Brooklyn based underground hip-hop Icon Ill Bill Serves up a 5 fold dose of paranoia this week with his eclectic Moody Mondays selections. Check them out and look out for Ill Bill vs. DJ Muggs new album “Kill Devil Hills” in stores Aug 31st.
The rotten apple has been in the firm grip of a sizzling heat wave for the last two weeks – and as any New Yorker will tell you, when it starts to really bake in Gotham, it’s something serious. It probably has something to do with all the skyscrapers holding in the heat and the concrete pavements emitting it so offensively to the city’s denizens. So anyways, it was a welcome pleasure to walk into DJ Premier’s “Headqcourterz” studios on the west of Manhattan for the Ill Bill/DJ Muggs listening session and see a nice spread of very-chilled Heinekens, Coronas and bottled waters set out for the invited guests. After cooling down with a few long sips of cold beer and ingesting a quick pizza slice, reality set in that I was actually lounging in the confines of hallowed rap history. “Headqcourterz” studios was formerly known as D&D, and this is the same location where rap gods like Jay-Z , Nas and Biggie recorded key cuts with DJ Premier for their classic debut albums: Reasonable Doubt, Illmatic and Ready to Die respectively. It’s also where Primo’s own group, Gangstarr (R.I.P. Guru) recorded classic albums in their extensive collection – epic albums like Hard to Earn, Moment of Truth and Daily Operation. No one has to tell you how special this place is – the gold and platinum plaques on the wall tell the story all too clearly.