The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper
The scrapbook party rockers are asking heads in their network and whoever else is in possession of relevant goods to bring items to be digitally archived, so that all eras and elements of the culture can be represented and catalogued for future generations—for research purposes, sure, but primarily so that their contributions can be scanned in stone.
I interviewed Kool Gee the day after he rocked Wally’s. At his request, we met at the place where the TDS Mob story begins—the stoop of the old Tower Records on the corner of Newbury Street and Mass Ave. From there, he took me back to 1989, when TDS ran the calendar with a year of rap perfection.
"He was gone before his time ... People didn’t really get to experience his full potential like we did … He was right on the cusp of doing some even bigger stuff musically [that] could have been commercially successful.”
With the publication of Check the Technique Volume 2 on October 14, Coleman puts forth an impressive 544 pages and 25 chapters of new material, complete with more than 350 images for 80 interviews with rap legends ranging from Ice Cube and 3rd Bass, to Stetasonic and Mantronix, to MF Doom and Mos Def.
Like so much history about communities of color, the narrative of Boston hip-hop has been largely buried, ignored, forgotten. Thankfully, there remain innumerable artists, writers, fans, and even academics who, in the storytelling tradition rap music is rooted in, have kept dope alive via marvelous multimedia tributes. This whole package is dedicated to them.
I interviewed Kool Gee the day after he rocked Wally’s. At his request, we met at the place where the TDS Mob story begins—the stoop of the old Tower Records on the corner of Newbury Street and Mass Ave. From there, he took me back to 1989, when TDS ran the calendar with a year of rap perfection.
