As it's valentine's day why not wallow a bit with these crazy ironic mash-ups. Actually it's part one and two of the infamous Melancholy Flowers mixes.

If you don't have these, get them, enjoy them, cry just a little bit.

Aladdin's on a rampage

Here (right here) is one of my favouritist ever DMC sets, DJ Aladdin coming in second to Cutmaster Swift in 1989. He was part of Rhyme Syndicate members Low Profile (with WC) whose We're In This Together album is possibly my favourite album in the He's The Rapper, I'm the DJ style.

Keep it Peel

Outside of the big cities, John Peel was one of the only ways to hear hip hop in the mid-'80s (without joining loads of coat hangers together). I can remember hearing so many great tracks on there (MC Shan, Steady B, Tackhead, DJ Cheese and Word Of Mouth, Mantronx etc etc).

He also had some old-school UK hip hop acts on. Here's a selection-

Cookie Crew
3 Wise Men
Overlord X
MC Duke

Actually, some of these may be from Andy Kershaw's show.

We wear black wranglers

Public Enemy, the greatest hip hop act of all time? I think so. It's easy to say "blah blah blah" (try it) but that makes no sense. Here they are in all their glory (including Professor Griff going off on a completely mental one about tarring and feathering people that start fights at PE gigs...mmmmmm) in 1988 at the Birmingham Hummingbird.

Capital of hip hop apparently (or was that Peters borough?)

I flow with denial

Here's Eric B & Rakim live from 1987 at Hammersmith Odeon (same show as the LL one below).

Scratching to the beat in stereo

Check this out (ah yeah), the top four from the 1986 DMC finals. DJ Cheese (winner) with his all scratching set and the others with more of the old-fashioned disco mixes. I assume that Chad Jackson's ropey scratching is because he's using a grandfather clock or something. Of course he went on to better things (an appearance on the Wide Awake Club) while Cheese (as legend has it) had the honour of signing an autograph for John Peel.

Public Enemy- Beats and Places

There's a new PE album out, from what I've heard it sounds pretty good. Buy it here.

There's an extra CD with it with videos too and I'm not quite sure why I don't have this yet.