I just noticed a forum thread called Ever Get the Feeling You’ve Been Cheated? which was posted by TZone, mainly about the nominations. He is rightly pissed off that his name isn’t in a producer category. But there are a LOT of other important names that are missing in the lists. What does it mean? That people don’t appreciate quality? I think that there is a chance of that. That people didn’t do enough to make sure they got nominated if they wanted to be there? Certainly! JoeAlias is everywhere right now, pushing with tracks every day and he got 6 noms. I say well-fncking-done. Does that mean that he’s top 5 in each category? I doubt even he would say he is.
So, here’s the thing. Every year that the noms come out, people get annoyed and say they are leaving. It’s the same with the DT mixtape and people were pissed at me because they didn’t make it onto the KKRUNCH tapes. Like they are owed something. Since when did DT start giving out free lunches? WE created the awards – not DT (they just helped us by setting up voting) – so we have to make it work. And that is, in my opinion, how we should sort out most of the problems.
Here are the same complaints I see every damn week…
I deserve an award: do you, really? And if you do, why aren’t other people agreeing with you? Did you do enough to demonstrate it? I think MF Doom is better than 99% of hip out there, but I don’t see him in the charts. Dig?
A lot of people in the noms don’t deserve to be there: well, they got voted in and it wasn’t through ghost accounts, because they were checked.
I never get recognition for what I do: firstly, do you really care if a bunch of lames vote your stuff up? I don’t care for a lot of peoples’ opinions on this site, so why do I care if they dope me? I think that we should set up a committee of regular users that can vote up the hot tracks, so that we have a sort of ‘moderators top tracks’ list. No ghost or spammer is going to get on there.
There isn’t enough moderation on the site: no shit. But it is OUR site, so we have a duty to moderate. I remember calling a spammer out and had to live with a world of shit because we’re all too selfish to act collectively. I’m down to sort out a moderation committee if enough people are prepared to put the hours in.
People are ghosting: Yeah, maybe but I don’t see what the point is. You will know if you’ve voted yourself up and what is the point in showing off about being the best if you voted yourself up? Even if Pink made it so that IP addresses were tracked, people could easily get around it. We need some integrity here. We should all know when a lame gets more points than they deserve and call them out. Again, this would be helped if there were a committee of moderators.
So, my point is, we can’t moan because (most of us) are grown adults and we should take responsibility. What do you all think? A sort of moderation committee to do the following tasks:
-police forums, crack down on spammers, make sure people don’t ask the same damn question every day
-spot potential ghosts and investigate beat jackers
-work to an informal rota so that we know people are looking in on it each day (but I doubt that it’s very strict)
-share the best new tracks with others and maybe some sort of moderators top track – it would have to be secret who is voting on stuff, but most people will work it out. Again, integrity (look it up, chump).
finally, i been doing a bunch of videos of my 2009 tracks – the new one uses a bunch of war footage and includes Knowledge Born, Presto and Eratik…. have a look on KK’s video channel! And yeah, i’m promoting for the Original Producer award. Like I said, people don’t get free lunch. Peace
We’ve tabulated the nominations and here’s how we broke down the categories. First, we shot for a limit of 5 finalists per category, but sometimes we had to include more because there were users with equal votes numbering more than 5 in some categories. Also, we’ve added 2 new categories. Track and Beat of the Year. We’ve narrowed down the top 10 for each category based on tracks and beats contributed during 2009 with the most dope points. Voting begins tomorrow, Feb 5th. I’ve shuffled the results so they’re in no particular order.
Best Male Emcee Finalists
Eratik
NicAtein
ShelleyGray
storminnorm
KinEtic
Hubus
MeSsO
dotHOLLO
joealias
LA$E
PRESTO82
We’ve recently been contacted by the makers of the upcoming game called “Platinum Life”
If you have played Mafia Wars you are pretty familiar with the concept of social gaming. In Platinum Life players will become an unsigned musician and work their way up to become a superstar. The game will be available on the web and on facebook.
FROM IGN:
“The basis behind Platinum Life is exploring the life of a hip hop artist from all facets, moving from obscurity to fame and fortune. However, you won’t solely be navigating the pitfalls of contracts and deals by yourself. Heatwave announced today that T.I., the multi-platinum rapper, will act one of the mentors for your created characters, leading you along the way as you establish your career. “His character is where you’re trying to get to; you’re trying to get to the top of your game and not just be a great artist but be a mogul and have your own business and do more than just the performance aspects of the game,” Castoro mentioned. Apparently, T.I. will be one of a number of iconic artists that players will be able to select from (a dozen or so other performers will be announced at a later time, ranging from pop to R&B to gangsta rap), who will shepherd your character as you start out. You might be told to boost your street credibility in one place or another and if you perform tasks from your mentor’s agents, you’ll be given the opportunity to open for them at a show. ”
Check out a trailer.
The game is set to launch shortly, and we’ve been given an opportunity to feature top DT Producers in the game. This means samples of your beats will be played in the game itself with an image and link to your beat on DT. We are still in the phase of discussion, so I wanted to ask DEETS and specifically the producers what you think of this idea.
So chime in.. To begin with I’d like to take one beat from the top 20 producers on DT based on dope points alone. Afterwards, the game may feature the top 20 beats on the site at any given time. This represents an enormous opportunity to get your music exposed to potentially millions of people a week.
Our hosting providers have to take a 3 hour maintenance window to make sure the systems are up to date and as stable as possible. DT will be down from 12am possibly up until 3am PST.
Suzuki and DT are partnering up again to bring you the ultimate mc battle where the winner gets a custom Hayabusa Bike.
The contest wont start til March, but DT is going to unveil a BEAT BATTLE in Feb to determine which DT Producer will join the ranks of Celebrity Producers and have their beat featured in the contest on Suzuki’s website.
More details to come!
In the meantime you can check out the details here: http://www.busabeats.com and pre-register to be notified when the contest goes live.
Early bird special… We weren’t supposed to go live with this till the 22nd, but to let you have more time to nominate we’re going live now.
