Over the last several years of putting music together I've picked the slim but brilliant oeuvre of The Notorious B.I.G. pretty clean, but this week I've found a few obscurities that never made a weekly mix. First, a rare demo called "Microphone Murderer" with Biggie rapping over the backing track from Big Daddy Kane's "Ain't No Half Steppin''", then one of his posthumous collaborations called "Dangerous MC's" with Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg and finally the remix of Mary J Blige's early hit "Real Love" featuring a cameo by Biggie well before his first album.
I also have a version of "Real Love" by The Twilight Singers. Other songs featured this week include both the demo and album version of Boris Gardiner's Jamaican blaxploitation track "Every Nigger Is A Star", as well as the more popular version by Big Youth along with Glen Campbell's cover of "Sadly Beautiful" by The Replacements to accompany their demo version here.
The rest: the spirited "Mandinka" by Sinead O'Connor, the sly "Rock The Casbah" by The Clash, Mtume's sweet "Juicy Fruit", Alice Cooper's catchy "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the dramatic "Disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins, dj Gary Byrd's politically conscious "Are You Ready For Black Power", Gang Starr's jazzy "Who's Gonna Take The Weight", Ann Peebles' funky "I Can't Stand The Rain". Nina Simone's swinging "Go To Hell", Robert Plant's version of the traditional "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down", an unplugged version of "Girl" by T. Rex, the melodic "Falling Through The Roof" by Horse Feathers and the bittersweet "Hope She'll Be Happier" by Bill Withers.
