The Crossroads Episode 25

This video dropped yesterday.  115 views. . .

Litefoot - I Am It [Official Music Video].


Doctor Dré & Ed Lover Feat. King Just, Todd One, & The Notorious B.I.G. - Who's The Man (1994).

"So heyyea heyyea heyyea ho! / Yah can't catch the flow, too late I let it go / [...]" - Ed Lover


Native Rhythms - Ya-Hey [Jazz-n-Groove Deep Mix].  Click here for the alternate "B's Groove Mix" version.


Gooch featuring Kool G Rap - Fifty Wayz (Kut Masta Kurt Remix) (1997) [HQ].

"I'm from the city that never sleeps / so how can I sleep? / when ever piece is a freak sweating athletes in new jeeps / ain't the type to roll a Cherokee / [...]" - Gooch

Cherokee, Pontiac, Thunderbird, (click here for more info; viz. De Soto), etc. - what's in a name right?

The Crossroads Episode 25

Rap Roots - Toast To The High Life. . .

Unknown DJ - Toasting Over Slim Smith's Time Has Come.  YouTube Description: "Iron Sound UK dub plate from 1972 chanting over Slim Smith's hit of the same year Time Has Come also versioned by DJ Jerry Lewis for Bunny Lee...........enjoy!!"

Rap Roots - Toast To The High Life. . .

The Origins of Hip Hop - Jamaican Sound System Toasting

"Freedom Train" by U Roy chanting over The Heptones version of "God Bless The Children" (released in JA 1972 on the Pressure Beat label by Joe Gibbs).

Definition: Toasting is a style of lyrical chanting which, in Dancehall music, involves a deejay talking over a riddim. Though the art of chanting over a beat is quite ancient, and found in many African-based musical traditions, toasting became quite popular in Jamaica in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and "sound systems" (traveling deejays and producers with large speakers and a library of beats and riddims) would feature toasting as part of their musical entertainment.

Toasting is not only important in Jamaican music, but also featured heavily in the development of American popular music, as it was Jamaican-born toaster DJ Kool Herc who brought the style to Queens, subsequently setting off the entire history of rap and hip-hop music.

(Via.)


U-Roy Chant Down Babylon [LIVE] at Montreal Reggae Fest 2009.

The Origins of Hip Hop - Jamaican Sound System Toasting