Tag Archives: funk

Coldcut – 2006 Essential Mix

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The following is excerpted from a larger article, found here:

Matt Black and Jonathon Moore have been creating tracks since the mid-80’s. It wasn’t until they came together as Coldcut and formed the highly innovative label Ninja Tune that they really started to have any success. With tracks such as “Mo Beats”, “Beats and Pieces”, and “Greedy Beat” they helped lay the foundation for hip-hop instrumentalists like DJ Shadow and RJD2. The Ninja Tune label has released albums and singles from DJs and producers such as the deep hip-hop of DJ Food, turntablist extraordinare Kid Koala and Russia’s DJ Vadim.

The mix starts off with some classic hip-hop, including Sweet Tee and A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” with the original Lou Reed vocal over it. The mix then moves in to expiremental electro-house territory, before starting the second hour with some drum-n-bass like DJ Zinc’s “Super Sharp Shooter” and Krust’s infamous roller “Warhead”. Laced in between is Wayne Smith’s heavy “Under Me Sleng Teng”. Finally rounding out the mix is Franz Ferdinand’s “This Fire” over a floating dub reggae track, they then put Bjork’s “Hidden Place” with a backing track that consists of reggae guitar, 808 drums and opera-like vocals.

This is an entertaining mix that keeps you nodding your head the whole time and leaves you in awe at some of the things Coldcut come up with — they prove that even in an era when a kid with a computer can create “Jay-Zeezer” it still takes talent and a knowledge of music and DJing to create truly beautiful music using . It is rare that you get a DJ mix that contains creativity. It is even rarer to find an Essential Mix with longevity that doesn’t just contain the newest and hottest tunes.

Listen now:

Download here (right click and “save as”)

124 minutes /// 170.21 mb /// 192 kbps .mp3

Track list after the jump… Continue reading →

This Is Massive Attack

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Clocking in at over four and a half hours, this epic mix collects Massive Attack’s vast collection of work into a flowing journey of elegiac, melancholy soul and deep, dubbed-out funk.  Spanning their career from 1991 to 2004’s “Danny the Dog OST” album, as well as a number of the essential Mad Professor remixes from “No Protection,” this is a definitive document on the seminal Bristol, UK group.

Arranged by DJ Finny, who did a perfect job of blending and arranging this mix in a way that always puts the music first, and also bridges the darker, more ambient interludes with classics like “Karmacoma” and “Teardrop.”  Listen and download below, and check out the gigantic track list after the jump.

Listen now:

Download here (right click & “save as”)

4 hours 43 minutes /// 389mb /// 192kbps .mp3

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DJ Dopeshoes – Sole Food: Cold Bolgona Mayonnaise And Bread

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DJ Dopeshoes is a member of the Hometown Blends crew and a selector with an excellent taste in hiphop, funk, breaks, and soul.  Sole Food: Cold Bologna, Mayonnaise, & Bread features a lot of her personal favorites in both old school, and recent hip hop as well as funk and soul.  In her own words “This is a largely retrospective mixtape for afternoons, bbqs, and whenever the hell else you feel like it.”  I will definitely be rocking it at my next BBQ, and so should you.

Listen now:

Download here (right click and ‘save as’)

66 minutes 31 sec. /// 153mb /// 320kbps .mp3

Tracklist after the jump… Continue reading →

Locked On UNLOCKED – The True Sound of 2-step

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I remember the first time I heard “two-step” a.k.a. UK Garage.  Having recently arrived in London in 1998 to go to school at Westminster, I followed the scent of ganja in my dorm floor and made some new friends.  The stereo in their small, smoky dorm room was tuned to a pirate radio station and it was playing a new kind of dance music that I hadn’t heard before.  I asked what it was and one of the guys replied, “garridge.”

At the time, I thought they meant “garage” as in disco and house made famous by New York’s Paradise Garage.  They were quick to correct me: no, this was a completely different kind of music, the next evolutionary step from mid-90’s Speed Garage, and the predecessor to the Dubstep and Grime genres that rose to prominence in the early 2000’s.  Two-step’s popularity only lasted a few short years, and inspired both strong loyalty from its fans and scathing hate from those who preferred harder bass lines and rougher, more aggressive sounds.

