Soulfire

Coldcut - Colors of The Soul Vs. Lil' Wayne - Fireman

Welcome Mads readers! Today I'm serving up a track I'm especially fond of. Instrumentals courtesy of a fine English trip hop duo you may not have heard of, Coldcut. And of course, that's none other than lil weezy himself on the vox. It's hard not to respect Lil' Wayne, despite him fitting the "self-obsessed hip-hop twerp" stereotype quite perfectly. Nevertheless, he's probably the post prolific rapper out there, spitting out quality mixtapes left and right. I'm working with Back on My Grizzy, another Weezy track, for my next set and it's another mindbender. Just listen to this beat and tell me you don't wanna break something.

Take it easy people, and check out my back-catalog if you haven't already!

Throw Some Funk on Dat Bitch

Daft Punk - Da Funk (Casino Inc) Vs. T.I. - Throw Some D's

I've had these two tracks matched up in my set for a while and finally decided to render them out together. This Da Funk remix is one of the best I've heard - walks the house/disco line with precision. Match that up with TIs drawly flow and you've got a hit. TI isn't your typical pop rapper...or maybe he is; I don't really listen to a lot of TI. One thing's for sure though - Top Back and Throw Some D's are both legit bangers. His choppy flow in the middle of this a capella fits well over the breakdown in the instrumental. It's a shame he insists on keeping his songs locked below 80bpm, but I guess that's a matter of taste. Go go gadget Ableton!

2 Million Wamps

Cmos - 2 Million Ways Vs. Clipse - Wamp Wamp

So here's your classic disco house track, spiced up with a dash of the hottest rapper out of VA since....ever. Clipse blows my mind. I definitely want to start working with their vocals more, maybe trill or keys open doors. DJ Benzi has an entire mixtape out devoted to them but I haven't been able to snag it yet. If anyone out there has this, hit me up! This is an example of a track I don't really see a need to pre-render. I keep the a capella and instrumental separate in Ableton and sync them in real time - easy enough. The payoff of this risk is being able to manipulate or isolate each as I go. Definitely a crowd pleasing move.


wamp wamp, bitches.

African Atlions

Toto - Africa Vs. Outkast - Atliens

Simple mashup again. This song by Toto is damn classy, definitely deserving of Andre's vocals. If you don't recognize the tune, listen for when the chorus comes crashing back in towards the end. This is a total 80's TV Compilation track. Oh and peep this: (Hilarious)

Later, people

Lil' Phantom

Justice - Phantom Pt. 2 (Boys Noize / Soulwax) Vs. Lil' John - Get Low

Ah the always venerable remix-of-a-remix. I've had this phantom piece sitting in my set for a while now. It's a true Justice banger, no doubt about that, but it is definitely a little bit off putting to the untrained ear. Solution: Pop-rap. Lil' John's grungy vocals complement that sidechain-crushed bassline nicely. I may return to this track to add a little more than one verse, but I don't usually like to play this song for too long anyway so this may be the perfect dose.


Shazam

Ghostbusta'

Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters Vs. Busta Rhymes - Dangerous

So walking back from Girl Talk, I was abducted. Russell, Winston and I, far too drunk to refuse, were led into Davidson, single file, by a similarly intoxicated junior whose name I may never remember. Some illegal shit went down, and then she put on this ghostbusters mashup that rocked my skull. The seed was planted. Last week I finally got around to doing something about it with this Busta Rhymes track. Diddn't involve a lot of effort, but it got the basic job done. I feel like I may need to revisit this in a few weeks to give that extra dash of Live spice, but for now I feel good putting it up.


Hope you like

In Da' Woman

Whitney Houston - I'm Every Woman (VNDLSM) Vs. 50 Cent - In Da' Club

I like this blend. Made this one a while ago but it's been a consistent top dog in my set. VNDLSM keeps pumping out these sidechained bangers and 50's staccato flow works well right on top. Nothing too fancy here. I did test the waters a little bit with a brief vocal chop, but I tend to stray away from those things. I definitely had "Ain't nothin' changed hos down Gs up, I see Xzibit in the club and nigga roll dem trees up" stuck in my head for weeks, had to do something with that line.

