It may seem a little odd, reviewing a radio show which is 23 years old. You’d be right, it is, but the tapes keep piling up and the never-ending assembly line of great music, on-air exclusives, station ID’s and advertisements require some kind of attention.
The first thing to acknowledge on this tape is the quality of the DJ, Owen D. Owen was relatively unknown outside of the Manchester area, but as he became THE support act of choice for a lot of oversees artists that toured Northern England, the artists and audiences both came to realise that this guy was a true talent behind the decks. Owen D was loose, dropping doubles and rewinds on the regular.
The 2nd is not the music contained on the tape, there are some great tunes, there are some god awful tunes both English and American [Danny D] seemed to cover both sides of that, but what excited us was hearing the short promos from artists like Doug E Fresh, Busy Bee, YZ [Peace, yeh, and Good Sex?!!], MC Serge and several from varied members of Ultramagnetic. These were undoubtedly recorded in a corridor just off the central reservation of activity at the New Music Seminar that year, an event that alerted the world to new talent within the industry.
One of the main reasons we get hyped for these dusty old shows is the simplicity of the time capsule thing. Sometimes listening back can put you back in that period of your life and kick off some great memories, that’s enough for us. We enjoy the music as well but the spark is key. Listen out for some great music from Hardnoise [No Leaky, it wasn’t produced by Norman Cook], from Three Times Dope, there’s a great reminder of the power of KRS lyrics [‘Are you ashamed, of original black? If you’re not, why does your hair look like that? Why is your nose straighter, from surgery? I think you’re really in a state of emergency’] and you’ll have a chance to win a Sunset FM Polo shirt, again.
An artist by the name of S-Flow [we think] mentions a hook-up with Conscious Music Records/ Fresh Ski & Mo Rock and drops an excitable freestyle.
Leaky Fresh also gets very excitable at times, making Gary Nevilles antics sound like a christening at one point.
RANDOM RAP RADIO 