DJ Marvel – Heavy Warmup 17 by Ayres Haxton on hearthis.at
DJ Marvel delivers the Essential Mix of Heavy Warmup, clocking in at 100 minutes! As always with The Freshest, expect an impeccable selection of hip-hop, R&B, dancehall and classics, tons of clever ideas, and funky cuts.
By all accounts the hardest thing about growing old is that all your friends die. Every time you lose someone who touched you, you’re a little better equipped – no less sad, but more prepared to process the grief. But this one really hurts. A Tribe Called Quest meant everything to us when we were growing up, really informing our tastes and personalities. I never met Phife Dawg – weirdly he’s the only person from A Tribe Called Quest who I never met, I guess because he lived in Atlanta – but he always struck me as a real sincere, sweet man. Michael Rappaport’s excellent documentary “Beats, Rhymes & Life” confirmed this impression and shined a light on Phife’s line “when was the last time you heard a funky diabetic.” That wasn’t just a punchline, it was a twenty-five year struggle that killed him in the end.
Phife was the consummate punchline rapper, bringing a playfulness that perfectly complimented Q-Tip’s more serious leanings. But they weren’t Flavor Flav and Chuck D – Phife wasn’t a hype man, he was a brilliant wordsmith and a beast of a rapper. Somehow he was able to be hilarious and at the same time bring his full personality through, cutting through the boasting and battling with the unique perspective of a guy from Queens with roots in Trinidad who loved his grandparents, obsessed over sports, sometimes struck out with girls – a truly relatable everyman in a genre of self-proclaimed superheros.
Let’s all celebrate his life and listen to A Tribe Called Quest records. If you want more, dig into these mixes, which all feature Phife Dawg:
DJ Eleven & DJ Ayres – Spitkicker Collabos Volume 2 by Ayres Haxton on hearthis.at
Eleven & Ayres – Spitkicker Collabos 1 by Djeleven on Mixcloud
The History of Hip Hop 1993 by Brooklyn Radio on hearthis.at
The History of Hip Hop 1991 by Brooklyn Radio on hearthis.at
Brooklyn Radio has uploaded all of our Hip-Hop History mixes to Hearthis.at, which allows streams and downloads. Get em here: http://www.itstherub.com/category/history-of-hip-hop/
We’ve been traveling a ton, which has given us a chance to catch up on the avalanche of new albums that came out in the last month or two. We probably don’t need to tell you about Rihanna and Future and Kendrick and Kanye, so here are a few other records which we’ve had on repeat:
Club Cheval is a French supergroup of young producers: Canblaster, Sam Tiba, Panteros666 and Myd. The first time I heard any of them was Canblaster’s remix for Style of Eye “Homeless” (2010), which is still ahead of its time, then his even more bonkers remix of Drop the Lime’s “Hot As Hell,” which has a galloping horse in place of percussion. Since then I’ve checked for everything he’s done, and by extension, all of Club Cheval’s producers. Discipline is their debut album, equal parts house and R&B, and it’s sublime. Very grown and synthy, with a ton if little electronic details that keep things fresh. Honestly the whole album is great but my favorites are “Young Rich and Radical,” “Nothing Can Stop Us Now,” “Discipline” and “From The Basement to the Roof.”
Gener8ion is the alias for another Frenchman, Surkin, from the Ed Banger crew. This project is almost entirely at trap music tempo, but far from cookie-cutter – the sound is cinematic, dark and experimental. The synths on H808 sound like a video-game soundtrack which Burial might sample, while “Bolin” is a bizarro version of Lil Wayne “A Milli.” Listen to this EP while you’re scrolling through his awesomely weird retro-futurisitic Japanese Art / Sci-Fi tumblr.
Going by the first single, you might think Santi was going to play it safe on her new album. “Can’t Get Enough of Myself” sounds like it could be a cover of The Ronettes, and if I’m being honest, it’s just a little too cheerful for me. “Rendezvous Girl” is much more my cup of tea – somewhere in the universe of A-Ha and Duran Duran, with a writing credit from Cathy Dennis (“Touch Me (All Night Long)”). I fucking loved the chorus of Makonnen’s “Forever,” which Santi featured on, and I would bet dollars to donuts she wrote that hook. Anyhow he returned the favor, appearing on “Who Be Lovin Me,” the second single. There are a huge variety of sounds – every song is different from the last, with production from a whole bunch of producers, from Zed’s Dead to Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio) to Patrik Berger (Robyn, Iconapop) to Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend) and so on. If you are new to Santigold and haven’t heard her first album, “Santogold,” it’s a fucking masterpiece start to finish, so I definitely recommend starting there in order to fully contextualize the vibes on 99 Cents.
I’m on vacation in LA so I shouldn’t be posting but we saw this at LACMA yesterday and I had to share it.
We’ve been talking a lot about inspiration lately and today I wanted to bring up the first person I really saw DJ a party up close, Mark Ronson. In 1994 when I was a freshman in college, Mark was a sophomore who lived down the hall. At that point he was opening for Stretch Armstrong at Nell’s in the city already, and it wasn’t too long before he transfered to NYU and his DJ career really took off. But watching Mark play in the little college bar where you had to bring your own turntables and mixer, playing funk and soul samples and Wu-Tang and Nas and OC and Craig Mack and B.I.G. 12”s, that lit a fire under my ass to start seeking out those songs on vinyl, and to dig for The Meters and James Brown and The Mary Jane Girls. So, thank you Mark! – A
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