To nominate a deet, visit their profile and click on the nominate me tab. Simple as that.
2 rules. You can’t nominate anyone for any category twice and you can’t nominate yourself. Simple enough.
You have 10 days to get your nominations in…
Voting begins Feb 2nd
AGAIN, rather than posting in the comments below, To nominate a deet, visit their profile and click on the nominate me tab. Simple as that.
2 rules. You can’t nominate anyone for any category twice and you can’t nominate yourself. Simple enough.
Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa & Belated Hannukah. We hope you enjoy a few days off if you get some, time spent with your families and a warm place to spend it. Let’s be thankful for all that we do have this year. I am thankful for this little community that inspires the world with passion and music from the heart. Thanks deetz.
Goose Blackfinger offers a sneak peak at an early round of DJ Contest: “Who’s The Ultimate DJ” in collaboration with AllHipHop.com as part of Scratch the Ultimate DJ the latest DJ video game developed by Numark and set for release May 2010. The event was held at The Scratch Academy in LA with DJ Numark, Mix Master Mike and DJ Babu with an open call for up and coming DJs to come enter in the contest, wax with Numark, Mike and DJ Babu and get more familiar with the Scratch game.
So, Goose and Ryo went on the road to get a sneak peak of the upcoming film Ninja Assassin, from the team that brought you the Matrix and 300. They captured an exclusive Fight Demonstration from Stunt Double Kim Nguyen of 87Eleven, the martial arts design group responsible for some of the most intricate fighting scenes in modern cinema.
Special thanks to TragedyFerrero who is credited in the end for the beat from week 3 of the Propellerhead contest.
Then Goose had a chance to talk to Kim about the film and even a little about hip hop. Special thanks to Aechdot for the featured beat.
Finally, Goose caught up with Rick Yune, Alias, Fast and The Furious to talk about Martial arts and RZA. Special thanks to Sein for the featured beat.
Here’s the trailer for the film which opens November 25th.
So, a few deetz, probably in the habit of googling themselves (don’t we all) discovered that samples of their DT music is currently being featured on entertonement.com. Entertonement.com is a website that allows users to upload sound bytes and share it on the web. DT reached an agreement (in which no money was exchanged) with the folks at entertonement to syndicate teasers of DT content in order to drive traffic to DT via backlinks to your tracks and beats residing on DT.
In the above sample, you can see that a user can hear 30 seconds of the clip.. if they wish to hear more, they have to click on Full Version… which will link to Ryo’s full beat on DT.
We felt that giving Entertonement access to small bits of content was a fair trade for resulting traffic and listens to your music. Some of you have expressed that this doesn’t feel right. Having people outside the DT community be able to see your pics and hear your music isn’t cool. I can only say.. we have been giving you embeddable clips from day one that are all over myspace, facebook. WE have given you the ability to tweet your tracks and beats. Having your music live beyond DT is the whole point for many of you. That’s why you have accounts on other sites…. We get that. Some of you just do it for fun…
Also, as DT is a free service, we hope to drive traffic to the site to support our hosting costs and bandwidth. So getting more traffic to the site is a must, if we wish to grow.
Bottom line is.. we think this is a win-win for DT and it’s community. It’s called syndication and it’s how you get the word out. But also know that we are going to evaluate this relationship from time to time and decide whether we are getting what we want out of it. We are still waiting to get confirmation from Entertonement that our channel page is up, where we will promote the concept of DT and get new users that way. On behalf of the DT staff, I apologize for not announcing this sooner.
I just wanted to bring to your attention a couple of beats that have blown me away recently, and got me thinking about where this producer community could go in the future.
First I head the new dubstep cut by DNG Cat – check out the snares and how it flows into the timing.
Fricasse’s just sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before – on DT or anywhere else. Don’t that just send you wild? You should check out the rest of his stuff, it’s like taking a little music holiday.
I love so much music on DT, including stuff that sticks to the conventions of a style and do it beautifully, but it’s always cool to be properly surprised but a beat and totally feeling it. I really hope people still push like this and I’d love to hear some more emcees take chances with stuff like this.
DNG has been on some hot dubstep thing recently and, despite only just starting to do it a few weeks ago has got a talent for it. If you don’t know what dubstep is, here’s a couple of links – some tracks and a dubstep club night feature I used to go to in 06, with lots of background info and a handful of videos (make sure you check out rusko). I hope that we keep on seeing this kind of wild style to the DT part. Here’s the other 2 from the little cluster of DT dubstep DNGcat has been putting out. Stay fresh DT.
Hey Deetz, it’s been a while but I’m still around, and I just wanted to share another quick tip with you. This one is for the budget artists who have a basic setup and need multiple headphone or line level outputs. The quick and easy way is a little adapter called a splitter. for about $10 USD, you can buy a 5 way headphone splitter by Belkin. It’s called the “Belkin RockStar 5-Way 3.5-mm Headphone Splitter”. Now for around $2 you can also get a 2-way splitter at your local Fry’s or Radio Shack.
Some of you may say, ‘but Proper I’m broke’, or ‘i got 2 bucks in change, but no gas to get to the store’, well here is a free option if you have RealTek (AC’97) sound card (which is standard on most windows based computers these days). The solution is is a feature called ‘Retasking’. Retasking is the process in which you assign a jack on your sound card to perform a task other than what it was originally tasked for. For example, I re-tasked my computer’s front microphone jack to be a headphone jack and i now have two front output headphone jacks.
If you are using just your computer sound card (and/or asio4all or an alternative asio host) and you have the little icon pictured below, then you can use this trick.
(RealTek HD Audio Manager software that comes with the drivers)
Double left click this icon in your system tray to open the HD Audio Manager
The first option you want to enable, if it isnt already enabled is retasking. see the below image in the red box labeled ‘A’ for a screen shot.
