The Street Intellect

November 20, 1993
WRFL (88.1 FM)
Lexington, KY, USA (University of Kentucky)

This is a cassette taped off of the FM radio station WRFL 88.1 in Lexington, KY. This is a student-run college radio station belonging to University of Kentucky (UK).

Based on the dates written on the cassette, this recording was made on either November 20th, 1993, November 23rd, 1993, or November 24th, 1993.

WRFL's late night show (12AM to 3AM), run by Sami Ibrahim from 1993 to 1998 appears to be the earliest hip hop radio station in Lexington. This cassette was lent to me by him to digitize. In this recording, he plays many early 90s rap songs while discussing things like "A band that is the most talked about, in the underground scene right now, the Wu-Tang Clan, and their new album Enter The Wu-Tang 36 Chambers" before playing "The Mystery of Chessboxin'" and also mentioning "Snoop Doggy Dogg & DAS EFX's new albums."

This seems to be one recording, due to how smooth it is, and how the times correlate, "it's 12:15", towards the beginning, and, "It's straight up 1:00" towards the end. The B-side has 11/24/93, sharpied on the shell. The front, A-side, has "WEEK ENDING 11/20/93" printed on the label, but has also been sharpied with "11/23", so this recording could be from any of the 3 dates.

You can hear bits of a show called Counterspin in the background, as it had been recorded over.

Track Listing
  • (lead in) Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cortez the Killer (Fading out in the first 10 seconds)
  • Hoodratz - Sneeke Muthafukaz
  • The Whooliganz - Put Your Handz Up
  • The Wu-Tang Clan - Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'
  • Juvenile Committee - Livin' In The Ghetto
  • DAS EFX - Straight Up Sewaside Album Intro
  • DAS EFX - Undaground Rappa
  • RAW Breed - Hit 'Em Wit A Pie
  • DAS EFX - Gimme Dat Micraphone
  • Doug E. Fresh - I-Ight (Alright)
  • Leaders Of The New School - Classic Material
  • Snoop Doggy Dogg - Murder Was The Case
  • Blood Of Abraham - I'm Not The Man
  • Geto Boys - Six Feet Deep
  • YG'z - Itchy Trigger Finger
  • A Tribe Called Quest - God Lives Through
  • YG'z - Street N***a (Do or Die)
  • Paris - The Devil Made Me Do It (short beat)
  • ? (Instrumental DJ commentary is over)

- Hip-Hop Archive

  • DJs/Hosts: Sami Ibrahim
  • Archive notes: "The 24-bit WAV file included has the leaders cut off, with only a slight pause to indicate to the listener that they are about to hear the B-side. The recording is a bit noisy and "grimy", coming from a worn out tape, but still sounds pretty good. The tape is a Type II chrome cassette, so that helps with bass reproduction and sound quality compared to if this had been off of a Type I. After all, "we know it's late, but this is for true hip-hoppers, you know?""
  • Credit: Hip-Hop Archive (source)
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