Half A Mil | The T.R.O.Y. Blog

Posts Tagged ‘half a mil’

Demo: Half A Mill – Fast Money & Foreign Objects

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Download the mp3 here where I did my best to fix the sound quality a bit.

Hahaa… Yet another raw as all hell Half A Mill demo has surfaced and I remember loving this one upon first listen years ago. And again, straight off a WNYU radio show rip and most likely from that ever so elusive 1995 Half A Mill demo tape. In this era of unreleased material getting pressed up, this one is at the top of a lot of our lists and has been for quite a while. I wish someone would get on that already, I mean, what better time?

And make no mistake, this is indeed one of Half A Mill’s greatest joints, in my opinion¹. (more…)

A lot of people highly rate Half A Mill’s two “official” LPs but I honestly don’t. After hearing some of these demos, his first 12″, and all those freestyles from WNYU, those albums were straight doo doo in comparison, aside from a few joints on each one. My opinion, that’s all. [↩]

Tags:1995, demo, half a mil, half a mill, radio show, verge, WNYU, youtube
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Half A Mill – The Project Prophet (R.I.P.)

Friday, July 31st, 2009

DJ Mike Nice recently uncovered this 1995 demo and brought it to the T.R.O.Y. forum fam.

Even if you have it already, download it again. I slowed it down a bit. For some reason, certain cassettes recorded at a slower rate which made the music sound a little faster than it was intended to sound.

Take a quick listen and start to understand what makes Half A Mil’s mid 90′s material so coveted-

Half A Mil – In The Projects (1995 demo)

[Download here or at the bottom of the page with everything in one folder.]

I remember having that and a few other Half A Mill demos from college radio, back in the day. I had a few of his legendary freestyles, too, but my WNYU tapes were always full of static because of their weak radio signal. I used to have the ill hook up for taping from 89.1. Hanger attached to the antenna with aluminum foil, and I had to hold the radio and point the antenna a certain way to get halfways decent reception. And still, right when you think you got it perfect, you hear some static start to creep in. And you either hope it doesn’t get worse or start moving around just a little, hoping to get some clarity.

Anyway, I’ve probably listened to this demo over 30 times since Mike uploaded it. Shit is amazing. Lines like these put Half in the upper echolons of underground legends with the likes of the Natural Elements and Godfather Don:

“I’m from the projects, the pyramids

each room is a tomb, crack babies and boom,

we call jakes Legion of Doom, executioners, sorcerors,

modern day extortioners, they job is enforcing us…”

Moving right along, we’re going to bring you a folder of freestyles, the Project Prophet mixtape, another unknown track and Half A Mill’s self produced independent 12″ release.

Half A Mill Productions 12″ Vinyl Single

A1 – Any Day Can Be Ya Last (Vocal)

A2 – Homicide Scene (Vocal)

B1 – Any Day Can Be Ya Last (Instrumental)

B2 – Homicide Scene (Instrumental)

[Download VLS here]

The Project Prophet Mixtape

[Download Mixtape Here]

And here’s another Half A Mill track that I caught over at HipHopGiant.blogspot.com. It says that it’s off of a bootleg EP. It’s listed as Executioner’s Song and the quality was really bassed out, where you couldn’t make out the lyrics too well. I did my best to fix it up and make the lyrics audible. I have no clue when this song is from. A ballpark guess would be that this was recorded sometime between 1995 and 1998.

Half A Mill – Executioner’s Song

[Download here or at bottom of page with everything in one folder]

Now, we’re going to move right on into the radio freestyles that also helped secure Half A Mill’s place in my personal underground legend hall of fame.In all, we have 12 separate freestyles. The first five were uploaded straight from WNYU cassettes by Nes over at DirtyWaters. There are some classic verses on these, don’t sleep. There is also a freestyle that was separated from the Roots 30 minute session at WNYU, that was posted here. There’s one from a DJ Lazy K mixtape from 1998, called Justo Allstars freestyle. There’s also one that’s apparently from an old Stretch& Bobbito show and one that I have no idea of it’s origins. And another 3 with

with Nature, courtesy of Hustle The Block.

Half A Mill WNYU Freestyle 1996

[Download the freestyle folder here.]

Personally, I wasn’t too pleased with his two albums, but alot of people were. I thought they were really lacking on the beat tip. His label didn’t do him justice either, hardly anybody even knew the albums dropped when they did. Check one of them out at Steady Bloggin’.

For the record, if you didn’t know, Half A Mill was found shot to death in his apartment in 2003.

RIP

[Download everything from this blog post, in one folder here .]

[Back up link]

The back up link doesn’t have those 3 freestyles with Nature in it.

Thanks to dirtywaters, boogzthedon, itzmurda, Hip Hop Giant, Hustle The Block,

Dj Mike Nice, and K-Funkadelic.

Let’s hope DJ Scratch properly releases that Half A Mill demo tape, already.

–Verge

Tags:demo, dj mike nice, freestyles, half a mil, mixtape, single, verge, vinyl
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »

30 Minute Classic Freestyle Session

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

The Roots provided the live music for this freestyle session on WNYU sometime in the mid 90′s.

The sound quality isn’t as good as it could’ve been, being that I’m sure there weren’t enough mics to properly set up and record. But still,this session is illll!

I’ll do my best to list who all are rhyming here-Â

Sadat X, L-Swift(Natural Elements), Lord Tariq(Money Boss Players),Â

Dice Raw,Â Brotha Jeff X, Black Thought,Â Half A Mil(RIP), Dutchess,

After Dutchess,I can’t call it. I know The Roots get back on the mic, but that’s all I can say for sure. The cats are pretty amped and yelling a lot at this point. If you can name everyone after Dutchess, leave a list in the comments. The beat changes up 4 times throughout the session. All Roots renditions of classic beats we all know and love.

Download here and enjoy.

Thanks to boogzthedon for uploading this at the T.R.O.Y. forum

–Verge

Tags:half a mil, l-swift, money boss players, sadat x, the roots, verge
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Sample Compilation 3

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

Here’s some more exceptional rap shit that sampled some exceptional funk, soul, jazz shit. The way Godfather Don flipped the Betty Davis singing was genius. The John Klemmer horns that the SD50′s lifted for “Leave Ya With This” are viral,at the least. And Half A Mill(RIP). “Homicide Scene” is probably one of my favorite obscure rap songs of all time. Graphic street drama with a message at it’s best. The Roy Ayers song it sampled and the Bohannon song are also remarkable tracks on this comp.

01. Bohannon – Song For My Mother

02. Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs – I Got To Have It

03. The Robbery And The Chase

04. Shabazz The Disciple – Crime Saga

05. Roy Ayers – Every Time I See You

06. Half A Mil - Homicide Scene

07. Jigmastas – Iz You Dee

08. Ahmad Jamal – Don’t Ask My Neighbors

09. Cover – Underground Flow(remix)

10. Betty Davis – Anti Love Song

11. Godfather Don – Piece Of The Action

12. John Klemmer – Free Soul