In the red box labeled ‘B’ we have the audio task that is selected for the related jack to the right. If you plug in a pair of headphones in one of the jacks, it will enable the task menu button. Click it and a window will pop-up asking you “Which device did you plug in?” (pictured below) for multiple headphones you can use either ‘Headphone’ or ‘Speaker/ Line Out’, but whatever you choose you must use this on all outputs you setup (including your existing speaker out jack.)
Once you have plugged in all of your pairs of headphones and have configured your jacks to use the same ‘Speaker / Line Out’ or ‘Headphone’ configuration, you will now have free multiple headphones out just through a little software hacking! awesome eh?
Feel free to play around with these settings and see what type of combinations you can come up with. if you have multiple microphones, this trick will also work with multiple microphones (great for recording room reverb and getting fuller sound.)
Anyways Ladeets and Gentletrackers, I’m off for now. Please feel free to hit me up and ask for help, or better yet tell me what you want to see next on Tracks 101!
I’ve been doing a few lists of bloggers for y’all to look at and if you are thinking of promoting, they are good starting points. But i just found this insanely helpful blog post on themadbloggers.com that you simply have to read.
Go there for the full deal, but in short:
1. Be humble – then them decide if you’re the one they have been waiting for
2. Don’t copy in hundreds of bloggers – that’s lame and shows you are spamming
3. Keep it short – they are busy folks
4. Spell it out – don’t abbreviate too much, explain what you mean and don’t assume they know what you’re talking about
5. You need an online presence – send myspace, dopetracks profiles, reverbnation… whatever: it helps
mad props to the mad bloggers, that is proper helpful stuff. hope you don’t get spammed because of this!
How many of Deets users use Google.com as their start page? That’s the homepage your browser puts you in when you launch it.
Well, here at DeeTs Labs we thought… why not make your google start page a little more interesting…
So we are testing a new service. It’s very simple. Just visit a page like http://search.dopetracks.com/storminnorm and you’ll see what we mean. Go ahead put your username in there like this http://search.dopetracks.com/luka If you don’t put any username on the end it will default to dopetracks. It’s the google you know and love but with a couple of extra toys.
Toy #1 – Random Fire – Plays a random track that has reached a certain dope point threshold. Will play classic tracks and last weeks tracks, because it’s totally random.
Toy #2 – Quick online status checks. Who’s online on DT at any given moment.
Finally, you can search google without interrupting any of the music playing.
So give it a whirl, and if you like it.. make it your default start page for your browser.
This concludes this beat battle, we are planning some more contests going forward. If you were on any of the shortlists you will get a t-shirt.
Simply send a message tshirts@dopetracks.com and include your full name and mailing address. Without your real name, the stuff is liable to get returned.. We’ve seen it happen before. Winners don’t forget to send us an email too to tshirts@dopetracks.com.
Mr. Pink is sick of taking all of the heat for posting the results, so I am taking over. Another week of dope entries and a first for this contest… a repeat winner. Because of this, we picked a third winner for the week who will also receive the Propellerheads software. So here are the winners and runner-ups for week 3…
Mad respect to all who have made tracks for the 15andCounting competition so far, some of the early entrants are already receiving DT/15&counting hoodies.
Don’t forget that there are dope hoodies up for grabs for the winners and you get the satisfaction of knowing you’re making music for SOMETHING GOOD… The winners are to be picked on numbers of plays.
Here’s the tracks that have been entered so far – the bar has been set high!
Kick back and listen to them and remember that people have made these tunes for a reason – sign the petition to make a difference – support improved sexual health all over the world.
Week 3 of the DopeTracks Propellerhead Battle is officially closed. We hope to get these judged by Tuesday/Wednesday.
Since the last week of our battle will coincide with Halloween, we decided to post spooky samples and sound effects for use in the final leg of the DopeTracks – Propellerhead Beat Battle.
For those dope producers based outside of the US… learn more about this Halloween thing here: Halloween at Wikipedia
A bunch of you were asking for beats for the 15 & Counting comp…. here are some suggestions.The producers have sent them all to me and they are cool with the beats being used for this. Oh, and they are all FIRE!
If you want any of these beats, hit me up on krisitkrisis at gmail dot coconuts and I’ll fire it out, along with some conditions to protect the producers. If you need any more info about this competition, have a look at the post about supporting 15 and counting with a track about the issues. And for God’s sake, sign the damn petition now, PLEASE
Watkinz “Lay it Down” There’s something about this that i just love. It’s simple, basic, and a clear versioning of “Love me & Leave Me” by Nina Simone, but Watkinz just has this mad ear for connections.
Daundaboss “Take Ova Blockz” daun’s got a great ear, real simple beats, nothing too flash, but when he connects, you know it’s going to sond hot with the vocal
I’m gonna spare you the usual talk about how difficult it was to choose the winners, it should be obvious by now since we are constantly delaying the winner announcement.
The thing both winners have in common is that they put together really nice compositions.. They may not be typical hip hop BANGERS, but they build up beautifully and deliver by the time the beat has been heard all the way through.
Ok, this is a sort of ongoing blog post, but I wanted to pull together some of the most fly 15&counting tracks on the site so far…. This is all happening this week and the people that done did me 15&counting tracks already are all getting exclusive DT hoodies sent to them…. I think we got about 10 more hoodies waiting to go out…. Who’s gonna claim ‘em?
I’m gonna set up a poll for the competition in a few days and 5 shirts will go to those with the most votes on that poll, and the other 5 will go to people who’s tracks get the most plays at the point where we close it in a week or so. I’ll give you the dates in the forum.
I knew there are pleny more to come too…. But Norm, Proph, mDotHollo, Lowkan and Keybo have raised the bar on this, so you got to come with your top game.
Me llamo Clea y estoy collaborando con Kristi Krisis escribiendo este blog desde Londres en Inglaterra…o sea ke porfa perdonad mi espa ñol chungo.
Bueno pues, donde empiezo? Me encanta el rap y el hip hop, eso es lo primero! Pero me ha resultado difficil encontrar buenos blogs españoles que se dedican al hip hop. Donde se junta la peña Española y Hispana para hablar del rap y de la musica que mas mola? Mira que he estado buscando un monton por la red sin resultados. Por eso me he tirado la tarde haciendo una lista de los mejores blogs Españoles que se dedican a hip hop y rap.
