Chuck D & House Of Pain - Westwood dubplates (1992)

Chuckie D and Everlast going off dancehall style and fashion for Tim over the Bam Bam riddim (Murder She Wrote). Sounds weird right? Seems like this was recorded as 2 seperate sessions rather than at the same time but on the tape I have they're played back to back. Shame Tim had pretty much phased these type of things out by the time he got to Radio 1.

DJ DS Goes Back to School (4th year: 1989)

DJ DS delivers the next mix in his ongoing series. Think this one might be my favourite yet.

DJ MK - MF DOOM tribute mix

Obviously there's been a ton of tribute mixes and podcasts since DOOM's death was announced on new year's eve. I haven't actually had to time to check any of them so this one MK dropped yesterday is what I'm rolling with. There's a download link in the Mixcloud description if you're quick enough.

Who Say Reload - now available for pre-order!

For the last few years I've been putting together this collection of interviews chronicling the classic jungle / drum n bass records of the 90s. I'm proud to say that it's now available for pre-order through Velocity Press and is due to be available on general release in March! 

Each chapter focuses on a different classic jungle track, with the artist providing the backstory on their influences, creative processes and memories of the burgeoning jungle scene of the mid 90s. There's also additional interviews with some of the genres key figures providing additional detail and commentary of the stand out records, raves and club nights of the era. Photography is from the archives of my man Eddie Otchere, who you might be familiar with from his shots of Wu Tang, Biggie and Aaliyah amongst others. 

I've written a short piece on how the book came about here. If you get in quickly you can also cop the limited edition poster featuring records included in the book.

featured artists include

Shut Up & Dance – Ragga Twins – 4Hero – Lennie De Ice – Goldie – LTJ Bukem – A Guy Called Gerald – Fabio - Basement Phil – Nookie – Q Project – MC GQ – Omni Trio – Andy C & Ant Miles - DJ Rap - Sean O’Keeffe (Deep Blue) – DJ Crystl – Pete Parsons – Danny Donnelly – Foul Play – Ray Keith – Floyd Dyce – Tobie Scopes (Chimeira/Serial Killaz) - Jumpin Jack Frost – Bryan G – DJ Asend (Dred Bass) – Junior Hart & Steve B (Renk Recs) – UK Apachi – Krome & Time – DRS & Kenny Ken – Pascal – J Majik – Peshay – Storm – DJ SS – T Power – DJ Flight – Shimon – Aphrodite – Micky Finn – DJ Hype – Roni Size – AK1200 - Doc Scott – Dazee – Friction – Mampi Swift – DJ Krust – Moving Fusion – Optical – DJ Fresh

 Quite typical of me to spend 10+ years cultivating a reasonably sized following off a blog focusing on classic hip hop and then going and writing a book about a completely different genre, but as far as hip hop goes I couldn't come up a fresh angle to write about and then there's obviously issues with access to artists etc. Jungle/D&B (essentially the same thing and for the purposes of my project the terms are pretty much interchangeable) is my second musical love and although I had been into it since 94, it was the phase of hip hop influenced records around 95-97 that really peaked my interest. Despite the widely recognised influence of reggae and sound systems, along with its foundations in the early 90s hardcore rave scene, a large proportion of the artists I interviewed have their roots in hip hop. The first wave of producers often cited the likes of Marley Marl, the Bomb Squad and Mantronix (where do you think they got that amen break from?) as their inspirations. Anyway, I won't go into too much detail here but suffice to say: GO AND BUY MY BOOK. Thanks.