For its fourteen year anniversary show tonight at 10:30PM (7:30PM Cali time) on NYU college radio station WNYU (heard in NYC at 89.1FM on the radio dial and all over streaming online at wnyu.org) the much loved & respected New York hip-hop radio institution The Halftime Show will break tradition and not have any live guests come through the studios to freestyle. Why? Because the quality is not that good anymore. So instead it will present previously recorded material from its deep archives of 14 years of weekly shows. 14 Years of Rap is how tonight's special is being billed by the show's main producer DJ Eclipse; but the show will draw mainly from its earliest years - circa the late 90's - a time when hip-hop was in a whole other state of mind & creativity. Artists' live on-air sets to be played back tonight will include Redman, Cage, Hieroglyphics, Method Man, A.G., Dilated Peoples, Talib Kweli, and many many more (see flyer down end for full listing). It should be top notch quality stuff too since the respected radio show, when it began in 1998, essentially carried on the baton - in New York City underground hip-hop radio terms - from Stretch & Bobbito who did their legendary NYC radio show from 1990 to 1998 on uptown Columbia University college station WKCR.
 
"Usually for the anniversary shows on Halftime Show we have two or three producers come up with beat machines. We have about thirty MCs come through and we have a couple of DJs come through and they all do like live stuff because to me that's when radio's at its best - when you don't know what you are going to get. But this year I decided to reflect on the earlier years of the show and I'm going back to the first two or three years of the show and pulling old freestyles from some of  the acts that came through in those first years," DJ Eclipse told me recently when I stopped by his Queens NY record filled home. The veteran hip-hop DJ, who is a member of Non Phixion, and a longtime hip-hop industry insider, who has worked for Fat Beats NYC and before that Wild Pitch Records, has been with the radio show from day one with an evolving crew of fellow radio show producers/DJs including DJ Riz, Lynn Gonzalez, and DJ Skizz to name but a few.

1) Eminem Relapse (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope)

2) Method Man & Redman Blackout! 2 (Def Jam)

3) The Grouch & Eligh Say G&E! (Legendary Music)

4) Busta Rhymes Back On My B.S. (Flipmode/Universal Motown)

5) Tanya Morgan Brooklynati (Interdependent Media)

Eminem's latest full-length, Relapse on Shady/Aftermath/Interscope is the Detroit artist's sixth studio album and his first in five years. It is also in the number slot on the hip-hop chart at Amoeba Music Berkeley this week, just as it ranked last week at the Amoeba Hollywood store. The 20 track album from the 35 year old artist, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, comes 13 years since his independantly released debut album Infinite, and exactly ten years since his major label breakthrough and first album through Dr Dre's Aftermath Entertainment, The Slim Shady LP.  Dr. Dre not only produced most of the new album (and its promised sequel in a few months) but Dre also cameos on the track "Crack A Bottle" with 50 Cent. As for the reaction to Relapse? It is charting high at Amoeba and elsewhere. Even here in Dublin, Ireland, where I am writing this Amoeblog, it is given high profile in and getting high sales at all the main record stores. But also here in Europe, as in the States, the album has folks divided into the two camps of either loving or hating it. Those who hate it include many former Eminem fans who contend that he has fallen off and is merely going through the motions. Those who love it do admit that it takes a few listens to fully appreciate and warn the faint of heart to be prepared for Em's often unsettling, disturbingly vivid tales of violence and abuse, including, of course, drug abuse, which is the album's theme, based on the artist's open admission to a prescription drugs addiction. 

1) The Grouch & Eligh Go G+E! (Legendary)

2) Rick Ross Deeper Than Rap (Maybach/Poe Boy/Def Jam)

3) Aesher Roth Asleep in the Bread Aisle   (SRC/Universal)

4) DOOM Born Like This (Lex)

5) Mr. Lif I Heard It Today (Bloodbot/Traffic Ent) 

The Grouch & Eligh, who were number one at the San Francisco store last week, are also holding down the number one slot at Hollywood Amoeba this week with Say G&E!, the sometime hip-hop duo's third collaboration in a series on Legendary Music. And this past Monday (April 27th) they put on a great free in-store show at the San Francisco Amoeba. "It was awesome!," reported Amoeba's Luis from the Haight Street store. "Scarab and Very, aka Afroclassics (who recently released The Classic EP on Legendary Music), got it going when they went on first and performed for about half an hour. Then DJ Fresh (the DJ for the whole show) got busy. And then the Grouch and Eligh came on and wrecked it."

The Living Legends duo, Luis reported, did songs spanning their long respective solo and joint careers, much to the delight of the lucky in-store attendees. Songs off the new album they performed include the title track, "Say G&E!" Also doing well at each three Amoeba stores are the latest from both (MF)DOOM (Born Like This on Lex Records) and the politically charged Boston emcee Mr. Lif (I Heard It Today on Bloodbot through Traffic Entertainment).