Disfrutad Amigos! Terapia Hip Hop
Terapia Hip Hop es un mega blog que empezo el año pasado y tiene su origen de Madrid, Zona Bruta. Tiene tres mil visitas al dia (bua!)…y artículos humor, noticias, opinion, videos, reviews y mucho mucho mas. Es uno de los blog mas populares que he encontrado.
Hip Hop Revol
Este blog se dedica a mostrar discos para uso promocional y el blog esta actualizado por blogger Indie, que da su opinion sobre nuevos discos de hip hop que agrega al blog con fotos. Los reviews de Indie estan muy bien y oviamente saber mucho de la musica rap y los artistas mas populares de estos tiempos. El blog tambien tiene un lugar donde dejar comentarios y una lista de otros blogs y sitios de interest.
Hip Hop Flash
El blog esta muy bien organizado con videos de musica, posts, commentarios, top articulos, comentarios de discos y tiene una lista extensiva de articulos ‘mas leydos del dia’. El diseño y la disposición de la pagina es fácil de leer y de navegar y en la parte inferior de la pagina tiene una lista de secciones del blog. Este blog lleva desde 1998 informando a la peña, respect!
Lo Mejor del Hip Hop
Es un blog de Hip Hop, R&B y Soul donde se tratan temas de actualidad e históricos (discos, ropa, mcs, conciertos, etc.), haciendo especial énfasis en el rap internacional y hispano (méxico, chile, colombia, argentina, etc).
Sub Suelo B
SubSuelo B es el blog sobre Hip-Hop, rap, MCing (o rapping), el DJing (o turntablism), el Breakdancing (o BBoying), y el Grafiti de la red de blogs comerciales Medios y Redes.
MC Avalon
Este es un blog sobre el rap escrito por un tio que se llama Mc Avalon. El blog esta abierto a todo tipo de opiniones siempre que sean constructivas. El blog tiene noticias, temas, fotos y commentarios relacionados al rap.
Raptitlan
Este blog esta creado por Rudy Rap A.K.A. Aztlan con el proposito de difundir el Rap Mexicano , Hip-Hop Mexicano y Graffiti Mexicano…uei!
Doggs Hip Hop
Doggs Hip Hop es una pagina web de lo mas grande y representativo del Hip Hop en Argentina. Tiene un blog muy guapo y se ha convertido en uno de los mayores portales de la cultura Hip Hop Argentina (como tambien de Sudamerica); aportando un blog que habla sober temas como el Rap, MCs, BreakDance, TurnTablism, DJs, Graffiti, Vandalismo, Arte, Cultura, Eventos, Fotos, Videos, MP3, Entrevistas, las ultimas noticias del mundo del Hip Hop, Reviews de peliculas de Hip Hop o relacionadas, Arte Urbano, y un extenso etcetera.
Hip Hop Groups
H H Groups es en portal dedicado al movimiento de la cultura hip hop. Con material multimedia libre para el visitante organizado en distintas secciones. Esta pagina web es super popular especialmenete en España y Mexico. Tiene muchos blogs hablando de todo tio de cosas relacionadas al ray y al hip hop. Tambien tiene noticias, entrevistas, maquetas, temas nuevos, bases, graffitis, vidoes y mucha information sobre eventos y conciertos.
Estamos trabajando con una organizacion international benefica en una campaña ‘15andCounting’ que exige un mejor acceso a los servicios de salud sexual y de educación sexual para todas las personas, sin importar tu edad, tu género o dónde vives.
Puedes ayudar nos con la campaña 15andCounting firmando una peticion que pide al el govierno internacional para mejores derechos sexuales para todos. http://www.15andcounting.org/es/ PLEASE!
Dope Tracks
Tambien hemos encontrado una pagina web Americana imporesionante llamada DopeTracks.com, de collaboraciones entre raperos y productores de rimas. Bua ! www.dopetracks.com
Conciones rapeadas en español:
List of spanish songs from dope tracks
Alguno de vosotros puede rapear sober el tema del sexo y derechos sexuales en español? Nos encantaria oir de ti ! kristikrisis@gmail.com
Asta pronto !
Eratik and Rupert are two profiles you HAVE to visit.
DIEGOYES is actually from brazil (portuguese) but i wanted to mention him. this dude is from CHILE http://www.dopetracks.com/profile/musicasiete. LESBLES did a track with some spanish
Congrats to MrsWiseGuy, and DJ Skirty, theKingJMAC for being in the top 5 based purely on points. Clearly the community is behind you! For everyone else.. most likely your shit was dope. There are 3 more battles to go, so step up.
So.. already seeing some dope entries flooding in for week2. Judges had their hands full with almost 150 beat entries submitted for week 1. That means were taking extra time to really give each one a good listen. Look out for some comments from us.. but don’t try and read into them too much, we’re not giving clues!!!!
Give us til Monday evening PST to announce the winners and if for some reason it takes longer we’ll update the site so you don’t stay up too late waiting for the results.
This is turning out to be an exciting competition, mixing the OG’s with the regulars and even some fresh faces introducing themselves the community through their contest entries.
UPDATE:
We’ve narrowed down our picks to the top 20 and are now honing in on the winners. Thanks for your patience.
Hats off to the amazing entries we got for week 1. The DT Staff are hating the position you put us in. It will be hard to choose just 2 winners. We will announce our picks on Monday, Oct 12. Just a reminder, we will pick one winner solely on our own judgement of what we think is the dopest, and the second one we will take into consideration dope points in combination with what we think is a winning beat. So just having the most dope points won’t guarantee a thing. We think that’s fair, and we hope you do too.
