Tag Archives: O.C.

O.C. – Straight No Chaser

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Back in 2000, underground Hip-Hop 12-inch singles were being released every week. Whether you were visiting Fat Beats in downtown NYC or ordering online from Sandbox Automatic, there was never a shortage of dope music.

J-Love was just starting to get his name out at the time, being a tour DJ for Ghostface and dropping mix tapes with unreleased gems from Wu-Tang Clan and others. J-Love also tried his hand at producing and made several remixes and eventually started dropping his own singles. One of his earliest efforts was under the Producer/DJ/MC group The Sqwad composed of J-Love, Ric Nice, and Shazam X.

Their first single included collaborations with Queens-native Cormega and D.I.T.C. member O.C. The Cormega track – “Fallen Soldiers” – later appeared on his debut album a year later. However, the O.C. track never saw the light of day. Check out this track with some dope verses from Omar Credle and early production skills by J-Love. Incase you’re wondering, J-Love is still producing A LOT of underground tracks (almost weekly).

Books & Basketball

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I’ve never seen the movie Fast Break but the soundtrack did have a huge hit by Billy Preston & Syreeta. Most of the album is very disco-ish with a few duet ballads mixed in. The coolest part of this album (besides the sample) is the album cover. The cover is actually textured so it feels like a real basketball. Can’t do that with an MP3…

On to the important part… the cut “Books & Basketball (Montage)” composed by David Shire and James Di Pasquale was used by several artists. The songs include…

  • Ras Kass – Wild Pitch
  • O.C. – The Professional
  • Tony Touch / Agallah – Interlude

Lesser known, but equally as dope, this album also has a vocal sample that was used on the Wu-Tang Clan demo song “Problemz“. It’s the part that goes “Comfort me, through all this madness“. Enjoy.