Not only is J-Live is one of my fave emcees due to his great knack for storytelling and effortless flow it turns out he's also pretty handy on the turntables as shown on this killer mix of love songs that have been sampled by hip hop artists over the years.
Project Tempo rework the classic Tom Tom Club joint 'Genius Of Love' into a slow burner that builds nicely, stays true to the OG and is another Themes For Young Lovers sure shot.
Happy Valentines Day! It wouldn't be right if I didn't post something on today of all days, so I searched high and low for a special treat and came up trumps with this amazing love fueled selection of hip hop jams compiled by Oh Word
Singer/songwriter/drummer/all round nice guy Wally De Backer is one helluva talented man. He took the Australian music scene by storm in 2006 with his incredible sophmore album Like Drawing Blood which he released under his Gotye (“gore-ti-yeah”) moniker and went on to win enough awards to fill up the family pool room including Best Male Artist at the Aria awards, definitely no small feat for a 'bedroom' producer.Gotye- Learnalilgivinanlovin from Gotye on Vimeo.
Gotye- Hearts A Mess from Gotye on Vimeo.
Ridiculously good break up track from 1971 by Johnny Johnson. I love the transition from the soft intro to the moment you can practically hear his heart breaking on the record during the change up. Amazing.
One of my fave records from a few years ago was Ruckus Roboticus' Playing With Scratches, an amazing cut & paste affair loaded with samples from childrens records and tasty beats which sort of had an Entroducing..... for kids vibe about it. As with all the artists that have featured on this blog Ruckus is someone who's work I love and who's brain I wanted to pick in regards to what were some of his go to love jams.
This edit of the Bee Gees' 'You Stepped Into My Life' by Rayko is the bee's knees.
It's kinda funny when you think that record companies used to be so concerned about home taping destroying music, I guess back then it would've been hard to forecast what was to come with the ease of burning CDs and file sharing and the HUGE effect it would have on the industry.
Nowadays you only have to go as far as the iTunes store or worse yet, an illegal file sharing site and with a simple click of the mouse you've got your ears on whatever it is you wanted, but that's the problem for me, it's just your ears and not your hands.
An album becomes so much more in the physical format, first of all you get the whole artwork as it was intended, you know the front and back and not just some shitty low res jpeg, then there's the liner notes which i've always loved reading to check the production credits and better yet the thank you's as I always found it a good way of finding out about other artists, for example say you bought a De La Soul album and saw that they thanked A Tribe Called Quest so you pick up one of their albums and notice a shout out to Black Sheep so back to the record store you'd go and so on and so on.
Getting back to the mixtape topic, I have no doubt the world would be a better place if we all took the time to make a mix for someone so I challenge you to do just that and in the spirit of this blog it would be great for it to be love themed especially considering Valentine's Day is just around the corner.
You get bonus points for using a cassette (link provided just in case you're not familiar with the concept) but if it's gotta be a CD i guess that'll have to do or I guess you can keep it kinda sorta real with this USB Mixtape !
Get your finger on the pause button/right clicker and feel free to post your track lists in the comments section.
"Australia's answer to Gilles Peterson" That's what I like to call my good friend Huw Ellis. As someone that's spent years around music from his days working for some of Australia's best indie record labels to DJing to running his own amazing label Knowfool as well as writing a column and interviewing all the right people in one of Sydney's longest running dance publications 3d World and more recently shining as a radio presenter with his show Soul Glow on 2ser he does an incredible job of opening peoples ears to 'good music' hence the 'Gilles' tag I've given him.
The multi talented Miles Bonny (Vocalist/Producer/DJ/Trumpeter) was one artist that I was really keen to get to answer the Themes For Young Lovers questions for a couple of reasons, A. because he's one of my faves and B. A lot of his work, from his own original material to the cover versions he's recorded touches on love themes, so I reached out and luckily enough for me (and you!) he was nice enough to take some time out to do so.
A clever little edit courtesy of the mysterious Big J (?) who takes the Jackson 5 acapella of I Want You Back and places it on top of the Esso Trinidad Steel Band's instrumental cover version.
LA house music specialist Cole Medina takes an almost flawless Bee Gee's joint and goes and makes it flawless by extending the intro and utilizing the best parts of the original. Classic themes for young lovers business.
Love Is The Drug (Prince Klassen Edit) - Roxy Music Listen/Download
Gamm is one of, if the not THE best label when it comes to the business of cheeky musical bootlegs, they enlist the skills of different producers from all over the globe to take old favourites and flip them on their head.
DJ Shepdog takes the vocal stylings of American Seventh-day Adventist a cappella gospel music sextet Take 6 and adds some classic hip hop drums to the equation.
Book yourself a room in a Formula 1 Motel with that special someone, don a bath robe, dim the lights, run a hot bath and let this mix do the rest.
With Summer upon us it doesn't get much better musically than this ode to all the beautiful & lovely ladies out there by Lee Fields & The Expressions.
This smoooooth assssss mix comes courtesy of LA boogie/beats producer Dam Funk. Clocking in at just over an hour and loaded with sweet soul, boogie and electro this ticks all the right boxes for a loved up mix and is baby makin' music at it's finest, silky smooth with just a little bit of bounce for, well... you know!
I've got to thank my Mum for playing great music like Paul Simon, Marvin Gaye, Fleetwood Mac etc etc while I was growing up. I still have fond memories of car trips where we'd listen to all the classics mentioned and to this day without even knowing how, still know all the words to the entire Graceland album!
