Yeah, That's Kinda Clever

Great article about De La here, the whole history told by those who were there. Highly recommended.

De La Soul- Buddy ["Native Tongue Decision" Version] - De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, Phife, Q-Tip, Queen Latifah

Its Murda!

Ready To Get Down With This Party??

Alright you beautiful bitches, I'm about to drop some truth on you!

I know this is supposed to be a "music blog", but fuggit, I gotta represent. Eastbound And Down is killing me right now. This track kinda caught my ear when it played over the closing credits of the season finale last night, and if there's a God in heaven above, we will get a 2nd season of Kenny Powers and co. C'mon HBO...

Shawn Lee- Kiss The Sky

If your not up on Eastbound check a sample from the finale here (possible spoilers, but seriously, get over it, ..)


Also the new Shawn Lee album is pretty cool, check him out here...

Annette Peacock - Pony

i could never find a good copy of this

downs lidos

Hey, Caballero

Caballero (Bear's Mix)

Close your eyes

"Close your Eyes" (Bear's re-edit)

Friends And Buddies

So a lot of people know the more popular 2nd pressing of Milton Wright's 'Friends And Buddies,' and it's been repressed, comped and blogged pretty heavily. It has different mixes from this pressing, as well as the classic "Keep It Up." Although I do prefer some of those mixes, this is a rip of my copy of the first pressing. (I've seen conflicting reports, but pretty sure this version is 1st, logically it seems more likely they would've added 'Keep It Up,' not taken it away). While that track is sorely missed, I still love this pressing, and have yet to see it posted anywhere. Enjoy....

Btw, Bentley Funk has the 2nd pressing. Also for anyone interested, the esteemed Mr. Wright can be found these days singing in the New England Spiritual Ensemble..

Milton Wright - Friends And Buddies (1st Pressing)

Saturday Morning

Bobby Pierce - New York

Marcos Valle - Samba '68

Alice Clark - Alice Clark

I'm going to keep my big mouth shut, and just post this playlist. Its Saturday morning, and I'm keeping it real mellow....


The whole playlist is here...

GOING WAY WAY BACK...

The tape digitizing project has begun!!! I got crates upon crates of shit, from official underground mixtapes to adhoc freestyle sessions to every college radio show I ever did on WESU 88.1.

I'm also gonna post some of my favorite DJ mixtapes of all time, so if you got a dusty box in the closet send me your old Stretch & Bob tapes...




Back by popular demand, here's my second official mixtape, circa '98, on some ol' high school shit. If you want to take a trip down memory lane when underground hip-hop was king, rap music was raw, production soulful, & Stretch & Bob reigned supreme--look no further. One of my earliest so the cuts are crude as fuck but song selection solid as a mothafucka.

The Bear Never Sleeps Side A

The Bear Never Sleeps Side B

Smooth Sailin

And I even got my mama sayin'..

So Earth, Wind and Fire played at the White House today, and I sat here and organized a couple thousand records, gathering tons of stuff I won't need immediate access to in the age of Serato. So, among all the old promo records headin to storage, I came across this Roscoe 12" I remember feeling in '03 . Roscoe is Kurupt's younger brother from Philly, and the track is built off the same 'Brazilian Rhyme' loop as Tribe's Mr Muhammed. Def Jef and Soul G's flip gives a smooth West Coast feel to a sample thats been beaten to death over the years. I've posted the track and instrumental at 320, as well as the EWF track. Boogie Banger also has an edit of the EWF track rumoured to have been done by 45 King. Hey diddle diddle...

Smooth Sailin' - Roscoe

Smooth Sailin (Inst) - Roscoe

Brazilian Rhyme - Earth Wind and Fire

Ok, zshare is acting up, all 3 tracks are here for now....

Gary Davis and his Professor - The Pop

makes me want some bisscuits n crumpeeeetz

download @ 320 kbatchps

Allen Toussaint is that dude

Just listening to the highly recommended reissue/comp "What Is Success", and thinking, even if you discount all his legendary production work for others, Mr Toussaint ranks as one of my favorite soul dudes. 'Southern Nights' has been in solid rotation for almost a year, and listening to pretty much anything he's touched, you can tell he really just personifies N'awlins. Here's 2 cuts on the mellow side of things that caught my ear as I walked out the door..


Allen Toussaint - From a Whisper to a Scream


Allen Toussaint - We the People

gangsta

What I'm Listening To Today

Quick post, filled with stolen links and a couple things I've been rocking lately:

Bernard Wright - Haboglabotribin' - Boogie Palace continues to kill it, dropping some knowledge and a nice clean copy of this classic break.

Superstar Quamallah - Love Has Made Us - I don't have any idea who Superstar Quamallah is, but I caught this track on WYDU's big year end list, and the beats been in my head for two weeks. I know underground hip-hop ain't hip, but this track's got me right now....

Chin Chin- Mr Sexy Boy - Album came out on Def Jux recently (yes, really!). Kinda feelin it...

