I know it’s been a long time in the making. Delay has been playing bits and pieces of this project around the shop, causing the heads of many unwitting customers to snap around quizzically: “what is this track? I know it, but… wait, what?”

Well now it’s here.

New York and San Francisco meet in key to bring you the best
song sandwiches both sides of the Mississippi.

“I have no idea who this guy was. He arrived around 7:45 PM, ordered a beer, took a sip, and just sat there and let the beer turn to lawn water. That was it. He just sat and stared. He had on these dumb mirrored shades and wore a Dungaree jacket. He could have been 21, 41, I have no idea. He never talked to anyone. Everybody thought he was blind, but he never stumbled or fell or used a cane. Not in front of me at least.

At some point, when nobody else was using the jukebox, he went over and layed his hands on it. No—I got that wrong. He layed one hand on it and stuck out the other arm like he’s Trent Reznor reaching out to touch the black dragon. Some song I know we got on the jukebox, like “White Rabbit,” starts playing. Except it’s not that song. It’s that song plus The Police or something else from the radio. Most people liked it OK. People bought him beers, but he never touched them. This one guy gave him a twenty and the kid did nothing but stare at him. After he did his thing, he sat down and ordered another beer, took a sip, and then left.

I haven’t seen him since. I kinda liked that one with Yes and Lionel Richie. It was angry and sad. I think the kid had, like, a GPS in his coat to pick up radio signals but Pedro patted him down and all he had on him was a pack of those Christmas Trees you hang from your rearview mirror. Dude was somewhere else.”

- Bartender. Bill’s Bar and Billiards, Omaha, NE

DOWNLOAD HERE

And be sure to check out both DJs’ blogs: www.docdelay.com and diamondsinthedust.blogspot.com for a ton of great music.

About a week ago Phill Most The Soulman, the man behind World Of Beats and ThatRealSchitt, upped a new mix of breaks, psych, funk, and all sorts of other madness (head to the jump to download the mix itself). To a lot of us, it was a welcome return by one of the originators of the “break tape”, one of the first guys to write about digging culture online, one of the inspirations for us to do what we do.

Rather than simply linking to Phill’s site and offering a few choice compliments of the (deep, mindblowing) mix, I thought I’d hit the man up for a quick interview to chop it up on the history of the WOB column and website, his thoughts on the game, past present and future, and the life of a man many consider a legend. Thankfully, he was all too willing to oblige.

Jonny Paycheck: So basically, I want to throw it back to the World Of Beats, which this mix really brought me back to, even though it’s on, kind of, another level than what cats were checking for back then. So WOB stretched from I guess around 93-94 when you had the magazine column to 2001 or so on the WOB site. Is that about right? Can you describe the course of the column/site/blog briefly, and why you decided to end it?

Soulman: Actually the original World Of Beats column that was in Rap Sheet ran from 1994 to 1995, a little more than a year. And the internet version of the WOB started in 1999 and I kept that going for almost three years. The whole idea behind the column was just to show a side of the Hip Hop world that rarely got any coverage in the magazines or tv shows that specialized in Hip Hop, and it’s a very important part of the artform that deserved some attention. I don’t think the editors at Rap Sheet really understood what it was all about or the significance, but to their credit they let me go ahead with it anyway. Actually I first introduced the idea for an article I did on Pete Rock; after that they asked me to do a monthly column on crate digging. It quickly became the most popular regular column in the magazine; I know I got a lot of letters sent directly to my address and from what I understand Rap Sheet got a lot sent to their offices, too. One of the things I wanted to do was to interview not just famous Hip Hop producers, but also deejays, record dealers and also collectors who may not have been household names but knew their stuff when it comes to beats and old records. A lot of times the producers don’t really know as much about records as you might think they do…

Hit the jump to read the rest of the interview

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My homie Matthew Africa just put up this fantastic post on his (fantastic) blog I Wish You Would (bookmark it, guys) complete with a best-of mix celebrating the work of DJ Quik – “America’s Most Complete Artist” – in preparation for his new collabo record with Kurrupt of the Dogg Pound. Let the man tell it:

I made this mix because people sleep on DJ Quik. Maybe they’ve forgotten or maybe they never understood, but people don’t get the breadth or depth of his talent.

Quik’s commercial peak was his platinum 1991 debut, Quik Is the Name.

Here’s the thing, though– Quik never fell off.

Where most veteran artists either make the same record over and over until everyone stops paying attention or lose their identity scrambling to co-opt whatever other people think is hot, Quik’s career has been about devotion to his craft, steady growth and experimentation.

Church. You can download the mix HERE and check the tracklist below the fold.

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This one was revisited recently for an Underground Kingz song (RIP Pimp C).  Real pretty tune.

Society Of Soul was a group made up of Atlanta super-producers Organized Noize – you know, the guys responsible for hits by Outkast, The Goodie Mob, TLC and many more – featuring the vocals of Espraronza “Roni” Griffin and the spoken word poetry of Big Rube (another Outkast-affiliated Atlanta dude).

I dug up my old cassette of this album and was playing it as I tooled around town running errands, bending corners and doing thangs. I jammed this hard back when it came out and feel it still holds up to this day. Beautiful soul music that exhibits some influence of the 90s but sounds timeless when you get down to it.

Taking you back to 1995, the sun was shining and sh*t was right on time. Enjoy this beautiful Sunday…

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Edit: I just read about the assassination of George Tiller this morning. May he Rest In Power. We must stop this madness.