Artist: Madlocks, Album: Rap Essentials 2000, Song: Check Out The Bazaar

Madlocks was a Toronto hip hop artist and producer that began releasing material in the late nineties.  He worked as a producer for such acts as Michie Mee and Ghetto Concept (see blog 11/12/10) before releasing his own album in 1999 entitled, Nothing To Lose Much To Gain, with Beat Factory Records.  As far as I am aware, this was his only full length release, though he did release a number of singles through various Beat Factory compilations like this one, Rap Essentials.  In 2000, the Rap Essentials compilation included one of his tracks called, Check Out The Bazaar, which reminds me a lot of an old Roots' track called, Distortion to Static.  Beat Factory was a pivotal label for black music in Canada.  There weren't many urban radio stations and the only outlets for hip hop and r&b were college radio as well as video stations like Much Music.  Artists like K-OS, Ghetto Concept, Kardinal Offishall and the Rascalz all released singles through this label.  They were also responsible for getting major label distribution for artists like Michie Mee and the Dream Warriors.  Unfortunately, a lot of the work of artists like Madlocks are lost treasures today because of the out of print status on all of these compilations.  For many of these artists, this was the only output they had. So if you enjoy rap music and can find copies, they are definitely worth hanging on to.  At the time of this blog, there were numerous copies at Amazon trading between $1 and $100.  You can hear the song, Check Out The Bazaar, on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XxvaUDqZso).  Thanks for reading and enjoy!