJs via classic cuts from Eric B. & Rakim and Mountain. The A side sports an edited version of 1986 cut "Eric B. Is President", a synth-bass propelled NYC hip-hop gem rich in unmistakable rap vocals and tight scratching. Over on side B there's a chance to savour Mountain's late '60s rock cut that provided the Eric B. & Rakim track (and so many others since) with its distinctive drum break, "Long Red". This edited version gives more prominence to the breaks, making it an ideal mixing tool for hip-hop DJs.

Review: The "Pimpala West Coast Classics" series does exactly what it says on the label, delivering tidy seven-inch singles featuring new edits of much-loved 1990s West Coast hip-hop gems. This time round, the scalpel fiend at the controls is Ronnie Frazzle. He first turns his attention to Snoop's Dr Dre-produced mega-hit "Gin & Juice", a delightfully laidback 1993 number that's often cited as one of the finest moments of hip-hop's "golden era". Over on the flip it's all about DJ Quik's 1992 Profile Records single "Jus Lyke Compton", an even more laidback and groovy affair that pays tribute to the notorious LA neighbourhood that became the focal point of the enormous "gangsta" hip-hop scene of the 1990s.

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.

Review: The third single from Cyprus Hill's second album "Black Sunday" was recorded while the entire band was high on mushrooms. It was also the song that got cut short on Saturday Night Live after DJ Muggs lit up a joint on-air and started toking on it just before they performed it. Needless to say, it is a tune mostly about smoking and acquiring weed that sums up the hard hitting West Coast rap and Hill's alternative take on hip hop. This single is strictly limited to just 250 copies and comes with an instrumental version on the flip for more beat orientated crowds.

Review: Hip-hop diggers will happily tell you that "Top Billin" was one of the tightest, heaviest and most stripped-back rap jams to emerge from New York in the mid 1980s. Here the 1987 hip-hop club classic is given the reissue treatment by fresh label Know How, marking the cut's first appearance on "45" for 32 years. The A-side vocal version - the most famous of the two takes - is a great example of the dancefloor power of stripped-back hip-hop, with the completed cut being little more than chunky drum machine beats and on-point raps rich in call-and-response sections and crowd-pleasing slogans. The harder to find flipside instrumental lays this bare, peppering the duo's beat with select snippets of reverb-laden chants.

Review: Five years after their collaborative debut, Madlib and Freddie Gibbs reconvene for a follow up that goes even deeper. Madlib is of course a celebrated producer who has worked with some of the best in the game, and Gibbs is a raw street rapper, so it is the differences as much as the similarities between the two that make this such a compelling listen. At times complex and challenging, at others effortless and charming, it's an album stuffed with a myriad of different sounds, styles and references that is hard to categorise but easy to admire.

Review: The second salvo on the Street Knowledge series of golden era hip-hop reissues comes from legendary East Coast twosome Gang Starr. It offers up a pair of much-loved 1990s club bangers: 1999's "Full Clip" and '92's "DWYCK". The former is a classic DJ Premier production: a toe-tapping, head-nodding bounce through rubbery beats, jazzy guitars and toasty bass topped off with the fine flows of the late MC Guru. "DWYCK" meanwhile is a more bass-heavy, floor-friendly affair, with Premier's on-point scratching complimenting Guru's vocal and the addictive weightiness of the groove. In other words, these are two golden era classics you definitely need in your life.

Review: The criticism of Anderson .Paak's last album, the glossy, big-budget "Oxnard", was so voluminous that his mum took to social media to defend it. The fast-rising rapper laughed off the haters at the time, but it must have hurt. Either way, he's changed direction again on "Ventura", a follow-up that's noticeably more refrained than its predecessor. Musically, what we're offered is stripped-back '70s soul and Prince style purple funk instrumentation fused with head-nodding hip-hop and R&B beats. Paak is lyrically on point throughout, eschewing some of his more sexually explicit lyrics in the post #MeToo era. To complete the picture of an artist going back to his roots, the assembled guests (Outkast's Andre 3000 included) are generally pushed to the background in an unobtrusive manner.

Review: The Street Knowledge "45 series" appears to have been set up to educate heads on original 1990s hip-hop jams, or at the very least deliver fresh pressings of some seriously classic cuts. This inaugural release begins with Warren G and Nate Dogg's 1994 heater "Regulate", a deep and seductive number that makes great use of samples from Michael McDonald's teary blue-eyed soul classic "I Keep Forgetting". Flip to the B-side and you'll find Luniz 1995 hit "I Got 5 On It", a cut that's been bitten, reworked and re-made umpteen times in the 24 years that have passed since it was first released. As this reissue proves, the Oakland duo's original version is still streets ahead of the rest.

Review: For the first volume in their brand new Toxic Funk 45s series, the Breakbeat Paradise crew has turned to two stalwarts of the breaks scene, Easy Now Recordings co-founder Tom Showtime and long-serving DJ/producer Badboe. They hit the ground running with A-side "We Funk Tings", a cut-and-paste workout that peppers a head-nodding, bass-heavy hip-hop groove with funk licks, hazy horns and sneaky vocal samples from a variety of ragga and rap records. They continue in a similar vein over on side B, where the horn and piano-heavy hip-hop-funk of "We Have It Hot" is followed by the boom-bap booty business of "The Time Has Come".

Review: Tyler, the Creator's fifth studio album was produced entirely by the Californian artist himself, but it does feature guests like Solange, Playboi Carti, Kanye West and Lil Uzi Vert. It immediately debuted at number one and it's easy to see why. Rich with a complex fusion of funk, rap and r&b that glides on Cali-synths and neo soul melodies, the whole thing is tethered to the ground with a hefty low end and follows the narrative of a love triangle as told by American comedian Jerrod Carmichael. Arguably his best work to date, the production is next level and storytelling wholly involving.

Review: A new album from Gang Starr is no joke, 16 years on from the last after Guru's passing in 2010. With DJ Premier on the beats, you need not question the quality spilling out of the speakers throughout this powerful return from one of hip-hop's holy grails. The spots showing some of the late Guru's skills act as a bittersweet reminder of his lyrical gift and that voice, but the space he left behind is amply filled out by a hit list of guest spots on the mic. MOP, Q-Tip, Jeru The Damaja, Talib Kweli - as if any of these legends would pass up the chance to lend their bars to this late entry from hip-hop royalty.

Review: Three months after rapper turned singer Lizzo's major label debut first appeared on CD and digital download, Atlantic has decided to offer up a deluxe vinyl edition of the well-received set featuring three bonus tracks. Prior to release, Lizzo admitted she wanted to become "this generation's Aretha Franklin"; while she's not at the late soul legend's standard just yet, there's enough on "Cuz I Love You" to suggest that she's going in the right direction. Her vocals are variously confident, powerful, strutting and tender, with the accompanying backing tracks mixing hip-hop and R&B style beats with raucous guitars, bombastic basslines, Daft Punk style synth stabs (think "Robot Rock" and "Technologic") and occasional nods towards more pastoral, semi-acoustic sounds. Above all, though, the album is funky, forthright and hugely entertaining.

Review: Scarface's appeal endures many years after it first burned so bright, and Tony Montana remains an inspiration for many a young gangster, including studio gs like The Geto Boys who sampled various bits of his dialogue for these two tracks back in 1990. Here, the late DJ Ready Red serves up two edits, fully embracing the stereotypes that went on to become the norm for rappers in the years after. "Trigger Happy Nigga" is a bristling boom bap joint while "Scarface" rolls a little deeper with gun shots and scratching bringing the realness.