Sometimes When I come up for an idea or a theme for a mix, I get so consumed thinking about all the songs I want to include that it never ends up being more than a concept. In an effort to keep things simple, I decided to start a series of 10-song recordings. The limited tracklisting keeps me from over-thinking things and I’ve been able to come up with some really fun mixes. Since they’re all 10 tracks long, I decided to call them “Dime Pieces.”
For this one I revisited a set I did live one day on KRUA. I just took some cool originals I liked and mixed them into songs that sampled them. Note: There is some NSFW swearing on here.
Isaac Hayes – Ike’s Mood / Mary J. Blige – I Love You: Ill piano riff and it seems like Chucky Thompson either listened to Prince Paul’s advice from that De La skit or just bit Sweet G’s Games People Play.
Blackbyrds – Mysterious Vibes / Kurious – I’m Kurious: Such an aptly named jam. Serious vibes on this. Produced by Prime Minister Pete Nice, who also worked in that corny / perfect Midnight Star sample.
O’Donel Levy – People Make the World Go Round / Blackalicious – Swan Lake: I knew this was a “People Make the World Go Round” sample, but was mostly familiar with the Stylistics version. When Blackalicious came up to Alaska for a show with Latyrx, I got the opportunity to open for them and blogged about it here and here. In the course of working on the recap, I researched the sample source for Swan Lake (produced by Chief Xcel and DJ Shadow) and found the O’donel version.
James Brown – The Boss / Nas – Get Down: Not much to say here. James Brown is the most sampled artist of all time and Nas is one of the best rappers of all time, this is a no brainer. Also worth noting, this track (produced by Nas and Salaam Remi) has a Blackbyrds sample too, “Rock Creek Park.”
The Delegation – Oh Honey / Erykah Badu – Honey (DJ Day Remix): 9th Wonder’s production on the original is dope, but I just love this remix by DJ Day. That he took a song that had Honey in the title to pull of a little wordplay is even better. You can download his remix for free here and you really owe it to yourself to get some of his Do Over mixes (they’re on his Soundcloud) and his album Land of 1,000 Chances.