Samples for Week 2 are now live. Special Thanks to Fredo Ortiz for donating his time and percussion sounds for this mission. Fredo has played with the likes of Beastie Boys, Blackalicious, Tenacious D, The Offspring just to name a few. For more info on this prolific drummer, check out http://myspace.com/tripas99 or http://fredoortiz.com
Basically, before KDAY in LA, Mr. Magic and DJ Marley Marl had thee first hip-hop radio show in NY. A TRUE pioneer in the game, he was 55 years old when he died of heart attack yesterday. Another sad day for hip-hop folks… PEACE & BLESSINGS
Just a leak, with more details to follow. DT, in partnership with Propellerhead Software, makers of REASON and RECORD are launching a Beat Battle! Visit the page http://www.dopetracks.com/contests/dopetracks_beatbattle_propellerhead, follow the instructions and get ready to submit your entry starting Oct 1st.
We’re giving away 8 copies of REASON or RECORD (if you already own REASON) plus schwag and a badge for the eight winners. Each week we’ll present new samples from various underground sources. This gonna be big.. So get your producer caps on and go for it.
This is how were gonna choose the winners. Each week, a panel of judges consisting of DT Staff and the guest Sample Provider will choose 2 winners. We may consider the communities pick, ie the dopest beats as a big factor for at least one of those winners. However we reserve the right to choose any 2 that we think is dopest. Good luck!
DT sends our condolences to Roc Raida’s family, friends and to the whole hip-hop community for the loss of the legendary turntable technician.
Beyond being a super chill, humble and nice dude, Raida was an innovator and grand master of the turntablism game and DeeJaying in general. He was 37 years old.
That’s right.. why should Gooseblackfinger have a monopoly on these? I’m calling you out Goose.
I’m browsing the site and I find an new track from Eratik, one of the most consistent producer/emcee combos on DT.
You might not be into synth heavy club tracks in general, but you can’t say he doesn’t deliver the goods. Maybe it’s because club track or not, when it comes from a deet, and it’s so radio ready you think to yourself… why isn’t this in rotation with the other 10 songs on coast to coast radio. This track is a reminder why this place has become a base station for some really good shit. I’ve heard a lot of quality music on this site. Signal to Noise ratio is stronger. Even when were not in the middle of peak season, the bass is always peaking. This track is no exception.. Features some guest vocalists Nytronik aka The D.R.O.I.D.z
Kudos for life after autotune and extra points for featuring another language! So without further ado.. my track of the day from Eratik:
“‘Soñandote’ by Eratik & Nytronik a.k.a. The D.R.O.I.D.z” Record over more than 70,000 Hip Hop Beats
As a member of the gold selling group Jurassic 5, Nu-Mark has traveled the globe and played alongside artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast and Run DMC.
According to Nu-Mark’s Myspace page, he has amassed a collection of over 35,000 records. Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a shit-load of records!
Dopetracks recently got a chance to rap with Nu-Mark to talk about a lil history and the future of Deejaying huge venues with ummm… toys. Read on, folks.
Place of Origin:
Born and raised in Los Angeles
What was the first record you liked or bought?
I had this record called Monster Mash. It was a Halloween record I was intrigued by. That was a gift from my parents. The first record I remember buying was UTFO’s “Roxanne Roxanne”.
Where you into breakdancing as a young kid?
No, actually I was playing drums and I was trying to mimic like rock drums. I would try to mimic the drummers from ACDC and Rush. I would listen to rock because those were like the hardest beats back then. When hip-hop came in it kind of stole that bad boy image and the drums were like way doper in my opinion, and sonically sounding, I was like, “whoa what is this shit”. I was like, “wow, how did they get the drums to sound like that”. I didn’t even know what drum machines were, I didn’t understand sampling. Everything was new and exciting. It was new technology, new culture, new everything.
When did you get your first set up?
I got my first set of turntables when I was 13 or 14. I got a cheap pair of belt-driven Servo Techniques with a Realistic mixer—yeah, really cheap shit. In high school I met a group of guys and formed a crew called Bum Rush Productions. It wasn’t until we did like a year or two worth of parties, that we were able to save up for some proper Technique turntables. It changed our lives.
What was Bum Rush Productions about?
It was a mobile DJ Crew that would do all house parties. We were doing 2 to 4 parties every weekend. This was when you could actually get away with a house party, right up until the time when N.WA. came out. Then, you couldn’t do it anymore because people started shooting at the house parties and shit (laughs). That’s when we kind of moved to the clubs. Those were the good times.
Did you battle other crews?
Oh yeah, I battled a lot in that time. These would be proper battles like at parks and stuff like that. I remember battling this one guy in his house. He said he would only battle in his own house (laughs). He brought one of his boys and I brought one of my boys and they had to decide who won. It was funny.
Would you battle for equipment?
No oddly enough, I would always hear about that. I had my own shit so I didn’t really care for anybody else’s equipment. I don’t know if I was willing to give up any of my equipment in case my skills weren’t on point. It was always for the cash. Id rather have money anyways then other people’s shitty equipment.
What are two good records to blend into each other?
(laughs) That’s too hard to say, man. There’s millions of them, man. Um, Let me look through my shit here… Oh ok here we go, “Still Diggin in the Crates” from Showbiz and AG and “Product of the Environment” by 3rd Bass. The guitar lines bounce off each other. One goes, “da na dunt dunt (3rd Bass riff)” and the other goes, “dunt da na dunt dunt (Showbiz riff)”. They kind of like ping pong of each other.
Yeah I can see that working really well. What are some new projects you’re working on?
The most recent one is, I’m doing something with Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg who do those digital shorts like “Dick in a Box” and “Jizz in My pants”. Those guys put out an album called “Lonely Island” and I ended up doing 2 beats on that album. I just found out it was like the best selling album in the U.S. (laughs). Those guys are really fun to work with. Its such a different pace then what I’m used to, working with MCs and singers. Its just comedy the whole time. It was a good change of pace after coming off of Jurassic 5.
How are you making beats these days?
I’m using Ableton Live and Pro Tools.
You mess with live sounds or samples?
