I was at this gig and man… one of the best sets of rare soul that I’ve heard in recent memory. It’s a real pleasure to post this mix (thanks Aaron!)

Be sure to check out Peoples Records if you’re in the D!

I don’t have too much to say - I was raised on MJ. His death has just devastated me. Thank you, Michael, for such amazing music.

edit: this, from Andrew Sullivan, I think says it well:

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.

I hope his soul finds rest.

Long-time Good Records NYC employees Delay and Manchee have been working on this one for a while, and I’ve been sworn to secrecy for weeks now. But I just got the go-ahead to share this amazing mix with the rest of the world! Tom and Sean got together over a number of evenings, got blitted, and did what they do best - wade into a universe of space vibes and psychedelic sounds. So turn on the jacuzzi jets, break out the roach clip, and mellow out. It gets deep.

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Download HERE

So you all know longtime friend of Good Records Hoody Allen is one of the hardest tape collectors out there. Long-time fans of the site are no doubt familiar with his Red Alert and Tony Humphries tapes, which he was so gracious to allow us to host. Well now he’s back to bless us with another crazy tape… Mickey Mixin’ Oliver live on Chicago’s WBMX, New Year’s Eve 1983/84. You can imagine how crazy it must have been going down back then! This massive mix takes us back there with Oliver mixing seamlessly through house, disco, electro, and boogie classics. Listen!

*note: Woody Allen watermarks are *not* part of the mix, just a lil somethin’ to remind heads where the tapes are coming from. Peace & Grease, Jonny

Somewhere between the political unrest in Iran (strong shout out to Mazzi and his family, hope you’re all safe) and my man Cosmo Baker’s rant on real DJ business, I had to sign up for Twitter. I already feel more connected. Or lame. Or both. Anyway, I’m thinking a lot about the protesters in Iran, and I encourage everyone to keep an eye on the developments out there - big things happening. On a lighter note, here’s my man Cosmo, giving these fake DJs the business:

i remember when it was biting if you sounded like
someone else & you weren’t part of their crew or at least from their
hood

I remember when biting was considered weak and people got called out
for it. What the F*ck happened?

I remember when DJs had their own particular unique style motherfuckers
weren’t so generic

I remember when particular records were attributed to DJs, back when
every damn fool didn’t have every damn record at their fingertips

I remember when DJs had to work HARD to unearth joints, or drop serious
cream.

I remember when DJs had to work hard when they perform, not look like
they’re checking their f*cking email

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About a week ago Phill Most The Soulman, the man behind World Of Beats and ThatRealSchitt, upped a new mix of breaks, psych, funk, and all sorts of other madness (head to the jump to download the mix itself). To a lot of us, it was a welcome return by one of the originators of the “break tape”, one of the first guys to write about digging culture online, one of the inspirations for us to do what we do.

Rather than simply linking to Phill’s site and offering a few choice compliments of the (deep, mindblowing) mix, I thought I’d hit the man up for a quick interview to chop it up on the history of the WOB column and website, his thoughts on the game, past present and future, and the life of a man many consider a legend. Thankfully, he was all too willing to oblige.

Jonny Paycheck: So basically, I want to throw it back to the World Of Beats, which this mix really brought me back to, even though it’s on, kind of, another level than what cats were checking for back then. So WOB stretched from I guess around 93-94 when you had the magazine column to 2001 or so on the WOB site. Is that about right? Can you describe the course of the column/site/blog briefly, and why you decided to end it?

Soulman: Actually the original World Of Beats column that was in Rap Sheet ran from 1994 to 1995, a little more than a year. And the internet version of the WOB started in 1999 and I kept that going for almost three years. The whole idea behind the column was just to show a side of the Hip Hop world that rarely got any coverage in the magazines or tv shows that specialized in Hip Hop, and it’s a very important part of the artform that deserved some attention. I don’t think the editors at Rap Sheet really understood what it was all about or the significance, but to their credit they let me go ahead with it anyway. Actually I first introduced the idea for an article I did on Pete Rock; after that they asked me to do a monthly column on crate digging. It quickly became the most popular regular column in the magazine; I know I got a lot of letters sent directly to my address and from what I understand Rap Sheet got a lot sent to their offices, too. One of the things I wanted to do was to interview not just famous Hip Hop producers, but also deejays, record dealers and also collectors who may not have been household names but knew their stuff when it comes to beats and old records. A lot of times the producers don’t really know as much about records as you might think they do…

Hit the jump to read the rest of the interview

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… and also dropped in the last couple of days, world famous NYC disc jock and mixtape master DJ Soul put together this mother of a mix dedicated to the late great (and “great”, here, cannot be overstated - dude was one of the illest) Harlem rapper Lamont “Big L” Coleman. Taken far too soon… Rest In Power.

Download HERE

Tracklist after the jump.

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My homie Matthew Africa just put up this fantastic post on his (fantastic) blog I Wish You Would (bookmark it, guys) complete with a best-of mix celebrating the work of DJ Quik - “America’s Most Complete Artist” - in preparation for his new collabo record with Kurrupt of the Dogg Pound. Let the man tell it:

I made this mix because people sleep on DJ Quik. Maybe they’ve forgotten or maybe they never understood, but people don’t get the breadth or depth of his talent.

Quik’s commercial peak was his platinum 1991 debut, Quik Is the Name.

Here’s the thing, though– Quik never fell off.

Where most veteran artists either make the same record over and over until everyone stops paying attention or lose their identity scrambling to co-opt whatever other people think is hot, Quik’s career has been about devotion to his craft, steady growth and experimentation.

Church. You can download the mix HERE and check the tracklist below the fold.

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This one was revisited recently for an Underground Kingz song (RIP Pimp C).  Real pretty tune.

Society Of Soul was a group made up of Atlanta super-producers Organized Noize - you know, the guys responsible for hits by Outkast, The Goodie Mob, TLC and many more - featuring the vocals of Espraronza “Roni” Griffin and the spoken word poetry of Big Rube (another Outkast-affiliated Atlanta dude).

I dug up my old cassette of this album and was playing it as I tooled around town running errands, bending corners and doing thangs. I jammed this hard back when it came out and feel it still holds up to this day. Beautiful soul music that exhibits some influence of the 90s but sounds timeless when you get down to it.

Taking you back to 1995, the sun was shining and sh*t was right on time. Enjoy this beautiful Sunday…

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Edit: I just read about the assassination of George Tiller this morning. May he Rest In Power. We must stop this madness.

So I wrote this overlong email full of sappy memories and irrelevant details to my friend Andrew over at Cocaine Blunts & Hip-Hop Tapes, mostly concerning a group called Mixed Practice that I had a lot of love for back when I was coming up in the Bay Area Underground Hip-Hop Scene. Anyway, he liked it so much that he decided it to turn it into a blog entry and perhaps a running guest column called “Bay Area Rap Tapes” (aaahhh, we can haz acronym!). So if you’re into hip-hop obscurities, west coast underground tapes, microregional music scenes, slow blogging, homemade demos, or anything else along those lines head over there and check it out.