Rene Costy - Scrabble - Prob best known as the break for Dilla's 'Fuck The Police'. Been trying to find a clean copy of this for a minute, this one's aight, but seems to be ripped of Gilles Peterson's radio show. Meh...

Method Man and Raekwon- Wu Ohh - New Wu-Tang that doesn't suck! H/t to We Live This.

Disco, Bitches II: Electric Boogaloo

First off, peace to our 2 new contributors. Drizzlepops will be dropping Miami bass and booty music, straight from the mountain time zone. Just don't request Mobb Deep (hateur!). Dr Gupta, generally known for talking nonsense on CNN and being our future Surgeon general, will be dropping all sorts of exotic ethnic funk and disco gems, in addition to being totally willing to cut your head open and mess around with your brain. Seriously, email him, he's looking for test subjects. Neither of them should feel limited by the genres I've mentioned here; at least I didn't say Sanjay would be posting bollywood jams, right? (btw, please post some bollywood dude, i know you got the heat, dont hold out on us)

Ok, back to the lecture at hand. As promised, I got some tracks with rappin on them, but I'm gonna stick with the disco theme too. I'm also going to follow Dr. Gupta's lead and keep the yappin to a minimum. Let me just say though, disco rap is whats up in 2009.

Johnson and Johnson - Wow
Don't know much about these dudes, but this track has been killing me for a week. Smooth shit, someone do an intro edit please...

Kanye West- Love Lockdown (B. Cause Disco Edit)
Another killer blend from DJ B. Cause. My man sent me a data disc of edits recently, and let just say, this dudes stuff make me want to quit doing edits. Seriously, buy his cds...

Busta Rhymes- Dont Touch Me (U-Terns Disco Mix)
Last up, another disco edit, this one by U-Tern, another DJ who's skills on the decks make me ashamed. As a bonus, his blog and podcast also makes me feel deeply inferior. If you don't know how he gets down, get familiar.

Circle City Band - Magic (1982)

Someone page the Doc?

download @ 192 (unfortunately)

Disco, Bitches

So I say 'disco', but admittedly, these tracks are kind of a loose interpretation of the term. To me, its fair to use as an umbrella term for boogie, modern, etc. Maybe not technically correct, but in my mind, I divide stuff into soul, r&b and disco, and I think most people would see these as the latter.

Anyway, I honestly don't know too much about these tracks, so I won't waste space here cutting and pasting trying to sound smrt, just know I'm dropping the goods here! These are all joints I've come across in my recent digging exploits, and they happened to be on hand when I caught some Sunday morning motivation to do a transfer or two.

Starting it off with a quick edit I did a while back of Evelyn King's classic Love Come Down. Basically grabbed some open drums and added an extended intro and outro break for easy mixin. Chea.

Next up, a track I wasn't really familiar with before I caught it under some used winter coats in a dollar bin on Columbus Ave, Belle De Jour, by Saint Tropez. There's some info about the artist here, but I don't know if you need too much back story to know this 12" is the real. My girlfriend says its pretty much just French nonsense pillow talk, and I just kinda wanna hear someone rap over it.

Passage is a Christian group with kind of a disco/boogie sound. This is an edit of their track 'I See the Light' that I did over the weekend. The first verse was lacking energy, so I nixed that, and you know I had to sprinkle that vocoder ride out groove throughout, just too funky to be limited to 20 seconds at the end of the track. Peace to Jonny at Good Records for hooking this one up a couple months back.

Finally for good measure, an undisputed disco classic, Dyin' To Be Dancin', by Empress. This is another one from my Columbus ave dollar bin score, and this is just too smooth. Had it on loop this weekend, so I thought I'd share it with the fam. I'm thinking no further explanation is needed on this one.

So thats it for today kids, I've been riding this disco/rare groove thing pretty hard lately, so I got a hip-hop post in the works, just to keep it fair and balanced. I'll probably leave the reggae to my esteemed colleague. Fly By Night may even have a new contributor soon, but I'm going to keep that under wraps for now. Stay warm NY, back soon....

Diamond In The Back, Sunroof Top

Just be thankful for what you've got
Though you may not drive a great big Cadillac
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin' the scene
With a gangsta lean

Its been a bit quiet around here today (before today), so I'm going to take care of some New Years housekeeping I haven't had a chance to get to. I got some good joints coming up soon, but in the mean time, I thought I'd drop a track that, although deeply classic, also has some real significance these days. No matter how your 2008 was, how much you hate your job, or how you've been effected by the economy, it really could always be worse. In the US, we've finally got a new president, and although life's always in flux to some degree, I'm really trying to believe in the power of positive thinking here, and I do think things are on their way to getting better. Peace and good wishes for 2009 to you and yours from Fly By Night......

Be Thankful for What You Got - William DeVaughn

ISLAND MAXING MIXTAPE

As winter '09 gets more & more Don Brickles, nothing like a little island music to warm the bones & invoke images of 2 pieces & fish tacos.

I wish I was there too...

Enjoy!
(track list to follow)


ISLAND MAXING.mp3