I use both. I have a lot of records so I utilize what I’m good at. But, I’ve been collecting more and more vintage gear from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Old fucked up mics and stuff like that. So I’ve been trying to capture some live sounds. I’m working on a Latin record right now kind of with a Tropical sound with Quantic right now so there’s a lot of live shit going on.
Who produced most of the J5 stuff?
It was pretty equal up until the Feedback album. Cut and I would split the production duties. We collaborated in the last song of every album which be like an instrumental DJ cut.
J5 with Beasties. This would be J5's last tour together.
Break down your current DJ set up
I use technique 1200 turntables, Shure M44-7 needles and a Rane TTM 57SL mixer. I’m also using a little midi controller and Serato. When I’m doing my over-seas show, or something for a festival, I do that set up plus a bunch of kids toys. Like, re-wired kids toys that make really cool sounds. It might be an old ‘60s chimp that plays the cymbals and keep him as like a metronome, to like a mini turntable I got in Japan or crazy new toys with samples in them. All kinds of shit.
Sources tell us he was found in his apartment at around 5:20 PM. We’re told drug paraphernalia was found at the scene.
We’re told DJ AM had not been seen or heard from for a few days — one of his friends went to check on him, but got no response after knocking on his apartment door.
We’re told the friend called the police, who broke down the door and then found DJ AM’s body.
Back in September of 2008, DJ AM and Travis Barker survived a plane crash in South Carolina. Four people died in the crash — which was caused when the airplane aborted takeoff and then ran off the runway. DJ AM and Barker were the only survivors.
Read more:
DAMN… RIP
Occasionally, when I’m not checking beats and tracks on DT, I’m wandering on the internet searching for programming tips and tricks… things I can learn and put into DT2. Don’t remember how I found it but I randomly came across an Irish Times article about an up-and-coming Scottish DJ/Electronic Artist named Hudson Mohawke. I checked out his myspace page, flipped through some of the tracks in the playlist and found most his music to be kind of all over the place (in a good way) a bit of funk a bit of soul a bit of vintage cheese, a lot of bang your head loud percussive noise. but I checked his most popular track and I thought it was pretty cool. While most of his tunes would not be easily classifiable as hip hop beats, this one has the kind of quality where you think it’s only a matter of time before Lil Wayne or Kanye borrows this guys chops and collaborates on a tune. Since DT is all about collabs.. I wonder who you would think would be a good fit for the beat I’m embedding below. I don’t know. Hit the guy up and tell him to put a beat on DT. It’s called “ZooO00oO0m” And does he remind you of any DT producer?
So why am I posting about this here on DopeTracks? Well here’s some info from LuckyMe which is his label:
“Hudson Mohawke aka Hud Mo is a producer who is helping define a new era for Hip Hop music. And that’s not schmutz imposed by us here – sometimes it is like everyone bar us is talking about him in quotables. Press talk like’… Hud Mo is the most exciting hip hop producer of our time’. The music was not caused by a preconceived plan to change the game. Quite the opposite. Hud Mo was a young bedroom producer in a town known for every music bar rap.”
There you go.. he’s a bedroom producer, like a lot of us.. Anyways, keep an eye on him, his EP comes out in October.
Here it is folks… The “Jerk” movement has arrived. Lately I’ve been telling folks that L.A. is on some next-level type shit. Nothing against other cities, but L.A. has been going hard for a minute now. Hate it or love it, this New Boyz joint has sparked a nation-wide frenzy of kids jerking and twerking up dance floors and calling each other jerks and actually wanting to as jerky as possible. Jerking basically had Tommy the Clown running for the hills overnight. Long gone are the days of violent, spazzmatic, high-speed Crumping. The new style (for now), is all about the light bounce and fancy footwork of the Jerk. This is great news for all you jerks out there! Being a jerk won’t be popular forever.
The first connection U.K. artist, Mams Taylor (who now resides in Hollywood) made with the American public wasn’t through his energetic brand of “rUnK” music, it was a connection he made on a poor actor’s face with a killer right hook at a trendy night club in Hollywood. The video of Mams swingin’ on the dude aired on TMZ the next day and the rest was LA LA Land history. Mams has since moved forward with his music career to create some good ol’ sleazy club music to shake that ass to with artists like Snoop Dogg and Bobby Valentino. It’s not all about the party for Mams though. He recently put out a song in response to the violence going on in Iran, which got him interviewed on CNN. Most recently, Mams just released his mixtape tHe R-eVoLuTiOn oF rUnK hosted by DJ’s Felli Fell, Skee and Them Jeans. It’s available for free download at www.mininova.org.
If you’re in L.A. or surrounding areas, experience Mams Taylor in person at the Viper Room on Wednesday (tomorrow), August 5 at 11:00PM.
DT: How would you describe your sound? MAMS: I’d say it’s an international sound that comes from a combination of just appreciating all different genres of music growing up. I grew up loving hip-hop and rock and even pop. All the influences I had growing up are sort of meshed into this one sound. There’s definitely more rap influences, but I just mesh it all together and I just feel the music. Whatever I feel that expresses me the best is the sound that comes out. It wouldn’t be fair for me to say I represent hip-hop with my sound per say because I love hip-hop and I wouldn’t disrespect hip-hop by saying that what I’m doing is true, true hip-hop. Thats something I always make clear. It’s a world sound.
DT: What can people expect at your show tomorrow night? MAMS: They can definitely expect high-energy, high-impact sounds. It’s contagious, it’ something you go to and it’s effortless to enjoy even though you might not know the songs. I’ve got a crazy band who are very present and in some songs they jam out a bit. We just feel the music out. I might play a little bit of keys. We’re playing seven songs tomorrow night and four of the songs are backed up with tracks but three of them are just raw so we mix it up.
