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We Shine - Da Ruckus f. Eminem
For those of you reading this in the rss feed, there's an embedded imeem player in this post. Click here to use it.
As a result of the recent blitz of Eminem-related material - Proof's mixtape, the "new" freestyle, t-shirt, book, interview, etc. - I've spent the last couple of days digging through his older material, trying to remind myself of how good an emcee he used to be in the days before he decided to start rapping over his own beats and before he began emulating 50 Cent's every move like a schoolgirl with a crush. Luckily, it seems that Eminem has seen the light and will let Dre handle the majority of the production on the new album, though I must admit, based on the latest freestyle that came out last week, it sounds like he is still stuck on the same annoying style of delivery that he began using on Encore. One can only hope that he dusts off his '97-era flow for the actual album.
In any event, while I was going through his early material, I came across the above track from Detroit duo Da Ruckus (Hush and Uncle Ill), featuring a guest appearance from Slim Shady in the days before signing with Dre. I remember a reference to the song in Stan ("I like the shit you did with Ruckus, too, that shit was phat"), but never bothered to search out the track. As it turns out, like Stan said, the track is indeed phat. For those of you who can't load imeem, there's a version of the track on youtube as well, however it's been remixed with a beat that is nowhere near as good as the original:
Da Ruckus featuring Eminem - We Shine
I couldn't find a whole lot of new material from either Hush or Uncle Ill. Their MySpace page claims that they're working on a followup to their 1998 album Episode 1, though Hush seems to have continued his career without Ill, having put out a solo album of his own a few years ago. These days his music sounds more like its been influenced by Kid Rock than Eminem, performing with a rock band. Here's his latest video:
Hush - Rise Again
If anyone has a copy of Da Ruckus' 150 MCs (or even a link to somewhere I can stream it) please hit me up either in an email or in the comments.
And speaking of Eminem, defsounds.com has a bunch of old freestyles from Slim Shady up on their site. Go check 'em out.
10/23/2008 08:11:01 PM posted by Fresh