Hip Hop Suckas Fifth

The rips keep rollin' and this tape was a long strange trip in synergizing. Back in 1999 chillin in Jon Pratt's family mountain cabin my bro Josh from Winston-Salem School of the Arts was flipping though his caselogic packed with new Hip Hop. He told me if I tossed 50 bucks in for blank disks he'd burn fifty cds of my choice (this was in a pre-itunes-pre-computer literate era for me). A whole new world of rips opened up for me. I was like "You can do that?"

So, over the next 3 months, the most amazing and agonizing, I decided to move to New York and was killing time at my dad's house for a week in between living in Raleigh and couch surfing in Durham to get enough money to move up north. After being out swimming in a quarry or something like that I came back to my dad's and found a shoe box stuffed with disks and paper towels wrapped around each so they wouldn't scratch. It was like christmas and my birthday. I can't say it enough: Thanks Josh!

Somewhere around 10 or 12 months later - 2000 - when I moved back to NC - Somewhere within a few days I knew I needed to synthesize the cds down to my favorite tracks just to make sense of this awesome stack of music. Within that time I had bought a stack of videotapes [Krush Groove, Beat Street, Tougher Than Leather] from the Blue Light in Durham who were jettisoning their rental section and somewhere in the idea just hit me.

In addition to Josh's cds, there are a few tracks from my record collection and other tapes I made and stuff I knew just needed to be on for sake of flow. Anyways, dig it [And try to catch that last half second sound bite the tape let me squeeze in on the 45 minutes of Side B].

Available HERE

Preferable Mix Tape 2: Preferable Blues

Preferable Blues came only a few months after the Mad Max tape. Again, New York, this time 2000. A new beginning. Shelly had a tiny "apartment" with Molly. You see I worked two jobs at the time, both a couple of blocks away and they were kind enough to let me crash there at all times of the day and night. Which I did so fluently. At one point not too long into the new year I noticed some cds and records laying about for a day or so. And later that week Shelly passed on a tape wrapped in a beautiful piece of paper with the title "Praise God I'm Satisfied" scrawled on the spine and "Preferable Blues" on the tape. It introduced me to one of my all time favorite songs and and musicians: "Spoonful" by Howlin' Wolf. And I've always imagined "Praise God I'm Satisfied" by Blind Willie Johnson sung by a bulldog with a little bird on its shoulder as they move on down a dirt road.

So many treks through late winter and spring to and from Brooklyn, the lower east side, and Jersey City at dawn and night on that janky 10-speed with my walkman chuggin along. This here's a good one.

Available HERE.

hi-res image below.

Blotto 5: Staring Down The Demons

Whatever they may be...

Available HERE.

Preferable Mix Tape 1: Mad Max

"What is this? Funny Week?"

-Fifi

December 1999. After being back in Raleigh for a month, I stopped and spent the night at my old digs on Vanderbuilt just before tagging along on a trip up to New York in Shelly's dad's truck to deliver her a chair. Luke and Sean had just made a mix that would color the road and the new year in sonic wreckage. He stuck the tape in my hands that next morning, and at 6AM or so with Clare and Luke and Bojangles in formation we headed out to the highway. Hands down it still is one one my favorite all around TIGHT mix tapes and I thought I'd share a little bit of that with you...

Available HERE

UPDATE:
Forgot to include a hi res scan with the tracks. Just click on this to enlarge and drag it to your Mad Max music folder for archival purposes.

Hip Hop Suckas Fourth

We're gonna switch-up for a couple of mixes. This was a tape I bought in 1996 at unclaimed baggage. Since a number of you tossed yr decks into the sea in the last 10 years, ima bring it back in digital form.

Lock in an' everyone say "beat boxes bumpin' in the year '92!"

Available HERE.