Firstly, please accept my sincerest apologies.  6 months is too long to go without a post, but once again, real life got in the way.

I’m about to re-start things with a mini UK hip-hop series.  Now, before you get too excited, I need to let you know a couple of things…

1)      UK hip-hop is not necessarily my forte.  I estimate that I own approximately 50 albums from UK hip-hop artists – a drop in the ocean of my 5000+ CD/tape/record collection.  Therefore, I am no authority on this genre (despite having been born and raised in the UK), and if you’re looking for a particular record or awaiting a particular album posting, then I’m afraid the chances are you might be disappointed, as I’m likely to either not own it, or plain not know about it.

2)      Postings from any hip-hop subgenre will be in accordance to this blog’s general spirit, i.e. the record(s) will either be out-of-print, downright obscure, or truly worthy of posting and promotion.  Therefore, much as I love him, I won’t be posting any Dizzee Rascal, for example.  Instead, I got some banging Silent Eclipse lined up…

So, as for Hijack…

Initially starting out as a strictly DJ trio, the original incarnation of Hijack, circa 1986 consisted of DJ Supreme, MC Ron (later named Kamanchi Sly, or just Kamanchi) and DJ Undercover as The Turntable Trixters.  Having rocked more than a few London hip-hop parties, MC Ron turned his hand to…MC’ing…and adopted the name Kamanchi.

1987 is where things get sketchy for me, as the trio evidently picked up members Ulysses, Agent Fritz and Agent Clueso, and promptly changed their name (with “Hijack” apparently picked out of the blue by DJ Undercover).

Fast forward to 1988, and “Style Wars” dropped on Music of Life Records, and proved to be a moderate hit for the group, not just locally, but throughout wider Europe too, thanks to its hard-hitting, abrasive sound:

The double single “Hold No Hostage / Doomsday of Rap” followed “Style Wars”, and were equally critically-acclaimed:

It was these three landmark records that set the stage for what happened next – a rarity in UK hip-hop, as they were snapped up by none other than Ice-T and signed to his Rhyme Syndicate imprint of Warner, under which “Hold No Hostage / Doomsday of Rap” was promptly repackaged and re-released as part of their 1989 Rhyme Syndicate EP “The Badman is Robbin’”:

Work promptly started on their debut LP The Horns of Jericho, slated for a 1991 US release.  However, Warner decided not to run with the record, and it was never officially released Stateside.  In the pre-digital era where ‘filesharing’ was limited to the primitive art of ‘tape swapping’, The Horns of Jericho remained a largely UK/European phenomenon, yet to this day, US heads still bump it, as an artefact of some of the hardest, most progressive UK hip-hop of its time.

Nowadays, the LP is pretty hard to find, and CDs less so.  Still, CD prices can be exorbitant, at as  much as $500 Stateside, yet the domestic (UK) market is a little more lenient, with CDs on offer for somewhere in the region of £40-50.

You can, of course, peep it here at oophiphop, so do enjoy:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD HIJACK – HORNS OF JERICHO (1991)

PS:  following the shelving of The Horns of Jericho in the US, Hijack soon disbanded, and its members have since been involved in numerous record-label and DJ-ing ventures, across the UK, Europe, and the US.  Most notably (and perhaps tragically), Kamanchi later teamed up with his brother The DJ Pied Piper – under the name Unknown MC – and unfortunately lent his vocals to this, and his production skills to this.