Listen: Mistadobalina (Radio Edit) / Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
Mistadobalina (Radio Edit) / Del Tha Funkee Hoosapien

When I started The Medicine Label in early ’92, we were distributed by Warner Brothers for the UK. My first trip to meet the London office turned out to be a collectors dream come true. First off, Gary Crowley had just joined their A&R staff. Like myself, he’d worked at Island prior and also recently migrated.

Day one, Gary takes me to lunch at Bill Wyman’s then new Sticky Fingers Cafe, only a few blocked away from the WB building in Kensington. Now this was some place for both a Rolling Stones fan and general collector alike. Every wall space literally covered with memorabilia: gold record plaques, trade ads and pictures sleeves, hand bills, posters, ticket stubs. The guy saved everything. Sticky Fingers became a favorite stop for a few years. Food was on the dodgy side for a vegetarian, but the scenery made up for it.

Back at the office, Gary walks me through to the head of radio promotion, who’s already been informed of my vinyl issues. He opens his cabinets and says, “take what you want, in fact, take the lot, we don’t get much call for 7′s.” Well, you need only ask me once. His back catalogue was deep, and so I grab one of everything (minimum). A few hundred 45′s later went into the international pouch and got shipped home.

Over the next few weeks, I’d made my way through the lot, and a few things became one-play favorites, like ‘Mistadobalina’. This record probably hasn’t aged as historically well as hoped for, which might explain it’s appeal to me. I definitely have vanilla tastes when it comes to rap.