2) Andy Allo UnFresh (Allo Records)

3)  Peanut Butter Wolf 45 Live (Stones Throw)

4) John Forte StyleFREE: The EP (Theory 7)

5) V/A Definitive Jux Presents 4 (Def Jux)

6) Blue Scholars Bayani Redux (Duck Down)

7) Trick Daddy Finally Famous: Born a Thug, Still a Thug (Dunk Ryder Records)

8) Lil Boosie Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz (Asylum Records)

9) Cage Movies for the Blind (High Times Records)

10) Beastie Boys Hello Nasty (Capitol)

Super special thanks to the ever knowledgable Luis @ the hip-hop department of Amoeba Music San Francisco for always being so down to supply the Amoeblog with up to the moment news on what's popping at the SF store, new music- wise. For the second week in a row Luis has provided us with a Top Ten due to the wealth of releases (both new and reissues) dropping recently. Above you can see the chart in video and text forms, while below are a series of videos by several of the artists in this latest Top Ten chart.

1) Eyedea & Abilities By The Throat (Rhymesayers Entertainment)

2) Awol One & Factor Owl Hours (Fake Four Inc)

3) Twista Category F5 (GMG/Get Money Gang/EMI)

4) Yukmouth The West Coast Don (Smoke-A-Lot/RBC Records)

5) Biz Markie Ultimate Diabolical (Traffic Entertainment)

6) MHZ Table Scraps (Man Bites Dog Records)

Classic Hip-Hop Album Reissue:

The Beastie Boys Ill Communication (Capitol) (originally released in '94 -- extra tracks)

Super-duper thanks to Luis -- the hip-hop buyer at Amoeba Music San Francisco -- for providing this week's Top Six chart of the new hip-hop sellers at the Haight Street store, in both text and video formats. In the number one slot with a bullet is the new By The Throat album from Eyedea & Abilities, on which Michael "Eyedea" Larsen (aka Oliver Hart) demonstrates the mad mic skills that won him his rep as a killer freestyle battle rapper. Meanwhile, his partner, DMC champ DJ Abilities (Gregory Keltgen), has truly come into his own as a powerful producer with turntable skills to match. Fans of the duo should note that they are on the Rock The Bells tour, which will be stopping in SoCal at the San Manuel Amphitheatre in San Bernardino on August 8th and in the Bay Area the next day, August 9th, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View.

As officially (and good-humoredly) announced in the above YouTube clip via the group's website posting from earlier this morning, the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch has been diagnosed with gland cancer and will soon have to undergo treatment. Consequently, the Beastie Boys have had to cancel and postpone upcoming concert dates and also move back their next album, Hot Sauce's, release date. Joining Adam "MCA" Yauch in the surprise video announcement today was fellow Beastie Boy Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz. Upcoming Beastie Boys scheduled dates had included playing Outside Lands, August 30th in the Bay Area and the Hollywood Bowl on September 24th. If you had already bought tix for these or other shows, contact the place of purchase to determine officially whether or not the band is no longer playing.

New Electro/Techno 12"s Coming this Weekend:

Rest in peace to Italian-American Napa Valley resident Vincent DeDomenico, who was the inventor of the "San Francisco treat," RIce-A-Roni, and who died in his sleep last Thursday at age 92. DeDomenico's legacy will live on forever and Rice-A-Roni is something that will always be synonymous with cable cars and San Francisco, California. Vincent was born in San Francisco in 1915 to Sicilian immigrants who had moved to California and set up the family business in San Francisco's Mission District -- the very successful Gragnano Products, Inc, which supplied pasta to Italian stores and restaurants all around San Francisco and which by the mid 1930's had changed its name to the Golden Grain Macaroni Company. A couple of decades later the invention of Rice-A-Roni would come about when in 1958, apparently inspired by the pilaf recipe of mixing rice and macaroni with some chicken broth, Vincent mixed all the ingrediants together dry: rice and macaroni plus a dry chicken soup mix and voila, "The San Francisco Treat" (its registered trademark) was born. Within four years Rice-A-Roni went national and just took off from there. By the 1960's it had become a cooking staple of US households and is still extremely popular to this day. In 1986 the Quaker Oats Company purchased the family business from the Golden Grain Company and has continued to expand its product line.

The catchy Rice-A-Roni advertising jingle is one that everyone seems to know and has become synonymous with the City by the Bay -- especially to outsiders/tourists -- because it repeatedly identifies with San Francisco imagery (including the sound of cable car bells). Additionally, the jingle has been sampled in many hip-hop releases and also the words "Rice-A-Roni" have been included in rap lyrics by both Bay Area and non Bay rap artists. Some rap songs over the years that have included the words "rice-a-roni" in their lyrics include Timbaland And Magoo's  "Up Jumps Da Boogie" from Welcome To Our World  featuring Missy when Magoo raps, "Eating Rice-A-Roni with Toni Toni Tone/Keep Cindy Crawford, to me she's to boney" and by the 2Live Crew in their take on Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" (the one that got Luther Campbell in a high profile lawsuit) with the lyrics, "Ya know what I'm saying you look better than rice a roni."