Looking through the vinyl tonight, looking for something to talk about, I ran across this freebie record I got in a batch of records I bought off of ebay earlier this summer when I was on a big ebay kick (ignore all my ebay bashing earlier in this blogs life). The copy is kind of beat to hell, which is why the guy threw it in there for free, but there are no devastating scratches that I can tell. It actually turns out to be a fairly rare piece of vinyl and is an original release of the Hot Day and Super Kids 1987 single, "Hot Day Master Mix" b/w "The Super Kids Live At Hip Hop USA" and "Go Queensbridge." Hip-Hop purists will know that this was the first appearance of a young Percy Chapman, when he hooked up with Hot Day as Super Kids. Who is Percy Chapman you ask? You might know him as Jadeski (his name in the Super Kids duo), Intelligent Hoodlum, Tragedy, Tragedy Khadafi, Trag, or some other various aliases. Hot Day himself hailed from Queensbridge and was a rather important DJ back in those late 80's for the hip hop movement in the Queens area. Of course you can see that he is responsible for putting Tragedy out there. The record came out on Hot Day Records, which is an early attempt at being independent as there is out there. Hot Day would go on to form PHD with Blaq Poet, which if you haven't heard their album, it's a must find.
The A-Side is kind of one of those "WTF?" moments at first, but when put in perspective, this was some ground breaking stuff for 1986. It's basically just Hot Day mixing some classic R&B and breaks together, ala someone like Ron G, who didn't do it until a good three to four years later. The first of the hip hop/R&B blend tapes? Quite possibly. It makes for an interesting A-Side, although not always something you're going to listen to all the time.
The B-Side is where the goodness lays. It's where we hear Tragedy drop his science. Warning though, this isn't the Trag you are used to hearing, dude is probably in his early teens for these tracks. The first is "The Super Kids Live at Hip Hop USA", which reportedly was recorded live at a skating rink. Tragedy gets loose, big upping Queensbridge and you can tell the young Trag has some skill on the mic, which is probably why Marley would work with him based on this single. It also features some tight scratching by Hot Day. He rips the tables at the end to make this a great track.
The second track is "Go Queensbridge", which is contains a simple beat. A simple 808 drum track with some "boom", but sounds eerily familiar to a lot of the T La Rock, Rick Rubin type of production of the time, still a quality joint though.
Hot Day With Super Kids - Hot Day Mastermix (Hot Day Records, 1986)
http://sharebee.com/4ac88099
| A | Hot Day Master Mix (4:06) | |
| B1 | The Super Kids Live At Hip-Hop U.S.A. (2:52) | |
| B2 | Go Queensbridge (2:15) |
