Milwaukee's Dope Folks Records launched several years ago with the mission of pressing rare, unreleased and long-of-print hip-hop to vinyl; in the process they've revealed how vast and rich the genre's vaults are. Most of their releases are from '80s and '90s rappers without much name recognition, acts like Poetic Menace and Reggie Capers, but a couple of their upcoming releases have a little bit of star power working in their favor.
Their next release is a reissue of the forgotten compilation X-Ray Presents: Monster Mixes, which includes tracks by Darc Mind, Kong and, most prominently, MF Doom, who contributes a very cool remix of "Doomsday."
After that, the label will release the first half of the shelved 1996 solo album by New Jersey rapper Young Zee, Musical Meltdown. There's a lot of history around this one: Zee ran in the same circles as D12 and The Fugees, and his group Outsidaz was featured on a track on The Score (it's widely believed that Zee also ghostwrote some of Pras's raps for that album). Those Fugee ties are apparent on Musical Meltdown; the first half even features a very prominent Lauryn Hill feature on "Stay Gold." (The second half features solid spots from KRS-One, Busta Rhymes and Redman, suggesting the record could have found a good audience had it been released as scheduled; instead it was torpedoed by a brutal two-mic advance review in The Source).
Neither release has ever been issued on vinyl before. You can stream Monster Mixes and Musical Meltdown: Part 1 in their entirety on YouTube, and pre-order both from Dope Folks' site. "Stay Gold" is embedded below.
