The Musik Lounge

Where to begin? In certain hiphop circles the name J Dilla rings out above all others. Upon his passing in 2006 there was an endless stream of knock offs looking to generate some hype off the man's steez and deliver lazy interpolations of his timeless sound. Of course these projects were so numerous in the end little of it stuck around - although a few are still doing their thing today and some have taken that initial inspiration to realms unimaginable at the time. Jay Dee was a savant with the MPC. His ability to capture loops, flip drums and bang out rhythms on a machine with the feel of a real drummer only begins to scratch the surface of what it was he cooked up. The beats were soulful, smooth, rugged, classic hiphop that could be touched by emcee’s and vocalists alike. His list of collaborators is lauded. His impact on music as a whole is unquestioned. Alas this isn’t about the man, as more words have been shed on him than ever needed to be. The music speaks for itself. Go li...

Mizo & I are back at it, delivering our weekly dose of grooves for your lazy Sunday listening pleasure. As mentioned last week we are both reorienting ourselves with our record collection (and constantly snagging new things - shouts out Hi Voltage!). This week I kicked us off with a Freestyle Fellowship screed against societal ills that declares "We Will Not Tolerate." It felt so perfectly spot on for today even at almost thirty years old! This is volume 8 folks! The combination of full access to our collections and continued practice behind the decks is starting to be heard, we move in and out of sounds, layering our selections better, mixing more smoothly and generally continuing our only guideline of "a conversation through tunes." You'll hear the mix start out with some electronic leaning frequencies and progressing into harder hitting, darker sounding drums but everything is filled with an overarching sense of Soul. Where ever your Sunday is taking you,...