Nowadays it can be pretty hard to find a good, let alone definitive mix of this music.  This mix captures all the top singles from the Locked On label, a sub-label of Pure Groove and home to some of the most famous two-step artists and singles.  If you’re searching for a great two-step mix to reminisce on, this is it.   Originally packaged with Muzik Magazine’s November 2000 issue, this is a flawless mix showcasing the distinctive clipped rhythms and sugar-sweet R&B vocals of two-step, which retain their funky soulful vibe a decade later.

Listen now:

Download here (right click and “save as”)

95.82mb /// 52min 19 sec /// 256kbps .mp3 file

Tracklist after the jump… Continue reading →

Catnap – Pimp Fiction 1998

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Here’s the second mix I unearthed in my dusty backups, a mixtape I made with my friend Zakee on a summer afternoon in 1998.  “Pimp Fiction” is a mash of good stuff, from 60’s and 70’s soul, blues, funk and disco gems to 90’s acid jazz, triphop, and rap.  It’s reassuring to hear such tight selection and I’m glad to be able to add it to this archive.

Listen now:

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time: 70:34 /// 165mb /// 256kbps .mp3

Tracklist after the jump… Continue reading →

Kenny Dope – Break Beats

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More old-school goodness from Mr. Dope.  In the words of DJ Ayres:

This Breakbeats CD is a reissued classic in the Bronx tradition of doubling hard funk, disco & early rap breaks with precision. The production is impeccable, and manages a lot of multitracking to keep it interesting, without sacrificing a live feel. But that’s just one level of appreciation; it’s a digging tape too. Everything is on here, from obvious “my first breakbeat” records (James Brown, Headhunters, Meters) to that james flames rare shit that djs like Language and Roctakon cream their panties over. And apparently he’s only rocking original copies, scratching the shit out of $200+ 12″ singles. 37 tracks total, with a couple of extended live remixes at the end and a lot of composition throughout (39 records are listed on the back, but I would guess he used more like 70-80 joints total). I know we hype a lot of music up in our reviews, but honestly, this is a desert island pick.

Listen now: [audio:http://www.djcatnap.com/myoozick/KennyDope-BreakBeats2004.mp3]

Download here (right click and “save as”)

Time: 72:20 /// 99.3mb /// 192kbps .mp3

Track list after the jump… Continue reading →

Kenny Dope – Roller Boogie 80’s

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Kenny Dope, one half of New York City’s legendary Masters At Work team, released this mix back in 2004 as part of a series of fantastic disco and 80’s mixes.  This mix is required listening for fans of the old-school!  Here’s a few excerpts from an excellent review I found by Michael Gill at Stylus Magazine:

As disco went back underground at the beginning of the ‘80s, it went through a bit of a stylistic makeover. Boogie, a slower take on disco with a thicker back beat, became popular in clubs, and disco labels like Salsoul, West End, and Prelude continued to flourish with a mass of underground hits. These labels reduced the diva and the orchestral quotient of disco, and added in an array of synthesizers as well as a stronger soul/R&B vibe to their tracks. The effect was that a lot of post-disco dance music had a breezy, gliding quality to it instead of feeling bombastic and excessive. A gliding quality that is similar to, you guessed it, roller skating.

All of this leads to Roller Boogie ‘80s, the first in a series of limited edition mixes by Kenny Dope, who is one-half of the production team Masters At Work. If you are a fan of underground disco, you’ll probably recognize a lot of the tracks here, as many are still staples for DJs today. Kenny is not digging too deep into his crates here, and the result is almost akin to a greatest hits selection of laid-back disco in the early ‘80s.

The big hits include Taana Gardner’s million-selling single “Heartbeat,” Junior’s throaty R&B smash “Mama Used To Say,” and Slave’s smooth funk jam “Watching You” (which later was appropriated by Snoop Dogg for “Gin & Juice.”) Just about every other track is a perennial underground classic that has been included on numerous disco compilations throughout the years, like the irresistible “I Like What You Are Doing To Me” by Young & Co., the jubilant “Walking Into Sunshine” by Central Line, and the still devastating soul-funk of “Just A Touch of Love” by Slave.

Download here (right click and “save as”)

time: 73:59 /// 102mb /// 192kbps .mp3

Tracklist after the jump…

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