Lord Finesse- You Know What I'm About

                   When I was a teenager probably about 15 or 16, I remember buying Mixmaster Mike's Rescue 916 Mixtape. I was heavily into collecting tapes at that point and this was a particularly cool piece of Hiphop history. The tape itself was a cool purple color, a professionally printed insert with some cool artwork. I believe I picked it up at Gramaphone records on Clark St. in Chicago. My father would be kind enough to drive me downtown so i could pick up the latest Hiphop/House/Dnb tapes. There was also a little stand up by the front counter where there were all these elaborate rave fliers that you could take. This was right at the peak of the Chicago rave scene....bout 97'/98'. The fliers were often huge, colorful, and attention grabbing....needless to say I started to collect them and became obsessed with Rave and Hiphop culture. Unfortunately I was still too young to attend the events....but i sort of lived vicariously through tapes/fliers/ and internet shit like usenet groups and listserv email groups.

Anyways, back to that purple Mixmaster Mike tape. This was my first exposure to turntablism, and i couldn't get enough after I heard that. There is overall a bit more of a focus on the tracks then the scratching which wasn't typical for a turntablist tape back then. The song selection was immaculate and I've spent a bit of time trying to develop an accurate tracklist for the tape. This Lord Finesse cut was one of the standout tracks, simply because of how fucking hard and rugged it is. Rough beat and straight to the point battle lyrics....Finesse was certainly nice and criminally underrated in the scheme of things. Real Hiphop heads know the deal tho. The one thing that kills me is that I don't have these tapes with me today, except for a few of those random promo tapes that Gramaphone would turn around and sell haha. At least my Claude Young tape made it.