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Over the weekend, I got hit up by New Jersey's own Nucci Reyo with a promo for a new mixtape coming out from DJ Rit Rat (also from Jersey): Papoose Vs. Nucci. I mentioned to him that the last time someone put out a "Papoose Vs." mixtape, son got jumped by Pap's crew. While I wasn't suggesting that the same thing was going to happen to Nucc -- I was actually just joking around with him but sadly sarcasm doesn't carry over as well on the internet -- apparently he (or more likely someone on his promo team) took it seriously enough to immediately send out an announcement that he had no involvement in the Papoose vs. Nucci mixtape.
So anyway, apologies to Nucci and Rit Rat for that unnecessary drama.
That being said, as much as people are hyping up Papoose as the savior of New York/East Coast hip hop, my money would be on Nucci Reyo in a lyrical battle. Hopefully later this week or early next week I'll have a track or two to put up from Nucci. If you haven't heard of him yet, you will soon enough. He's easily the best rapper coming out of New Jersey these days. I'm still not sold on Papoose, and I think he sometimes tries too hard to be the second coming of Big L, but I may change my mind once I hear a real album.
After that incident, I spent some time this weekend converting a bunch of old mixtapes I had lying around into mp3s. I should have some interesting stuff coming up in the next few weeks: a love song from Prodigy, a collabo featuring Nas, 50 and Mobb Deep, and a track from Juelz Santana when he was about 12 years old. Among the tapes I found an old track with Papoose on it from 1997. According to wikipedia, Papoose would have been 14 years old when he did this track, yet he sounds exactly the same 9 years ago as he does today. So either was a particularly precocious 14 year old, or that birthdate is a little off. The track is from a Flip Squad mixtape (a dj collective not to be confused with Busta Rhyme's Flipmode Squad), featuring Big Kap, Trigga Da Gambla and Papoose. Have a listen:
(track after the jump -->)
5/8/2006 10:00:21 AM posted by Fresh