Showbiz: Can I Get a Soul Clap?

This is the last part of the DITC posts. Tonight I'm gonna talk about Showbiz. There's not really a lot of info on him. He was kind of low key considering how much of an influnece he had on putting New York back on the map, but I will try and do my best to school you...

Showbiz lived a few blocks aways from Diamond D and they started chillin with each other, because they both had extensive knowledge of breaks and beats. They meet in 1982 and just worked together gettin' there skills up. They finally came up with the whole concept of DITC and got Fat Joe and Finesse and AG together to form the crew. They all lived real close so that is how they knew about each other.

Show and AG became partners and started promoting there joints on the street and making sales out the back of there trunks. They hit up mad record stores and they started to get a demand for their records. The sales from this self promotion and distribution financed there first single, "Soul Clap" b/w "Party Groove". It was played in the clubs all over and got mad love on Yo MTV Raps. At the time there was that corny party rap nonsense and Show and AG came with some real rugged soulful shit that put the Bronx back on the map and pretty much started the whole East Coast style of rap that we know today.

In 1992 they relesased a self-titled LP. Then after that they made there debut album "Runaway Slave" in the fall of '92. The production on the album had the ill loud drums, and the dope jazzy horns, that built on their peers, like Gangstarr and Pete Rock's type production. They were mainly focused on a deep drum track, with horn loops and piano stabs or strings layered in to make deep, hardcore beats. The beats could rock a party, while appealing to the more rugged cats in the back nodding their heads. This album was a DITC group effort that brought the likes of Big L, Fat Joe, and Diamond D to the world. Big L's first appearance was on this record.

Diamond D's album, "Stunts, Blunts, and Hip Hop" dropped the same week as theirs, to solidify the DITC crew's status as pioneers of the East Coast sound and Hip Hop's "middle school". After this album they dropped "Goodfellas", but it wasnt really critically accalamied. It was a good album, with the lead single, "Next Level" that was remixed by Premo. But that was really the only track that made any noise. Show and AG then did the DITC album in 2000 and both contributed a lot to the whole album. Another aight album, but nothing really spectacular.

All in all, Showbiz' production with his trademark horns and drums, added a lot to the foundation of DITC. The crew had the talented producers and the ill emcees that really made them a bad ass group of motherfuckers, and brought the boombap to hip hop again.

Soul Clap
Represent - ft. Big L
You Want It? ft. Diamond D