Here we go...

Having recently acquired a taste/addiction for the world of the hip hop blog, I decided it was time to join a community from which I have drawn a lot of knowledge and pleasure from over the last few months. At this stage my understanding of how these things work is extremely limited - although computer savvy, I didn't even really know what a blog was until recently and certainly had no understanding whatsoever of file sharing services like Megaupload and Rapidshare. However, as a result of a new found resource for sharing thoughts, ideas and music I felt it was time to get involved.

I've been into hip hop since around 1993 and the idea for the name came from one of my favourite cuts on the first LOTUG album. I remember asking a school friend to record a copy of 36 Chambers for me and inadvertantly on his part, 'Here Come The Lords' was on the b-side of the tape. I had no idea what it was or where it fitted into the vast world of hip hop music but I knew that I loved it. As time passed by I bought more and more of this music, much to the miscomprehension of my parents, and in 1997 got a set of decks and entered the realm of vinyl and mixing. This phase has now passed: my 1200s gather dust in a corner and the majority of my collection is now CD based. This has come about as a result of the massive financial burden of vinyl and a lack of time (and effort) to practise.

Having missed the first golden era first hand I have spent a lot of time digging back through the history of the culture, and so although unable to talk about the first dubbed tape I had with Percee P freestyles in '88, I continue to pursue as wide a breadth of knowledge as possible. Hopefully this blog will help me do so.

My intention (once I learn how to upload files etc.) is to post fairly regularly a variety of albums that hold importance to me or the culture in general. It is unlikely to feature the seriously rare, but should provide a platform for discussion and sharing of interests. There will be a mix of the more obvious to the more obscure, but I hope to provide some artist biography for each post as well as sharing my opinions on the featured music. I am indebted to blogs such as Crooklyn's Classics, Wake Your Daughter Up and Bust The Facts for providing me with an insight into how worthwhile a blog can be and hope that my blog may become a part of this online community.

I see this as an opportunity to share a love of music and would encourage anyone who enjoys the selections presented here to go out and support the artists by buying their records. If any artist objects to their presence on this blog I will immediately remove you from it - just let me know.

Keep with me at the beginning: at the moment a lack of technical know-how will mean that blogs are slow to appear and somewhat infrequent but hopefully I'll get there in the end. Hold tight y'all...