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By O-Dub 
In today’s LA Times, I wrote a piece revisiting the 20th anniversary of Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde. Despite a few embarrassing typos, I really appreciated this opportunity to revisit what I still think is one of the most unique albums to come out of L.A. in the 1990s.1
I’m not going to reprint the thing in its entirety but if I had to highlight the one quality that made the Pharcyde so compelling back in ’92, it was this:
…its members weren’t above making themselves the object of ridicule or humiliation, displaying [...]
Continue reading REVISITING BIZARRE RYDE II THE PHARCYDE
By O-Dub 
In Part One, Matthew Africa and I broke down The Emotions’ “Blind Alley” based on its production and arrangement. For Part Two, we look at how it’s been used as a sample source. (My comments are in plain text, Africa’s are in italics).
In general when producers categorize samples, they often break them down into either “loops” or “breaks”. A “loop” is any sample that’s repeated end-to-end to create a continuous pattern. This is frequently done with basslines, riffs, drum parts or even a whole arrangement, but a loop can be anything that’s repeated. By contrast, a [...]
Continue reading BREAKING DOWN “BLIND ALLEY” PART TWO
By O-Dub 
Black Moon: I Gotcha Opin
From Enta Da Stage(Nervous, 1993)
I Got Cha Opin remix
Buck ‘Em Down remix
Both from respective 12″s (Nervous/Wreck, 1994)
This is a resurrection from a 2004 post and was mostly inspired by re-listening to Funkmaster Flex’s now famous July 4, 2007 “I’m in the 90s!” set on Hot 97 where he just goes IN on the LP version of “I Got Cha Opin.”
The original question I posed was this: this may be one of the most difficult debates ever to exist in hip-hop. More than [...]
Continue reading BLACK MOON VS. BLACK MOON VS. BLACK MOON
By O-Dub 
DJ Matthew Africa puts together a “best of E-40″ mix. [Insert some crazy Yay slang phrase here]
By O-Dub 
Bill Adler is perhaps best known as Def Jam’s publicist during the label’s heady rise in the 1980s but he’s been a journalist and curator, a 360 kind of hip-hop renaissance man. I knew of Bill strictly by reputation all throughout the 1990s and got to interview him back in 2000 for a story on the EMP Museum, for whom Bill had helped assemble their hip-hop exhibit.
On this occasion, I wanted to rap with him about the new Profile boxset, Giant Single which I recently reviewed for NPR. Adler talks about Profile’s [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR #26: BILL ADLER
By O-Dub 
Exile feat. Blu: When Nothing’s Left
From 4TRK Mind (Soulspazm, 2011)
This Exile/Blu collabo has been in steady rotation for a minute and it got me thinking about how signature and powerful Otis Redding’s voice is. Obviously, Ye and Jay’s “Otis” made this clear to but in enjoying “When Nothing’s Left,” it got me to thinking about other examples of Otis’s voice coming directly into a sample.1
One of my all-time favorite examples is this:
Grand Puba: Check tha Resume
From Reel to Reel (Elektra, 1992)
The use of the [...]
Continue reading OTIS
By O-Dub 
Head Warmers (1997). This was actually the sixth in a series of ’90s/indie hip-hop-driven mixtapes and it’s become the one I have gotten the most props for; DJ Shadow even has it as one of the mixtapes shown in the liner notes for Private Press.
Polyrhythmatic (1998). Another indie hip-hop heavy mix and personally, my favorite mix from this era, both in terms of the song selection and the segues I played with.
 Double Flip (1999/2000). This was a [...]
Continue reading FREE MIXES
By O-Dub 
Beginning in 2010, DJ Chris Read, in collaboration with Nick Armitage, began to put together a monthly party/mix series called “Classic Material.” 1 The basic concept was that each month, they’d put together a party and a mix celebrating a year in the life of hip-hop music, finishing in 2000. For 14 months, this was one of the things I looked forward to since Read brought great creativity and song selection to each of these mixes. To top it all off, they created special boxsets, including a custom-designed logo, riffing off of hip-hop labels. 2
This month marks [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR #23: DJ CHRIS READ
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