Hip-Hop | scissorkick

The Foreign Exchange

31. October 2008

It would be dishonest of me to say that I’m a huge Neo-Soul kinda guy, but I’ve always been a big fan of the production from Nicolay, one half of The Foreign Exchange (with NC rapper-now-singer Phonte, from Little Brother). Their first collaboration, Connected, was one of the best hip-hop/soul records of 2004, and the [...]

Z-Trip’s Obama Mix

28. October 2008

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I intentionally tried to stay away from any politics over the course of the last few years — I mean with so many more qualified blogs out there, who am I to get into the mix? But when the political and musical spheres bump heads, I guess it’s a little more appropriate to follow course, [...]

Michna

11. August 2008

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A while back, when I was DJing more frequently, I used to rely on a small stack of records to get me through particularly tough transitions within sets. One of those records was “The Underwater Adventure Hop Secret Treasure 12″from the Secret Frequency Crew, and I always felt like their full-length CD that followed on [...]

Koushik

30. July 2008

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Stone’s Throw often relishes in mixing the new with the old but few of the venerable label’s artists sum it up as well as Koushik, the eponymous moniker of Koushik Ghosh. Mixing hazy 60’s nostalgia with new school beats and production, the music occupies a very unique place within a larger nexus of downtempo, soul, [...]

Flying Lotus + Lil’ Wayne

8. July 2008

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Here’s a quick little nugget just sent out by the Warp camp from LA’s Flying Lotus, who will be dropping a series of EPs throughout August featuring new non-album tracks, very special collaborations, and remixes from some of your favorites. Here’s one of the first, featuring none other than the self-professed “greatest rapper alive” Lil’ [...]

Presto

16. June 2008

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It gives me great pleasure to be back posting after a hectic month of work. Expect much more regular content moving forward, starting with today’s post from Los Angeles DJ/Producer Presto. His early 12″ instrumentals were a staple of my older downtempo and hip-hop sets, so it’s fantastic to be able to bring you word [...]

Prefuse 73

31. August 2007

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The prolific Guillermo Scott Heren, man of many pseudonyms, is back with yet another release under his most noteworthy guise, Prefuse 73. One of the forefathers of the glitch-hop sound — an abstract, mostly instrumental and regularly angular take on hip-hop’s standard 4/4 — Prefuse builds upon an already stellar body of solid experimentalism with [...]

Marco Polo featuring Masta Ace

21. May 2007

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Thanks to Bastard Jazz’s head-honcho DJ DRM for this inaugural 2007 Summer jam alert! You may already know about New York via Toronto producer Marco Polo, but for those not yet familiar — and fans of golden-era mid-90s hip-hop — do not miss out on the automatic BBQ bangers on his new LP for Rawkus, [...]

Joe Beats

4. April 2007

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Big apologies for not posting but the day job is getting the best of me right now. But good shit has been piling up and I have a large stack of some incredible music, first and foremost some new stuff from one of our favorites Joe Beats (aka Joey Beats), of Non-Prophets fame and currently [...]

Thisish Volume 1

13. March 2007

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I’ve read quite a lot about the Thisish crew before this post because I’m always curious how an often myopic hip-hop media approaches eclectic production. The truth is that for all his success, a celebrated producer such as Timbaland for example, who is often showered with deserving albeit hyperbolic compliments, isn’t really that forward-thinking or [...]