Hip Hop Connection #1 (1988)

I mentioned a few weeks back about posting up some articles from my old Hip Hop Connection magazines. Well, I finally got round to sorting them all out, and to my own amazement, I was surprised to find I've got near enough every edition up to #50. There's the odd gap (I need #5 to complete the first 25 - if anyone's got a spare, please let me know), but I couldn't believe I still had that many, and all in pretty good nick considering the early ones are now twenty years old!

So, every month I'm gonna go through each edition and post up scans of any interesting articles, adverts, or reviews.

Now, Issues 1 and 2 aren't numbered but I'm fairly sure this one came first - if anyone remembers differently please correct me. It's a pretty good start as it goes, with features on Public Enemy, EPMD, First Priority Music, Demon Boyz, Stetsasonic, Big Daddy Kane, Marley Marl, De La Soul, Run DMC, etc...and a couple of dope adverts for B-Boy Records and Stetsasonic's 'In Full Gear' LP. It's quite interesting to read articles with artists talking about classic records at the time of release, instead of from a retrospective point of view. There's nothing particularly in depth, and probably not a great deal you don't already know, but the fact that these pieces were written at the peek of Hip Hop's 'Golden Era' when most of these artists were at their creative apex, makes for a good read and well worth archiving on the internet.

I've scanned in all the pages that I found interesting and if you click the thumbnails below you'll be able to enlarge them to a readable scale. Enjoy...



Run DMC / Independent labels


First Priority Music / Big Daddy Kane / Kool Moe Dee


Tim Westwood / E.P.M.D.


Public Enemy / Demon Boyz


De La Soul / Marley Marl / Drum Machines


Stetsasonic