DT: Where can people hear your music? MAMS: www.mamstaylor.com and of course MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and all that stuff. I just had a mixtape released last week which so far has had over 16,000 downloads so I’m pretty happy with the way thats going. The mixtape is available for free download on www.mininova.org. The mixtape describes my journey from the time I left home [from the U.K.] at 16, becoming a self-made dude, and accidentally becoming a business man from being a bouncer. I went off the rails when I made money and became a much shallower side of myself where it was just all about women and clubs. All the stuff you hear in rap songs, I really lived that. Then I lost it, made it back again and lost it again. Now I’m trying to make it back, but this time through what I love to do the most which is music. So it kind of describes some of that journey without being to deep or medicinal for people. It’s still got a commercial feel to it which makes it digestible for the masses.
DT: How would you describe the average Mams Taylor fan? MAMS: That’s why the mish-mosh of sounds makes sense because it doesn’t necessarily limit to one certain type of fan or genre or specific target audience. I got a lot of fans who might be young ladies and I’m into that for sure. Then there’s the people who might just appreciate music that sounds good in a club. Some of the songs I have contain more lyrical depth and that might connect with certain people. It’s the biggest blessing for me to do what I love and through this art, connect with one person or a million people, eventually. I’m just privileged to be doing that.
DT: What can people expect to hear on your debut album, Persona Non Grata? MAMS: It’s more of a similar sound through out the album compared to say the mixtape which has a little bit more diversity. I call it “rUnK” which is a mish-mosh of rap and rock and a lot of punk bravado and attitude to it. It’s got a lot of attitude, it’s got edge. There’s something for everyone on the album. On the album I’ve got collaborations with T-Pain, Snoop Dogg, Bobby Valentino, Dave Navarro, Travis Barker and John Madden from Good Charlot. On the mixtape I got features with Fat Joe and West Coast Kam to Robbie Williams and Billy Idol which is kind of crazy to be on a mixtape.
DT: What else can we expect from Mams in the future? MAMS: What I’m trying to do is break as many boundaries as possible so we all look at each other as human beings ultimately as opposed to “this guys a white dude doing this. This guys a black dude doing that”. Were moving towards the right direction with Obama as president. There are less boundaries with colors and ethnicity’s and where you come from. It’s more about who you are. I want to push forth with that as much as possible and Ive got some projects which are going to influence us into going that way, not just musically but in education. My big thing is to get involved in education and obviously do what I can through my music as well.
DT: Lastly, have you knocked out any more dudes at Hollywood night clubs lately? MAMS: Actually, it’s not something I make a habit of. Fighting is something I do as a hobby under controlled circumstances. But, about two weeks ago I broke both of my hands unfortunately on four dudes who were bullying a friend of mine. Like I said, it’s not something I like to make a habit of but sometimes people act crazy and you’ve got no choice but to resort to that, you know?
Today, we have launched a couple of helpful new features…
Gone are the days of Track Hackery. From now on.. to upload a Pre-Recorded track, click UPLOAD and then click on the SECOND TAB…
You can now upload tracks directly without doing the whole DT recorder Dance.
Second, after you’ve uploaded a track you can credit a Beat maker if they are on your favorites list or yourself if you made the beat.
These are not super exciting features but I thought it was time.. since DT2 is taking a bit longer than expected. So there.. I’m sure that will make some of your lives easier.
Tre Hardson is a pioneer in the modern rap world. Under the name, Slim Kid 3, Tre unleashed his unique style of spitting on the Phaycyde’s debut album, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, released in 1991, which went on to reach certified Platinum status by 1996. Slim Kid incorporated a singing style to his flow that blew people’s minds and made him one of the most recognizable and memorable members (along with Fatlip) of the Pharcyde. As far as L.A. hip-hop history is concerned, the Phaycyde is highly influential and legendary in the game. For Tre, it has truly been a bizarre ride full of highs and lows and has come full-circle with the reunification of all four original members who began touring again last year after nearly ten years of being disbanded. I got a chance to shoot the shit with Tre, who now lives in Oregon and I gotta tell you, for being on such huge records, he’s a really chill, spiritual type of dude.
DT: So what’s good with the Pharcyde these days?
TRE: We had a reunion. As far doing Rock the Bells last year and currently we’re still doing shows. We’re just taking one step at a time to get things organized and properly aligned so we can enjoy life and do what it is that we do.
DT: What was it like when you all linked up again?
TRE: At first I thought it was gonna be more uncomfortable then it was. it actually turned out to be picking up where we left off. Our personal differences were what they were and that remains to be the intervention we have with each other. When it came down to getting on stage we have the same method of preparation as well as respecting the stage. The energy and spirit were all there and that’s something I appreciated.
DT: How many shows have you guys done since last year?
TRE: Oh man, I forgot. We’ve done so many. Rock the Bells was a beautiful tour by the way.
DT: What was your favorite part of the tour?
TRE: L.A. I must say that was a very, very strong moment. I think we got teary-eyed definitely because the power of love was just overwhelming—from the fans to us, even our colleagues and friends from the past. The support was there. Everyone was just happy. It was bigger then us. It was amazing. It was showing us like, “Hey, yeah this what you’re supposed to be doing”. It’s been a long time coming.
DT: How do you feel about the whole L.A. hip-hop scene currently?
TRE: Wow you know it’s so crazy I don’t know what’s going on in the scene out there. When we were at the Pharcyde Manor and the Lab Cabin it was a really juicy situation as far as folks getting together. There was a DJ in the living room and ciphers in the living room rapping and dancing and doing graffiti. It’s what we did. There was nothing else that we did. There was a time back in the day where you know we’d be at Guadalinda’s or Hollywood Live. You’d see the Black Eyed Peas there, the Wascals, Freestyle Fellowship, you’d see us there. Big Boy would be DJing or Mark Luv would be spinning and we’d just be in the cipher dancing. We weren’t thinking about shit else.
DT: Was the L.A. hip-hop scene really unified at that time?
