LISTEN TO THE SNIPPETS HERE
 
 
 
I love a drop where the artist hits me up. There's something special about a talented cat reaching out to get his project released through Herring. Musa aka Howard Lloyd hit me up with a DAT transfer of joints that had previously been lost in time. They eventually showed up 30 years later after much digging and boy, was it worth the wait.
 
Cats will probably know Musa from his solo stuff as Howard Lloyd, his work in Sputnik Brown as well as his 90's crew House of Reps featuring Wyld Bunch.  Dude has been a fixture on the Long Island and NY scene since the early 90s. He recorded his first demos in 1994 at the legendary Firehouse Studios and here for your listening pleasure, we have 4 tracks and 3 dub versions from those sessions including one mixed by our man C-12. The remaining 3 tracks on this stunning 10 tracker are by his crew House of Reps and were recorded down in GA in 96.
 
Props to Musa for reaching out and for the incredible music. 
 
300 copies only - 
 
 
Peep this short interview:
 
 
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in North Babylon, Long Island.  A real hotspot during the Golden Age of hip hop.  LL Cool J, and Freddie Foxx lived right on the next street from me. Rakim , Sid and B-Tonn, and Too Poetic just a lil ways down the street.  

What are your earliest memories of the culture?
Honestly it was "Rappers Delight".  I was about 6 years old.  The OG track was like 10 mins long with non stop rhyming.  Me and all my friends tried to remember it before everyone else.  It also connected because Nile Rodgers is my dads first cousin.  My dad told me "he wrote it", I was too young to understand he wrote the music.  I just thought I could do it from that point.

What came first, mcing or producing?
Emceeing was definitely first.  It started by taking Run-DMC rhymes and personalizing it with my own stuff.  So that's relatively early...10-11 years old.  I didn't have access to pro drum machines and such.  But my fathers family is really into music...so I did have a star studio, a casio sk-1 and a synsonic drum.  I didn't really get into making beats seriously until I got to college.  So it was basically just writing for years.

First bit of gear?
An Akai s900.  I told my mother I was going to drop out of college if she didn't buy me a SP1200.  She called my bluff but that same day they were giving out credit cards to students in the student union.  I went right to Rogue Music and copped the S900.  Used an Alesis MMT8 to sequence.
 
How did the Firehouse Sessions come about? Did you know someone down there?
Were you on an hourly rate?
I always studied liner notes.  Firehouse had produced some of my favorite records for years.  Top Billin, Paper Thin, Step in the Arena, Masta Ace Slaughterhouse etc.  Around the time I was going to do my demo - I looked at my favorite studios and called them up for rates.  Firehouse had the hits and was pretty affordable.  I was hourly rate.  It was like $40 an hour if i recall correctly.  At my first session they had Blaise Dupuy as my engineer.  I had seen his name on Masta Ace album so I was excited.  
 
Did you push the tracks to get them released?
Any interest?
I definitely shopped it around.  A few folks liked it - Jive and Relativity showed interest.  But really it pushed me towards production more.  The tape ended up leading to other artistic relationships.  I ended up working with an artist named Aqui who released a tune through Priority Records... that led to more production based work.  

How did the House of Reps project come about?
House of Reps started as me and a long time childhood friend.  The group had 3 members:  me, Beats Boom and 25 to Life.  Virg had family in Brooklyn and Life lived on the same block as his family.  I had an SP1200/S900, a Mackie mix board and an ADAT machine.  We would record in my parents' basement.  Guru actually wanted to sign us to his Ill Kid label but we passed on it.  I wanted to be taken to Payday.  House of Reps moved to Atlanta, recorded about an albums worth of material and self released a single that got some spins and underground airplay. 25 to Life is now better known as Wyld Bunch.  He has recorded with a virtual who's who of underground hip hop.  I have released records under the names Howard Lloyd, DCNY and Sputnik Brown.