Kaliphz were a hip-hop crew from Rochdale, formed by 2-Phaan (Mush Khan) and Jabba Da Hype (Jabbar Khan), back when they were making sharp, politically charged UK rap instead of being slowly dragged into the music industry’s pop mincer. Then the mid-90s got hold of them. Suddenly they’re renamed Kaleef because nothing screams “authentic underground hip-hop” quite like a shiny rebrand and a desperate lunge for Radio 1 daytime rotation. And just to complete the corporate vandalism, along comes Pete Waterman to “help”. Yes, the very same hit-factory wizard responsible for turning half of late-80s pop into beige chart wallpaper. The result? A hip-hop/pop remake of “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers. Because apparently the missing ingredient in northern UK rap was a Stock-Aitken-Waterman-adjacent cover of a wistful 1981 new wave song. But before all that industry meddling and focus-group nonsense, there was a moment when Kaliphz still felt properly dangerous. On 18 March 1994 they tore t...