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Nervous Records, the

seminal label that brought Hip-Hop the first releases from Black Moon as well as hits from Mad Lion, Smif-N-Wessun and others, is re-entering the Hip-Hop game.Founded in 1991, the company achieved massive success with the Nervous label as well as several other imprints, including Wreck and Weeded. The ground work they laid helped spawn other similar labels, like the influential Rawkus Records.“Obviously, we had a lot of success back in the 1990’s,” Nervous President Michael Weiss told AllHipHop.com. “One thing our label always focused on was local talent, trying to blow it up. There’s been a real lull of local talent in the past couple of years. If you go to the stores, there are a lot of white labels on the wall, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing the marketing and promotion that needs to get done. I just feel like there’s a void right now.”To help fill that space, Nervous will release new material from EPMD, Shyheim, Poison Pen and Funkmaster Flex.“The bigger companies are obviously consolidating and there are a lot of tiny artist driven labels,” Weiss continued. “But, I don’t see any labels doing it like real labels, like with the whole set-up and the back-up. I feel we can fit that niche. We’re going to kind of do it the same way that we did

Nervous in the past. We’re going to get the 12”s out to the DJs.”In addition to the artists’ new releases, Nervous will drop two compilations, Nervous Reanimated and a PMD/Hit Squad compilation. A tour that will feature all of the Hip-Hop acts on the label will follow.“It’s strictly ground level, hitting all the stores from Boston to the Carolinas, doing all the local clubs, and really trying to do it grassroots,” Weiss said. “Hopefully, we will get the same kind of success.”Weiss said that with mergers and the current climate of Hip-Hop music, the time was right for Nervous to reintroduce themselves to a new generation of Hip-Hop enthusiasts.“When we blew up in the past, it was MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and strictly the West Coast,” Weiss noted. “The East Coast was dead. With Crunk blowing up, it’s kind of the same way now. Where are the Brooklyn and the Bronx groups that had taken it national? They need the back-up; you need the label to help do it and that’s what we’re going to try to.”The first three releases from the label are singles. Shyheim’s

“21st Century Crisis/There She Goes” hits stores tomorrow. Poison

Pen’s “I’m F*cking You Up b/w Inner City Hoodlum” drops

September 14, 2004, while EPMD/PMD’s Danger Zone/The Truth hits stores on September 28, 2004.