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BUT THIS IS WEB 2.0 — ISNT ADDING A DIFFERENT JPG ENOUGH?

all links via. i’ll rip jumbie-themed JA vinyl another day. until then (spot di 17 yr old genius):

stephenmacgregor

Heatwave – Rowdy 2007 reggae mix

(big mix! one of my 2008 resolutions is to attend a LDN Heatwave dance )

Forgaks – Unknown Number reggae mix

(not really mixed, burdened by weird volume drops and some glitches, but killer commentary and broken-out, labeled mp3s)

+ plus +

great Stelfox piece on the changing economy of Jamaica’s music industry:

“When voicing a riddim, artists are usually paid a flat fee by producers, not royalties, regardless of how well their song sells. Instead they make their fortunes from live performances and the recording of dubplates – custom versions of big hits calling out the name of a specific selector or sound system that are then played at dances or competitive sound clashes. The more in demand the artist or song, the more these dubplates cost, and with professional DJ teams around the world hungry for exclusive tracks, it’s a lucrative trade for top-tier performers. It is, in fact, the producers who are finding themselves cut out of reggae’s economic loop.”

– excerpt, Vinyl Has Been Eliminated, Dave Stelfox

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I use all-caps because that’s how he talks, and this is what Funkmaster Flex said on the radio tonite, during one of his arrogant flawless radio DJ mix moments:

“NOBODY HAS MORE RECORDS NEW YORK. YOU HEAR THAT? I GOT A MILLION AND A HALF. IM TAKING THE SERATO THING TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”

9milchart

&here’s a 5-hour history lession [July 4th Hot 97 mix special, Funkmaster Flex]:

“LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN TO ME NEW YORK, OK? IM IN THE NINETIES STRONG. IM NOT IN THE 90S IN SOME MTV VIDEOS OR SOME VH1 NONSENSE. We ain’t commercialed out, its not what it is today. I did not come up here to play Hammer and Young MC. Its not what it is. That’s not what represents the 90s to me, ok? There’s nothing happy about the 90s, alright? NO EXTRA SMILING. OK? This is real hardcore, PEOPLE WERE MAKING RECORDS BECAUSE THEY WAS HYPED.”

EDIT:

MATT SHADETEk chimes in:

Yo, I just have to say, wow. I have not had this much fun listening to radio in a while. Big ups to rupture for posting this and funk flex for doing it. This is only iller considering what he has been playing lately.

Straight techno-pop, (like timbalands “Way I Are”, wicked), with shouting, impeccable beat juggling and MAD ENERGY SON! To have him go back into the crates of my own NYC adolescence is just… Spine tingling. This is one of the reasons I had such a hard time (and failed) staying in Europe. When I’m in NYC and Funk Flex is yelling down the radio and looping the beginning of a record he likes again and again I just feel, for lack of a better word, home. They sound old, dusty and anachronistic now but only a limited number of people on earth know what some of these nineties hip-hop records mean to me, to us. How HYPE we used to get about this stuff, stuff like Boot Camp Click, Smif N Wessun, Brand Nubian, Black Sheep and Nice and Smooth. Funkmaster Flex knows. Put your hands up for New York. I love my city.

PS: also, he drew for high pitched “Go flex!” intro. Who knows!?!

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At night, when the big advertisers go away, NYC-area radio gets really good.

The stations that are satured with depressing, attention-grabbing ads for the army, “debt relief” usury, and McDonalds during the daytime… well, at night those ads dont go away, they widen to include Viagra-type ads. But they happen less frequently.

And between them unfolds incredible, alive radio. Some moments are great because of the music they play and others are great because of how live they make it all. The best combine both of these with technically virtuoso hiphop DJing. I’m convinced they edit it in advance because i’ve never once heard a mistake or an off-beat blend, it’s that good. We didn’t get any of that perfectionist Manhattan turntablism tonite, but it was bumpin nonetheless. Here’s what i heard:

radio 05aradio 05aradio 05aradio 05aradio 05a

nYc aIrwAves – dUTtY rAdIo RiP (30 min., 28 MB)

This is EXACTLY what New York City sounds like right now. Midnite to 3AMish? I’m skipping around stations, but La Kalle and Hot 97 are well-represented, and the weird stuff at the end is WFMU. Recorded onto a flagging harddrive from one of those cd-cassette units that resemble the head of a praying mantis or ant.

clean music rubs right off – the dutty stuff stains