Eastern Conference Records "OG Demos, Vol. 1" (EP Stream)

I love seeing projects like this get unearthed for our listening pleasure! If you stayed up late at night with a finger on record, listening to shows like Stretch & Bobbito, then all the MCs, producers and DJs highlighted on this project will be very familiar to you! Artists like Cage, The High & Mighty, Kool Keith, Jean Grae, Copywrite, Tame One, Smut Peddlers, Breeze Brewin and more! Dig in below...

Cage "Purple Rain Mix CD" (2004)

Cage's "Purple Rain" Mix CD was released exclusively with his "Home Movies" DVD in 2004. The "Homie Movies" was a limited edition DVD, which gave behind the scenes looks at The Revenge of the Robots Tour. Scenes included a trip to the High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, a cypher with the Weathermen at WKCR in NYC and various live performances, in-stores and whatever else they were doing for shits and giggles at the time. As for the Purple Rain Mix CD, it features various exclusives with Cage, Yak Ballz, Leak Bros and more. A personal favorite of mine is Cage's "Ballad of Worms," which flips Built to Spill's "I Would Hurt a Fly" into an eerie soundscape to deliver a story about his obligation to a sick and dying girlfriend as a metaphor for his real life relationship with hip-hop and music. It's also said to be a love ballad to Zelda from "Pet Semetary," who dies from spinal meningitis. Remember when music had this many layers? In the words of Cage, "Enjoy kiddies!"

Cage "Agent Orange" (The Source, 7/97)

"The verdict's been in. The form of shock-hip-hop labeled "horrorcore" that enjoyed some burn a few years back was about as interesting as a bad hangover. Granted, I'm as big a Gravediggaz fan as anyone, but basically, you'd have to possess some sort of sick gift in order to pull of that kind of act today. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Cage. Dancing on the tombstone of horrorcore's long-buried corpse, this New York underground MC's single forges into its own steez of lunatic-fringe hysteria - Cage, and producer accomplice Necro, save their best move for the ingenious B-side, the Clockwork Orange homage, "Agent Orange." Lifting its melody from the motion picture's theme music and its chorus from the Genius' Liquid Swords album intro, Cage frenziedly transports futuristic ultraviolent thug life mentalities to fantasmagorical rhyme ciphers. "See me twisting leak with my peeps from psychiatrics / Get high, run up in your crib and fuck your moms backwards / Lost in the dust / Don't give a fuck about dangerous / I'm in it for the whip, plus the cream and the headrussshhh..." Demented rap strikes again." - Sure Shot Single in The Source, July 1997.