Ladies... I'm back on a radio show

I 'm back on a local radio RCT, you can listen to my mixes every sunday between 20:30 & 21:30 (Paris time) check it out on the internet Here.

If you missed last sunday's show, here's your last chance to grab Ash.K 's Bangers mix.
One Shot- two turntables.... Only wax shit as usual....

Illustration by Damien Venzi

Tracklist:

1-Bronze Nazareth “ The Pain”
2-Kayne West feat paul Wall & GLC “Drive slow”
3-DJ Kay Slay feat LL Cool J “The truth”
4-T-Max “Mind over matter”
5-Sean Price feat Rock of Heltah Skeltah “P.Body”
6-Termanology “Watch how it go down”
7-DITC “Thick rmx”
8-Lupe Fiasco “Kick Push”
9-De La Soul “U can do (life)”

Peace.

Grand Mixer DST

Giants Yeah!
Brett Favre 's not gonna play an other Superbowl after the one he won in 96... Too Bad.

He remains as one of the greatest QB in my opinion....38 years old...still there!

Anyway Giants fans had to wait 7 years to see again their favorite team in the Superbowl which is not gonna be easy versus the Patriots. Packers vs Giants was a very nice game and finally Tynes (Giants's kicker) succeded in his last FG attempt. Lots of oppotunities missed for NY, but at last they deserved to win.

Back in NY, 82 with this wax from my private 7' collection, GrandMixer DST and the Infinite rappers with the track Grand Mixer (Cuts it up)



Great electro hip hop tune, might be one of the first that appeared in NYC.
As you've all guessed Back cover by Futura 2000.

I'm out....Peaz!

Hip Hop Culture # 3

DJ Screw

What up?

Third part of the topic about Hip Hop Culture, today let's talk about Screwed & Chopped.

As you might know, I'm more into straight boom bap east coast rap. However I 've decided to focus on the south scene because:

• Outkast (Atlanta) remains -since their first LP "Southerplayallisticadillacmusik"- as one of my favorite rap band ever.
• I just read an interview of Houston rap star Slim Thug from Thomas Blondeau.
• I'm @ the present time about to finish Nik Cohn's novel called Triksta that throw you inside New Orlean's rap scene.
• In my opinion UGK (Houston) released the best mainstream rap album in 2007, this is called underground kingz -RIP Pimp C-

So US rap can't be bounded to NY or LA. Since the late 80's bands and crews hang about the streets of Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Memphis or Atlanta. And Nowdays rap biggest stars in the US are probably Lil Jon, Mike Jones, Lil Wayne or David Banner.

Back in 96, I remember to buy a mixtape from DJ Screw called "3 in the Mornin' part 2".

In this tape I discovered for the first time the screwed and chopped style. It was slower and slower, slower than any laid back west coast production....

In Screwed and chopped music, hip hop records are literally slowed-down to a molasse like pace, and beats and lyrics ooze lazily out of the speakers. The result is a heavy, drowsy groove that, over the 15 years has exerted a major influence on southern hip hop culture (lots of mimicks of mcs come from S&C)

DJ Screw led an entire crew of MC's around him. That click -The screw up click- includes MCs like ESG, lil Keke and Big Hawk who have since become local legends with carreers only built on slowed down rhymes. Even Lil Flip launched his carreer with a screwed and chopped mixtape and now every mc from the south side got a S&C version of his album.....

Screwed and chopped is even more that a slowed-down laid back beat. It's also a Dj trick, that's basically a cut between two copies of the same record which creates a double time beat and a reverb in the voices that bought an extra jolt of rythm and mixes.

Screwed and Chopped is also a way of life linked to drug addiction in Houston. According to Devin the Dude, everybody was on "Syrup" listening S&C in the mid 90's. This Syrup also called Texas tea is a diabolic mix between alcool and syrup that contains codeine. At this time "Syrup" really hit hard in Houston projects. DJ Screw was found dead in 2000 in his home presumably from a "Syrup" OD.

By the time DJ Screw had passed away, the entire Screwed and Chopped style had begun to infiltrate the rest of the South...

Still no matter how big the sound of Houston gets how far across the globe reaches, Screwed and Chopped will alway be a part of the Hip Hop Culture and of Houston's identity - and that of its namesake, DJ Screw.


2 tracks from 96's DJ Screw mixtape 3 in the Mornin' pt 2:

DJ Screw feat ESG - Sailin' the South
DJ Screw feat Botany Boys - smokin' and leanin

Happy New Year Fellaz!

Let's start this new year with a double 10' I really like, one of the best release of the label Ninja Tune so far.

The composer of the 4 tracks of this EP is named Patrick Carpenter (better as PC) and is also the main composer for Cinematic Orchestra and Neptune.

"A dub plate of DJ Food" is a double 10' from the LP Kaleidoscope which came out in 2000, it will show you the dope combination between ambient, hip hop, jazz and breakbeat that characterise DJ Food.

Props to Jujudoka who made me discover this great artist!

Now it's your chance to grab two tracks from this wax:
DJ Food feat Ken Nordine "the ageing young rebel"

DJ Food "Cookin"

Books #1

I 've decided that I will talk about books I just read, let's do it right now!

In Tenebris -Maxime Chattam- 10/20

Second section of Chattam's trilogy starring Portland's private detective Yoshua Brolin.
This book is just "horrible". Same ingredients as what he did before : blood, horror and atrocity which remained me serial killers's movies like "Silence of the lambs" or "Seven".
Nevertheless this is a captivating story.....

I'm not a big fan of Chattam 's writing style. His opinions about life and society, he relates in his stories are ine my point of view too obvious, in other words it could be more sublte. I guess Chattam is around 30 years old and he grew up -as I did - reading Stephen Kings sickest novels because similarities between the two authors caught my eyes....

This book definitely has to stay in hands of people who really like morbid stories....


Bone -George C Chesbro - 11/20
The story throw you into the poverished mentally ill atmosphere of new yorkers who are forced to live in the streets. The "milieu" of the homeless in NYC is well described in the 1st half of the book. Bone the main character was found amnesic in a square somewhere in teh big apple. He's gonna struggle and evolve to recover details of lost memory in NY underground.

Time after time the story goes unfortunately to a big hollywood blockbuster plot. The end is really fucked up! Too bad it started well!

I am surprised this hasn't been made into a movie yet.


Pulp - Charles Bukowski - 10/20
Pulp is the last of Bukowski's novels.
The main character is a LA based private investigator named Nick Belane who gets involved with the spirit of Celine (French author) and a sexy alien in this off beat story. Unsuccessful in his investigations this hard drinking private chooses most of the time to spent the rest of the day in bars. In everyone he visits, he's mistaken for somebody else.

According to specialist of the "genre", this book is dedicated to "bad writing": humour is trash, the parody looks weak sometimes and the dialogues are most of the time not that funny....

Pulp 's not gonna stay longer in my memory.



Dopefiend - Donald Goines - 15/20
Schocking nightmare story of black heroin addicts. Trapped in the festreing sore of the american ghetto of the 70's. A young man, girlfriend and friends are inexorably pulled to slow death of the hardcore junkies.

This book shows you the effects of using drugs, in horrifying graphic details, the author explains from how a junkie shoots up to how he feels not to have a fix.

Goines tells about the hopelessness and despair of inner city black at this time and like it's been said many times, Goines writes from the experiences he had.

One of the best storytelling I ever read. Highly recomened!

To illustrate this last book, I leave you with death wish from Herbie Hancock, 1974, soundtrack for a movie starring Charles Brownson that could also have been the soundtrack of Dopefiend.