TRE: Oh yeah. There was mad respect there. Ill tell you why there was mad respect there. Because people were upfront about where they were as performers and artists and where you were, because you was always trying to raise the bar and that was just that. We all had record deals and I don’t think nobody was braggin’ and boastin’ about it at all. Everybody was just like, comin through. Maybe it was the weed that kept people on chill all the time but it was a lotta fuckin respect in our circle. Plus I’m sure motherfuckers knew how to fight and was from different ‘hoods. There was that level of respect, too because nobody wanted to bring no negative stuff around. We weren’t really about that.. even though we respected people that were from the ‘hood. It was just mixed up enough to keep things hella balanced.
DT: Back then I wasn’t sure if L.A. Jay and J-Swift were the same person or two different people.
TRE: Those are two different people. LA Jay is John Barnes and J-Swift is John Martinez. They were the two hot producers at the time when we was coming up. L.A. Jay produced the Good Girls and a lot of stuff back in the day. J-Swift was dealing with us and also was a part of working with Reggie Andrews at South Central Unit where we eventually came together to even become the Pharcyde. That’s where I linked up with Romye Robinson and Derrick Stewart (Fatlip).
DT: To me personally, L.A. Jay’s production was just incredible.
TRE: LA Jay is an incredible producer and hella patient when it comes to making music and that’s the important thing. Sometimes I used to rush through making beats but when we were partnered up on production he would get all into the texture of the snare and was really intricate about it. It wouldn’t take him one day to find the shit. He’d just be waiting, digging through stuff or EQing things the proper way until he’s like, “NOW it’s perfect”. He was a very good mentor as far as producing was concerned. He was in it for a while and his dad produced things with Michael Jackson.
DT: How did you guys get down in the studio?
TRE: It was a mixture of a lot of things. Of course there was the SP12 there because of LA Jay. There was the MPC 60, that was J-swift’s style. However, when we had a beat going we had that shit on loop and we’d have DAT tapes just playing. I think a large amount of our budget went to DAT tapes because we were freestyling. Just freestyling and freestyling and freestyling and making beats and all of its just runnin’ on the DAT tape. “Change the DAT! Change the DAT”! That’s all you heard.
DT: I’m glad that whole DAT thing is over.
TRE: Well it’s all storage. But yeah, thank God for these terabytes. You gotta stay up on backing them shits up—just like anything else it can fail.
DT: You had some joints on Bizarre Ride that were really unique because you brought like, a singing type of flow to your style. What are the origins of that flow?
TRE: Man, I’m a tell you it just came out of nowhere to be honest with you. I’m not the greatest singer whatsoever and I’d never ever claim to be. I’m just a normal guy that just feels things and that’s just where it came from so I just let it be what it was. Whether it was perfected or sloppy I was just being honest. Let’s roll with it. It came out and I did it. That’s all I could say.
DT: Were people tripping on that style at first?
TRE: Yeah, people were loving it, man. And I must say for the record, it was done before I even did it because there was “Park Bench People” with Freestyle Fellowship. Myka 9 did an amazing job for sure. Sometimes you gotta let it be known that that shit’s just in the air. When freestylin’ and shit like that and you’re open to the frequencies. If I was to do it any other way it would’ve been a lie. That was the truth then because I was just following the flow of what the frequency had. I must say “Park Bench People”—that was fucking beautiful. As we were rapping we were still rappers, yet folks wasn’t really trying to rap. That’s kinda like the edge that we teeter on as rappers not really wanting to go there. But if you listen to Mos Def when he goes into his singing thing, that’s enchanting because if you really like it, you dig it. Or when Lauren Hill sings her thing it’s like they’re no longer straddling the fence of rapper/singer; which makes it seem like some of the shit I do sometimes because you have to fully get in to the outfit of the energy. If the energy callin’ for you to sing, you gotta sing. You can’t worry what hip-hop’s gonna think about you.
DT: It seems that Bone Thugs kinda got inspired by Freestyle Fellowship’s Mary Jane joint.
TRE: Like I said, sometimes, some things are just in the air. Bone Thugs, I think they just found what was in the air for them. I think where I was going and where Myka 9 was going, it just allowed other people to express their feelings. All rivers lead to the same sea. Like, “damn we found our river like, that’s the shit”. And they really went with it. Hats off to them because they took advantage of an area that was kinda touched upon but not really harnessed.
DT: After being in the industry since 1991, what’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned?
TRE: The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is, it takes a team to work this. Because whether you have a label behind you or not you still need a team for things to be functional. It’s about a good infrastructure to have things running properly, so you can succeed and do your basic things like, eat. I learned also that when there’s a buzz about you and you’re hyped on yourself, those moments come and they’re exciting but then you’re back at square one where you have to reinvent yourself and start all over from scratch. It’s truly about the journey.
DT: What keeps you busy these days?
TRE: I’m always recording. Right now, I’m focusing on making the Pharcyde stuff move forward as far as continuing to tour and any other possibilities that may present it self. I’m optimistic about a lot of things.
DT: Make sure Derrick has his passport and stuff like that?
TRE: Yup, Derrick has his passport. Derrick’s doing pretty good, man. He’s got a lot of good things happening with him. He keeps it moving. I’ve done songs with him and we got something with Sam’s NASA project. We did a song with Sam years ago with KRS One and we’ve been working with this cat Dave from Yeti Beats. Fatlip and I did a song with Acey Alone called “What Time Is It” on iTunes right now. My Youtube spins have been doing pretty well with my song “Ayo My Man” that I did with Prince Board who’s a musician in the Black Eyed Peas. All of that stuff is up and ready to go. Currently, I’m always working on the next Tre Hardson record. I’m also working on music that I can’t really talk about right now with Fatlip.
DT: Are you currently under contract with any label?
TRE: No I’m solo. I’m under contract with the Universe.
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Hey Deetz, it’s been a while but I’m still around, and I just wanted to share another quick tip with you. This one is for the budget artists who have a basic setup and need multiple headphone or line level outputs. The quick and easy way is a little adapter called a splitter. for about $10 USD, you can buy a 5 way headphone splitter by Belkin. It’s called the “Belkin RockStar 5-Way 3.5-mm Headphone Splitter”. Now for around $2 you can also get a 2-way splitter at your local Fry’s or Radio Shack.
