Legacy of Blood

Recently Babygrande Records repressed arguably one of the best underground hip hop releases of all time, and one of my all time personal favorites "Legacy of Blood" by Jedi Mind Tricks. Just a brilliant, stunning album from front to finish with some of the most brutal raps over monster beats. This album is truly perfection! I've listened to this thing so much over the years I can receipt every lyric to every song pretty much by now. To me, this was Jedi Mind's best release and I don't know if they can ever reach the same level as this one. Above is my original pressing that I got in 2004 on black vinyl. I can't believe it's been almost 10 years since this came out? It just seems like yesterday, and now I'm feeling a bit old just thinking about it. 

You can see the front and back art appears are a slightly different on the new repress, so for anyone looking to buy one on ebay that is the difference between the old and new copies.

Babygrande hit a home run on the new repress with the limited orange vinyl. Goes perfect with the fire on the cover. I don't really know the background behind this picture but that's a pretty wild picture. 

On the repress the front art appears zoomed in while the back art appears zoomed out. Also the logos/bar code etc moved to the bottom of the back.

Check out one of my favorite tracks "Saviorself" feat. Killah Priest. Vinnie dropping some serious history lessons over a Spanish guitar inspired beat.



"This is war rap similar to Jacob's Ladder, walk around like Thor with the sacred hammer... and you don't really want the guns out, we some vampire motherfuckers burn when the suns out."

Turnstile Green Cover

Jake gave me a heads up a while back about this Turnstile with the alternative green cover that reaper put up out of /132. Apparently they had extra vinyls so they had to make more covers. I also have it with the regular blue cover on black vinyl that I thought I had taken pictures of, but I can't seem to find. Oh well maybe I'll update it later. I really love this 7", it's grown on me in a huge way. It has a similar feel to Madball and Cold World, with that kind of thug HC, hip hop influenced feel which is right up my alley. I'm glad I jumped on this when I did, because this alternative cover is already OOP.

For your listening pleasure, check out this Vinnie Paz video with him wearing a Turnstile hoodie. Sick!

Heavenly Divine... Steadily Shine in '99

Here is one I had to go diggin' in the crates for. When I bought this almost 10 years ago and I had the choice of getting it on CD or LP, I am glad I opted for the LP. As a 15 year old kid, I am glad I had the insight of downloading the shit for free off the internet and owning a copy of it on vinyl. In my room I had a little shitty CD boom box, but for my record player I had my dads old stereo set up with two big ass Technic speakers and an old Technic record player. So basically I was faced with either A) listening to CD's on a shitty boom box or in my car, or B) listening to vinyl on some big ass speakers and rocking the fuck out. Needless to say, this very record got the neighbors coming pounding on my door telling me to keep that shit down on more than one occasion. 

Some say that Jedi Mind Tricks "Violent by Design" is their classic album. I believe it's Legacy of Blood, then Violent by Design, but to each its own. This is not the original 1999 pressing on Superegular Recordings, but the 2003 repress on Babygrande. Either way, you can't really find this release for under $50 dollars anymore. For a while these were going on ebay for upwards of $100 dollars!

 Here is my copy of the "Heavenly Divine" single on Superegular Recordings. Heavenly Divine is definitely the most well known song on the album, and probably still Jedi Mind Tricks most famous song. When this LP was recorded JMT consisted of Vinnie Paz, Jus Allah and Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind on production. After this release Jus Allah had a falling out from the group, and rejoined years later in 2008 on "A History of Violence". But its like when he came back his voice sounded all weird and way too gruff, so to me this release and his one solo album are the only releases where he actually sounds good. Check out Heavenly Divine below:

And check out one of Vinnie Paz's most recent solo tracks. For those of you that don't know Vinnie Paz is all about that hardcore shit, check him out repping that Trapped Under Ice and Terror merch:

We be causin' a mosh pit like Cro-Mags at L'amours...

Here is my sealed copy of Heavy Metal Kings which is Vinny Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks and Ill Bill of Non-Phixion. Pretty solid album, I wouldn't say its a soon to be classic or anything like that, but one of the better hip hop releases of 2011. I'm surprised more hard core kids don't fuck with these dudes. They use a ton of hardcore references in their songs, which is fucking awesome. "I'm hardcore like Paul Bearer in Sheer Terror" - Vinnie Paz, or "Where to go, we gotta know, like Harley Flannagan" - Ill Bill.   Vinnie Paz is even rocking the Keepers of the Faith shirt on the back cover! My favorite song on this album is "Age Of Quarrel", with the "We be causin a mosh pit like Cro-Mags at L'amours" chorus, here it is below:

If you don't have anything by these guys I would recommend Jedi Mind Tricks "Legacy of Blood", "Visions of Ghandi" or "Violent by Design" or Ill Bill's "What's wrong with Bill?" first. Don't get me wrong, this is a solid release but some of the tracks seem rushed and in my opinion they should have just kept them on mix tapes. I bought this when I went to see them at Slim's in SF last year. They had Danny Diablo (Lord Ezec) from Skarhead/Crown of Thornz open for them on his hip hop shit, and wow that was really sad. He really needs to stay with the hardcore shit, he has no business at all in hip hop. I felt bad cause half the crowd was just clowning on him the entire time. Heres some footage from Heavy Metal Kings' set that night on my youtube channel: