Masta Ace has always managed to remain current and totally classic in the exact same breath. In his 1988 lyrical debut, he took a stand along side Big Daddy Kane, Kool G. Rap and Craig G on hip hop's most important posse cut, ‘The Symphony'. His first full length album, the Marley Marl produced Take A Look Around (1990), established the rookie emcee as a sophisticated voice from the ghetto.

Slaughtahouse (1993) was an ingenious conversation with hip hop, as Ace and his incorporated crew took on the entire gangsta rap genre. In 1995, his Sittin' On Chrome LP unified American car culture as a celebration of rims and rides and rap music. Then after a 6 year hiatus, Ace caught the world off guard with the epic

Disposable Arts (2001). This classic theme album, complete with plot, main characters and score, played like a feature film on wax. A Long Hot Summer, (2004), was the prequel to Disposable Arts. These two “flicks”, were connected, and although Ace was the only actual recurring character, the storylines blended together in a well thought out arrangement.

In 2004 he announced that “…Summer” would be his fifth and final solo album. It seems that he was planning a unique and different way to continue making contributions to Hip Hop. Ace has teamed up with Wordsworth, Punchline and Stricklin to form the new group EMC. All three were featured heavily on his last two releases and the chemistry that resulted was undeniable. The album, "The Show" will be released this summer on M3 Records, an upstart independent label formed by Ace and his partners “Filthy Rich” and “DJ Rob”.

Random Mixes of Hip Hop Dance/House and Garage

artist,musician,producer,mc,leader and tenor saxophonist of the avant-garde/free jazz group THE OPEN MIND ,and philosopher of some sort(according to others)

Chillhop Essentials - Winter 2025 out now!
https://chillhop.ffm.to/winter2025.pbt

🎶 Listen to Chillhop on Spotify & Apple Music
・ chillhop.ffm.to/chillhopradiospotify.pbt (Spotify)
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Although he never became a household name, Rakim is near-universally acknowledged as one of the greatest MCs -- perhaps the greatest -- of all time within the hip-hop community. It isn't necessarily the substance of what he says that's helped him win numerous polls among rap fans in the know; the majority of his lyrics concern his own skills and his Islamic faith. But in terms of how he says it, Rakim is virtually unparalleled. His flow is smooth and liquid, inflected with jazz rhythms and carried off with an effortless cool that makes it sound as though he's not even breaking a sweat. He raised the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been, helping to pioneer the use of internal rhymes -- i.e., rhymes that occurred in the middle of lines, rather than just at the end. Where many MCs of the time developed their technique through improvisational battles, Rakim was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down and writing intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors (of course, he also had the delivery to articulate them). Even after his innovations were worshipfully absorbed and expanded upon by countless MCs who followed, Rakim's early work still sounds startlingly fresh, and his comeback recordings (beginning in the late '90s) only added to his legend. 

Rakim was born William Griffin, Jr. on January 28, 1968, in the Long Island suburb of Wyandanch. The nephew of '50s R&B legend Ruth Brown, Griffin was surrounded by music from day one, and was interested in rap almost from its inception. At age 16, he converted to Islam, adopting the Muslim name Rakim Allah. In 1985, he met Queens DJ Eric B., whose intricately constructed soundscapes made an excellent match for Rakim's more cerebral presence on the mike. With the release of their debut single, "Eric B. Is President," in 1986, Eric B. & Rakim became a sensation in the hip-hop community, and their reputation kept growing as they issued classic tracks like "I Ain't No Joke" and "Paid in Full." Their first two full-length albums, 1987's Paid in Full and 1988's Follow the Leader, are still regarded as all-time hip-hop classics; Rakim's work set out a blueprint for other, similarly progressive-minded MCs to follow, and helped ensure that even after the rise of other fertile scenes around the country, East Coast rap would maintain a reputation as the center of innovative lyrical technique. The last two Eric B. & Rakim albums, 1990's Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em and 1992's Don't Sweat the Technique, weren't quite as consistent as their predecessors, but still had plenty of fine moments. 

Unfortunately, their legacy stopped at four albums. Both Eric B. and Rakim expressed interest in recording solo albums to one another, but the former, fearful of being abandoned by his partner when their contract was up, refused to sign the release. That led to their breakup in 1992, and Rakim spent a substantial amount of time in the courts, handling the legal fallout between himself, his ex-partner, and their ex-label, MCA. His only solo output for a number of years was the track "Heat It Up," featured on the 1993 soundtrack to the Mario Van Peebles film Gunmen. Moreover, a reshuffling at MCA effectively shut down production on Rakim's solo debut, after he'd recorded some preliminary demos. Finally, Rakim got a new contract with Universal, and toward the end of 1997 he released his first solo record, The 18th Letter (early editions contained the bonus disc Book of Life, a fine Eric B. & Rakim retrospective). Anticipation for The 18th Letter turned out to be surprisingly high, especially for a veteran rapper whose roots extended so far back into hip-hop history; yet thanks to Rakim's legendary reputation, it entered the album charts at number four, and received mostly complimentary reviews. His follow-up, The Master, was released in 1999 and failed to duplicate its predecessor's commercial success, barely debuting in the Top 75. Moreover, while The Master received positive reviews in some quarters, others seemed disappointed that Rakim's comeback material wasn't reinventing the wheel the way his early work had, and bemoaned the lack of unity among his array of different producers. 

Seeking to rectify the latter situation, Rakim signed with Dr. Dre's Aftermath label in 2001, and the two began recording a new album early the next year, to be titled Oh My God. In the meantime, to help heighten anticipation for the summit between two legends, Rakim guested on the single "Addictive" by female R&B singer and Aftermath labelmate Truth Hurts; "Addictive" hit the Top Ten in the summer of 2002, marking the first time Rakim had visited that territory since he and Eric B. appeared on Jody Watley's "Friends" in 1989. Disagreements between Dre and Ra, however, prevented the album from coming out, though the rapper was able to retain the tracks he had made with the producer. For the next couple of years, Rakim continued to talk about the record, since retitled The Seventh Seal, even going so far as to promise a release on July 7, 2007. The date came and went however, without any signs of a full length, though, in early 2008, The Archive: Live, Lost & Found, a mostly live album that also contained four new previously unreleased songs, hit shelves. Rakim's latest solo work, The Seventh Seal, was released in 2009.

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