According to the story, the reels turned out to be recordings from hip-hop’s fabled golden era, taped at a studio called Top Shelf in a basement in the East Village of Manhattan. The reels were supposedly lost during the Tompkins Square Park riots of 1988, and the studio later shut down. Use left/right arrows to navigate the slideshow or swipe left/right if using a mobile device. Top Shelf 1988 Various Artists. Always Send Me To This Retailer Sponsored Listen to millions of songs - ad free. The Top Shelf of the title was (so the story goes) a small studio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where emcees found a safe haven from the clutches of label employees and could experiment with making hip-hop unfettered by corporate bullshit and interference. Said heads included damn near near everyone who was anyone in hip-hop in 1988.
MC Serch joined Chubb Rock, MC Lyte and Special Ed for a particular episode of Good Morning America final December. The golden period Hip Hop figures had been on deck in help of Rostrum Records’ Top Shelf 1988 compilation.
Top Shelf 1988 Album
The 13-track venture was billed as a “treasure trove” of unreleased cuts from artists comparable to Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh, Craig G, Biz Markie and Jungle Brothers. The third Bass MC, who was instrumental in making the tv look occur, figured the timing was proper.
“I spoke to ABC final November pondering that is the 30th 12 months — Top Shelf was from 1988 — so it could make sense to finish the 12 months with this Top Shelf tribute,” Serch explains to RealStreetRadio. “ABC New York had one of many first video reveals known as ‘Hot Tracks’ that may play rap movies, so it was a vibe so far as I used to be involved.
“It additionally was about treating our MCs from the golden period like the celebs and icons they’re. To me, the one distinction between The Beatles and Big Daddy Kane or Chubb Rock is that The Beatles had a whole lot of radio stations enjoying their music all day, daily. We had school radio who performed it a couple of instances every week late at evening and concrete stations that performed it a couple of hours Friday and Saturday. Yet these artists are nonetheless revered and honored simply as a lot, however not with the fanfare.”
Evidently, Rostrum felt equally and put all their sources into making the venture genuine.
“The stage was not simply mics and turntables,” he says. “It was 4K digital movement graphics that took a staff of 5 individuals, three weeks at 20 hours a clip to create. It was Lyte, Special Ed and Chubb rehearsing. It was additionally respecting these individuals who acquired us there, plus honoring those that helped and had been not there. It was magical and meant the world to me. It validated the viewers is there and we must always push to make them conscious.”
Although Good Morning America isn’t precisely the everyday platform for traditional Hip Hop, Serch believes it was the “good goal.” Many viewers of the present could have grown past the tradition however nonetheless have a robust connection to the nostalgia the music stirs up. The phase wound up pulling within the second-highest rankings of 2018.
“GMA and [host] Michael Strahan had been the proper combination,” Serch explains. “He will get it. Their crew will get it. The individuals within the viewers get it. The groundswell main as much as it was nice and the timing couldn’t have been higher. This viewers who could have gone on with their lives and disconnected from the tradition didn’t disconnect from the music.
“They [the audience] have little or no time to hunt it down. So when it’s there for them, they not solely gravitate and get excited, in addition they join with their individuals and allow them to know. Now, it’s only a matter of conserving it of their face with music movies and integrations, excursions and finally one thing larger.”
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Top Shelf 1988 didn’t come with no little controversy. The music from the album was allegedly unearthed by an unidentified New York Hip Hop aficionado who found a field of studio reels inside a storage locker in Hoboken, New Jersey. The solely clue to its contents was the identify “Fab Five Freddy” written on a label.
The reels discovered had been supposedly recorded at an East Village studio in Manhattan known as Top Shelf and rumored to be misplaced through the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots. Some individuals labeled your complete story a “hoax” and found out the tracks weren’t truly from 1988 as led to imagine.
“I feel that each one publicity is sweet publicity,” Serch says. “Seriously, it’s in poor style to problem this venture as a hoax. It’s a hoax the identical approach A Star is Born or Hustle and Flow is a hoax. The key distinction is these artists are portraying themselves from a time remembered because the golden period and what many really feel was the best 12 months in Hip Hop.
“Every era has a ‘Best Year.’ I’ve been actually blessed to be round plenty of them. For me to be 20 years previous in New York City watching a avenue artwork turn out to be a solution to pay my payments and see the world had been the best instances in my life.”
Regardless of the rumors swirling across the venture, Serch is solely comfortable it exists.
“To have these superb artist placing out data that, to me are nice data and what our artists of the golden period ought to proceed to make, is admittedly the way in which it’s speculated to be,” he says. “This album and what has been occurring with the streaming companies Pandora and Spotify discussing a platform for Top Shelf, and LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells Radio not solely enjoying the brand new music but additionally together with the artists with their tales and voices, it provides me nice pleasure in speaking to my heroes and listening to the suggestions.
“I’ve not spoken to Grand Puba in many years and to listen to his voice and discuss music was so gratifying. To discuss to [Black Sheep’s] Dres, who I’ve not spoken to in awhile and discuss music once more, is such a blessing for me. This venture will give the followers, new and previous, a have a look at one other vary of expertise and abilities that they could not have recognized about.”
'Introduction: 17 years ago a small recording studio, TOP SHELF, located in the basement of a brownstone in the East Village section of New York, was looted during the Thompkins Square riots of 1988, displacing the recordings of many soon-to-be Hip Hop stars. The studio had been the meeting place for many rappers, neighborhood kids, and producers that would later be responsible for the greatest period of the Hip Hop age, 'The Golden Era.' A search commenced soon after the recordings were lost, but nothing was ever found. So sought after were the tapes, they soon acheived Holy Grail status amongst Hip Hop circles. Despite years of searching, and dozens of hopeless crusades, the tapes remained lost. No one was quite sure who took them or where they were... until now. After an extensive investigation and search that lasted two years, the recordings have finally been recovered by Fab 5 Freddy and myself (Benjy Grinberg). They were found dozenss of miles from the site of TOP SHELF in an abandoned strage faciilty in North Jersey. ...We sought after the lost recordings of TOP SHELF because they were rumored to be among the hottest songs from that era, and we thought it was a tragedy that the world never got to hear them. It turns out that these two-inch tapes are truly a treasure chest--a time capsule of the energy and excitement of 1988 Hip Hop.'
Top Shelf 1988 Cd Rates
1. Fab 5 Freddy - Intro 2. Black Sheep - I'm The One 3. Big Daddy Kane - Like That, Y'all 4. Biz Markie - My Name Is... 5. MC Lyte - Listen Up 6. Grand Puba - Let's Go 7. Smooth B Of Nice & Smooth - I Want My Money Back 8. Graig G - Catch A Lyrical Beatdown 9. Chubb Rock - Chubb Rocks The Party 10. Special Ed - This Mic
Top Shelf 1988 Cd Cassette
11. Doug E Fesh - It Ain't Nothin 12. Jungle Brothers - Back In The Jungle 13. Just Ice - I Run The Streets 14. Melle Mel & Grandmaster Caz - The Battle Is On 15. Master Ace - Revolution's 'Bout To Start