For Summer of The Rub, and the first celebration of our ten year anniversary, we reached out to a couple of our oldest DJ friends, who should need no introduction for most die-hard Rub fans, but flattery will get you everywhere, so:

We’ve been a fan of Neil Armstrong since the late 90s, when we would go see his Fifth Platoon crew killing it at DJ battles, and he and I worked together at a now defunct hip-hop website and got to be friends. Neil’s themed “Originals” mixes took crate digging out of the Ken Sport era of “play 4 bars each of as many obscure soundtrack and library records sampled by the Beatnuts because that’s the only good part of the song” nerdism and into a much more fun composition / skills-based / narrative format. Edutainment, as the venerable Blastmaster puts it. His mixes and lives shows have been hugely popular in a lot of the same venues as The Rub’s. He and I played the Do-Over in LA together last year, and he and Eleven have done a number of shows together, but this is the first time we’ll all be playing together at an official Rub party, and I can’t wait to see and hear what he does. Oh yeah, and he was also Jay-Z’s DJ for a couple of years – so there’s that! In fact, his DNA of the Blueprint mixtape is a must-have for any fan of Jay-Z.

Rich Medina is another guy who has been at the very top of our scene since the late nineties, and similarly his crate-digging pedigree is world-class. Rich’s mission has always been to find funky music and bring it to the dancefloor. He is credited with popularizing Afro-beat in 2001 and has thrown legendary parties over the years at APT and Santos alongside Bobbito, DJ Language and Q-Tip. Most recently, Rich became the newest member of the Advisory Board for the Cornell Hip-Hop Collection, a very esteemed honor. Rich has played with The Rub on New Year’s Eve and at our holiday warehouse parties, and we couldn’t think of a better person to rock with outdoors on a hot summer day. Make sure you check his site and cop a mix or two to get you through the dog days of summer. His mix at APT in 2009 is one of our personal favorites, but his work on the “Afro Beatles” projects from a few years back is one of the cooler projects you’ll come across.

Be sure to check them both out tomorrow:

Dekalb Market
138 Willoughby St (@Flatbush Ave)
4pm-10pm
FREE
ALL AGES

Jesse Tittsworth is one of those guys you just don’t come across very often. Seems like he has his hand in everything these days. From touring around the world as an in-demand DJ, co-owning of one of the best night clubs in America U Street Music Hall, running T&A Records alongside our own DJ Ayres, to becoming known as one of the more interesting foodies you’ll run into, you can bet Jesse is never sitting idle. This week, he releases a much anticipated EP on T&A records called “Juicy Jorts” with DC producers Dj Rez E and Des McMahon.

If you have ever seen a DJ set of his live, his energy is almost spastic. What is so great about his new EP, and most of his production work, is that it sounds just like Jesse. There isn’t really any new music coming out that sounds anything like this. Mix it with this insane cover art, and you got yourself one hell of a release.

Buy it on Beatport HERE

Jesse has one of the best Instagram handles in the game, showcasing all of the food we all wish or are too scared to eat. His handle is a must follow, but be forewarned, he will post pictures of his balls, and I don’t mean Octo-Balls: @Tittsworth

Tittsworth also is a well-known commodity in the tattoo world and has worked with legendary artists like Shige recently.

Check out his back tattoo! This shit is not for the faint of heart! Read about the 60 hour process of getting this done HERE.

Pasadena CA’s finest and the hands-down one of the funkiest men in modern music, DāM-FunK has been a favorite of ours since he dropped in on the scene back in 2008. His G-funk claps, smoothed-out keys, and throwback style keeps him in a class reserved for the likes of Steve Arrington and other 80’s funk legends.

DāM is the kind of artist that just locks himself in the studio and makes track after track. Luckily for his us, he is very interactive with his fans and terrific at releasing his music out via his Soundcloud, Twitter, and Facebook pages.

Grab these unreleased tracks:

DāM is wrapping up his European “Re-Introduction” tour today and on his way back to Pasadena will be playing Sunday night here in New York at Brooklyn Bowl as part of the Northside Fest. The Rub will be opening up for him and we couldn’t be more excited!

Details Below:

DāM-Funk with The Rub
Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Doors at 6pm, Show at 8pm
$10
Tickets HERE

“Friends of The Rub” should be called “Family of The Rub” this week as we feature Andy “Skinny” Friedman. Andy has been a long-time associate of ours, creatively, as well as on an administrative level for us behind the scenes. On his own time, he has been working non-stop as a full-time DJ/producer along with running his own record label, Young Robots, with his Philadelphyinz partner DJ Apt-One and our guy DJ Ayres.

Skinny has a big release out today that’s getting support from all over called Trap Rave 2.0.

He’s been heavy into the Moombahton scene since Spring of 2010, but his work stands out from other Moombahtonistas due to his endearing love and knowledge of rap music. All of the tracks on Trap Rave 2.0 are remixes of recent rap hits. The set has a real cohesive feel and all play out real well to even the most finicky of dancefloors.

If you don’t believe us, check out the shout-out he got in Spin Magazine. BAWSE!

Along with the EP release today, he also out out a mix last week called “Rack Skinny Bitch” that bangs so hard.

We offer our full support to an old friend of ours and if you are in New York City this weekend, go rage with him at his EP release party. Pretty good chance he might take his shirt off at some point during this night of debauchery so don’t miss it!