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Joell Ortiz - Sing Like Bilal Freestyle
When I was growing up, in the dark days before mp3 blogs existed, Funkmaster Flex's radio show on Hot 97 was the spot to hear the latest in hip hop. Mainstream singles, underground joints, freestyles, whatever - if it was new and it was hot, Flex had it first. This was before the commercial mixtapes, before the car shows and before the payola really started to influence his playlists. Since then, Flex's show has (d)evolved into something that isn't much different from any other hip hop radio show on any other station. The dj who once rewound M.O.P.'s How About Some Hardcore for 20 minutes straight in the middle of primetime has since been reduced to playing half hearted bomb drops over the latest milquetoast offerings from the likes of Drake.
Every now and then, however, Flex still manages to get an exclusive worth getting excited over. Case in point: the above "freestyle" from Joell Ortiz over the DJ Premier beat Sing Like Bilal. Joell originally put out one verse over the beat about a month ago, at which point Flex began playing it every night. Eventually he convinced Joell to go in for one more verse, which he played for the first time a couple of days ago. I'm not sure if this has gotten any play outside of the NY area, but this is easily the most "hip hop" joint I've heard on the radio in quite some time.
"New rappers is cool, but we still bump Biggie." Truth.
Here's the original Primo beat, off of Beats That Collected Dust Vol. 1:
DJ Premier - Sing Like Bilal Instrumental
8/19/2010 8:45:50 PM posted by Fresh