With tomorrow being the 16th anniversary of The Notorious B.I.G.’s untimely passing, Tim Westwood unearthed some rare footage of Biggie and Diddy Puff Daddy performing at the Hammersmith Palais in London on March 19th, 1995. Check the impressive footage (the audio is better than 75% of the clips we see today, in 2013) of the two running through countless classics.

This past Saturday I hit up The Joint to check out Nas & Damian Marley do their thing during the Vegas stop of their Distant Relatives Tour. While I feel the show would have been 10x better in a smaller venue (House of Blues, etc) I still left satisfied. Since then my playlist has been heavily influenced by their respective catalogs. So in light of Distant Relatives, lets bring it back to their first collaboration off Damian’s third album, Welcome to Jamrock. And as a bonus I included one of my favorite joints to see Nas perform live. Although seeing the pain and passion put into the last verse of Strong Will Continue, I might have to reevaluate that.

DOWNLOAD: Damian Marley – Road to Zion f. Nas | Mediafire

BONUS: Nas – Hate Me Now f. Puff Daddy | Mediafire

It’s been close to three months since I dropped Volume 2. And honestly, I had this concept and tracklist set about a week after that. But since I’ve been busy (2dbz, moving, vacation, etc) I couldn’t get it up until now. Anyways, as the title suggest this is a special edition of What’s in the Shakedeck. This time around I put together a collection of some of my favorite songs off New York artists’ solo debut albums. The mix features Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas, Rakim, Fabolous, Ja Rule, Big Pun, Method Man, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Big L, Cam’ron, DMX, Pharoahe Monch and more. Hit the jump…

Rae chops it up with MTV about the long standing rumors that Puffy wanted to sign him & Ghost to Bad Boy.

“I heard that too,” Rae said. “We did a show at the Palladium [years back], and Puff had security with him that was from Staten Island. When we got back to Staten Island, we bump into the kid, and he told us while he was up there performing, Puff said, ‘I need them two. What I gotta do?’ He was excited about working with us [and] signing us too. I don’t know why it ain’t happen, either. You never know. Maybe he may want to do that now. I’m independent, baby. So let’s get it right. Let’s cut them checks, Puff. We know what time it is!”

Yea, I can see it now… Jada and The LOX threaten to throw refrigerators at Diddy while Rae & Ghost put in some box cutter action. Somethings are better left the way they panned out to be. OB4CL2 is in stores now, after a Top 5 debut on the charts… support!

From every liquor store to bodega across the country anybody could walk in at any given time and hear that monster track bleeding through the airwaves. When Puff said he couldn’t and wouldn’t stop, we actually believed him to. And the instrumental is still a freestyler’s favorite.

Rocking one of these shirts is bad enough, but rocking fake versions of these shits? Someone’s parents lost.

Nope Mariah isn’t in the song, oh well. Bonus cut off that Ego Trippin, dropping this Tuesday. What are people’s thoughts on the album? I haven’t given it enough spins to give a proper critique yet (the life of a bootlegger haha). And just like the RZA post below, I’ve included a special bonus. Snoop & Diddy’s tribute to BIG at the 2005 VMA’s.

DOWNLOAD: Snoop Dogg – Nobody Better (Bonus)
BONUS: Snoop Dogg & Puff Daddy Biggie Tribute (Video)