What do you get when you put Mike Tyson in a backstage room with some of the biggest names in 80s hip hop? Find out in this week’s Throwback Thursday. In the year that he unified the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, Mike Tyson was pretty much untouchable. If there was ever a soundtrack needed …
It’s the last day of Dilla Month and 28 Days Of Dilla. We saved the best for last as we give a Sampleface Salute to Dilla’s most famous album, Donuts.
Our penultimate day of 28 Days Of Dilla is dedicated to Carlos Niño, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and their orchestra’s cover of Fall In Love for Suite For Ma Dukes. As we’re coming close to the end of Dilla month, we thought we’d look at one of the many different Dilla interpretations. Suite for Ma Dukes was …
Day 26 is dedicated to possibly one of the rarest Dilla tracks out there, so much so it only exists in video form. In a Dilla Breaks episode from October, a Slum Village cut called Feelin Good was discussed. The sample used was The Frank Cunimondo Trio’s cover of the classic “Feelin Good”. Probably not …
MED & Blu’s The Burgundy EP is now available for streaming. After the great response for Burgundy Whip, The Burgundy EP is finally available for streaming over at Spotify. The nine-track EP, featuring mainly Madlib beats – half vocal, half instrumental – is also available for pre-order on the Stones Throw website. We’re especially looking forward …
Jun ‘Nujabes’ Seba could be viewed as Japan’s answer to James ‘Jay Dee/J Dilla’ Yancey and the Luv(sic) series he did with the emcee Shing02 is still highly regarded as the best work Nujabes ever released. On the anniversary of the fabled producer/DJ’s untimely demise, fans of the Luv(sic) saga were given what would appear …
We say farewell to Bling47 Breaks Dilla Edition but not before Waajeed discusses the humble beginnings of the label. We’re crying some thug tears over here as Bling47 Breaks Dilla Edition comes to an end. For a year or so, the video series has shed light on Dilla’s life, work and mystery behind the beats. …
In our latest instalment of “How Did I Miss That?”, we have Pharrell and DJ Premier joking around backstage. Yesterday, we discussed what happened when Madlib and J Dilla, two of the best hip hop producers out there, got together and now we’re talking about two more: Pharrell Williams and DJ Premier. This video, which …
The homie Languid takes no days off even on his days off. Fresh off the last collaborative effort with SoulStarr, Languid’s back with a new LP entitled Pheels and it’s all about that love jones in your bones. The Zimbabwean-born British producer continues to showcase his talents on this smoother-than-smooth release, further proving that he …
We love… that raw shit! We take a look at Jaylib’s Champion Sound.
Unheard Dilla beats are things of beauty. Here’s the first volume of some of his unreleased Jay Dee beats.
Ever needed tips on crate digging? This might come in handy. Crate digging is one of my favourite pasttimes. If you’re unfamiliar with the term or the concept, it’s basically vinyl record shopping. As vinyl is traditionally collected in “crates”, those who seek out the music are known as “diggers”. Nine times out of ten, …
Canadian producers Nick Wisdom & AstroLogical form a coalition called Potatohead People and drop the funkadelic “Back To My Shit” featuring Frank Nitt. Without doubt one of the funkiest tracks I’ve heard this year. Potatohead People are a collaboration between Vancouver’s Nick Wisdom and Toronto’s AstroLogical and, with help from Frank Nitt, released the superb …
RKZ has kindly provided us with some “making of” footage of his session with Gifted The Great. Do these guys ever stop working?* As part of RKZTV, RKZ has uploaded his first episode of “February Sessions”, which was filmed all through this week at Gifted’s studio. It shows the pair hard at work, getting tracks …
Before the mask, DOOM was just Daniel Dumile/Zev Love X of KMD. Check him out, unmasked, performing live in 1990 for our Saturday Matinée.
Michael Jackson dancing in Lego form? How could we resist?! Big thanks to Laughing Squid for putting us onto this. If you thought Lego was just for kids, think again. Annette Jung of Talking Animals Animation Studio created a short but phenomenal Michael Jackson dance routine animation. The routine came from MJ’s Panther Dance, which …
From EP to album, Ruff Draft exhibited a more abstract Dilla than people had previously known. J Dilla always pushed the boundaries of hip hop but this was probably his most abstract and experimental in terms of sound. Ruff Draft was originally released as an EP in 2003. A year after his death, it was …
Some deep visuals have been released for Kendrick Lamar’s Poetic Justice video. Street scenes are commonplace within hip hop videos but lately, they’ve become a lot more abstract; Flying Lotus’ short film being a case in point. Whether Kendrick Lamar took a cue from that, he’s taken it a step further with the story. The …
If atmospheric sampling and instrumentation is what you’re into, you better keep tabs on our One To Watch, Hominidae. Hominidae (stylised Hominidæ) is a producer from Raleigh, North Carolina. His spacious beats are sprinkled with crackling nuances, drum compression of varying intensity and an overall chilled out nature. In fact, nature is the perfect word to describe …
Coming from Jersey, USA, Flamingosis releases his debute album on new label Em La La Terra. Samples are our flesh and blood so we’ll lap up albums featuring them. Emerging label/collective Em La La Terra only launched on Valentine’s Day and they already have an album in their catalogue from Flamingosis. Entitled Reworks, the name …