1) T.I. No Mercy (Grand Hustle)

2) Andre Nickatina/Smoov-E The King & Mr. Biscuits (I-Khan Dist.)

3) Big Rich Built to Last (Big Rich Music)

4) Buff1 & Rhettmatic Crown Royale (ASide)

5) Redman Reggie (Island Def Jam)

Special thanks to Luis at the San Francisco store for this week's top five chart. Beyond the top five, Luis notes that, "Then there's the Kanye, Curren$y and Damu the Fudgemunk, which is super dope!" The latter is also a favorite of DJ Inti at the Berkeley Amoeba, where it was a hip-hop chart contender last week. The latest SF Amoeba chart includes some local Fillmore district SF flavor from both Big Rich and Andre Nickatina. His latest outing is a joint project with his regular studio collaborator, the Tennessee to The Bay transplant Smoov E, who also sometimes goes by the name Smoov Biscuits. That explains the title of their new joint release, The King & Mr. Biscuits, which appears on Nicatina's label, I-Khan Distribution.  The eleven track album features great tracks such as "For The Green (Remix) and "Genuine Draft (Remix)."


Meanwhile, Big Rich, who last year dropped Heart Of The City, is back with his impressive latest two-part release. Built to Last (Big Rich Music) is both an album and a documentary (CD + DVD) from the successful SF artist who has had a mixed year. Musically, he's kept busy and been artistically satisfied, he says, having spent the greater part of 2010 out on the road.

In the male dominated music world, female DJs are in the minority, especially when it comes to hip-hop. And when it comes to female scratch DJs, aka turntablists, the number of female artists is even smaller. Exceptions include DJ Shortee, Kuttin Kandi, and the Bay Area DJ duo of Deeandroid and Celskiii, who have been busy perfecting their game for over a decade now.

Tonight the Filipino female DJ duo, who were invited on tour by KRS-One a few years back, will be throwing their popular twice-monthly Skratchpad turntablist event (every first and third Tuesday) at The Cellar in San Francisco. The event had been on hiatus for a few years and returned just this May. I caught up with the two Vallejo natives to ask them about their party (including its "funky freestyle jam") and other aspects of the hip-hop DJ music they both so passionately love. They, like many other diehards, spell "skratch" with a K.

Amoeblog: Can you run down the history of Skratchpad -- from the first time out to the revised 2009 version?

Deeandroid: We started Skratchpad at the (old) Sublounge in May 2003. The Resident DJs were Celskiii, Wint-One, Amerriica and myself. We had a desire to organize and start up an open turntable event, since the Bay Area is like a DJ mecca. We loved to skratch and party and really missed the inspiration from when they had night events like the Beat Lounge at Deco. Celskiii and myself
were very influenced by the Beat Lounge weekly party/DJ session that was held at Deco back in 1997, where we [were] exposed to a great selection of rare & original music from DJs that were very talented, guests and rotating DJ residents/turntablists that were making some noise in the DJ scene at that time. The showcases and DJ sets were amazing, from cats like Apollo, Vin Roc, Derrick D, Shortkut, Spydamonkey, Snaykeyes, etc. So when Beat Lounge stopped...years later, Cel, Winst-One and I thought it would be dope if we created our own space for the DJs in the Bay Area to network, come together, and just jam in honor of Beat Lounge and to inspire new heads and practitioners of the DJ arts.