Peak party material here.

It Would Be Ideal if You Were Gone

Digitalism - Idealistic Vs. Kelly Clarkson - Since You Been Gone

Nice key matching here. Absolutly hilarious as well. I'll play this one soon, been keeping it in my sidebar arsenal for a while, waiting for the right time... Props again to Noah for introducing me to Digitalism, good electro coming out of them. This may or may not be the A-Track remix of this song. If you haven't heard of A-Track, he's another one of those idol things.

Dude's dedicated.

Gyrowhit

Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody Vs. Stanton Warriors - Gyromancer

Alright this one's a mess. Forget what I said earlier, this was my first Live experiment. Whitney shows off her pipes on this track, one of the first acapellas in my library. At this point I was still learning to use effects, just barely experimenting with pingpong delay and EQ3. I put a ton of time into this, it's just too bad that it was doomed to be off key and muddled from the beginning. Definitely and educational venture though...

Learn by doing.

Seductive Hustle

Rick Ross - Hustlin Vs. Snoop Dog - Sensual Seduction

Jumping on the Rick Ross bandwagon, I made this simple little track. Sensual Seduction is a little weak on its own, not quite dance material. So with that in mind I tried to add some sweet rap loops on top to bring it to the party level. Rick Ross' verse is fucking awful, but his voice has a cool sound and it's worth it for that one now-classic loop. Still not quite a dance tune, but I could see myself spinning this at a small party and not feeling like a top 40 whore.

Mission Accomplished.

Hysterical Dog

DMX - Gonna Give it to Ya Vs. Muse - Hysteria

この歌は、うるさいですね。
It also sounds pretty cool. I'd been wanting to put the opening riff of Hysteria behind something for a while, and was chopping it up when I found this DMX vocal. Put it together quickly in a semi-conscious haze that I have little actual recollection of. I do remember like 20 kids stopping by asking if I was really using DMX, though. What's so bad with a little X in yo' life kids? Dude has one of my favorite album covers of all time:

Enjoy it.

Naznoize

Refused - New Noise Vs. Justice - Waters of Nazareth W/ Lil' John, Pase Rock

This track holds a special place in my heart. First, lets get everything out on the table. This shit is heavily inspired by Steve Aoki's Pillowface intro. I've spliced my own Nazareth mashup into the mix, but the bread of this sandwich essentially mirrors the first two tracks of his mix. Alright so the first (and last) time I played this it absolutely bombed. I saw kids who honestly did not know how to react. Given how drunk they all were, this level of indecisiveness is really unprecedented. I love the flow of this track, and love mixing in the unexpected. But, after I was told that the song sucks dick by a flamboyant party goer, I decided to put this one aside. So, here it is, extra rare and only heard by the public once before.

All yours!

Whatchu Know About The Rain (Meteorologist Mix)

Fat Joe - Make it Rain vs. T.I. - What You Know About Dat

I'm a sucker for King Carter, and this acapella just slid into place on top of the mix. Still waiting to test this one on a crowd. I haven't really gotten a chance to play hiphop, given the type of gigs I've been getting. I'd planned on working with a west coast island-hop vibe for one dinner event I worked, but my Co-Dj convinced me to pander to the 80's crowd. I'd kind of been fantasizing about finding a right hand man to work with, but that definitely shook me. As soon as you don't have total control, it's very obvious. Shit sucks, but this song doesn't.

enjoy.

Friendly Fire

Souljia Boy - Crank Dat vs. Simian Mobile Disco - Never Be Alone

This is a fun little mashup that took me about an hour to splice up. The little vocal chop verse took the longest to compose, but that stuffs fun once you get in a little creative groove. I like the original Justice vs. Simian track but thought it might be a little too repetitive electro to fit in a set. What better way to fix this than to put an even more repetitive pop song on top? Only gotten up the nerve to play this once, but it definitely seemed to work.

Got a few laughs, at the very least.