Harry Shotta, Beardy Man, Nathan Flutebox & DELS : Summer Turn On's

  
Just a little roundup of whats rocking our world right now, starting of with Harry Shotta, the best MC we have heard for a while. With an extreamly witty and machine gun delivery he stormed the drum n bass scene originally along with junglist stallwarts Skibadee and Funsta. However Harry's skills are too big for just 160-170bpm's of DnB and he has increasingly been making a big noise in the Hip Hop world and has even spat over Dolly Parton's 'Nine to Five'! The spittin' boy wizzard is all over youtube but we have selected our favourite clip below of his flows over Dead Prez's 'Hip Hop'.

Next up is Flutist and Beatboxer and like Harry a former Drum N Bass MC, Nathan Flutebox Lee. Basically he does exactly what it says on the tin ; Beatboxes and plays the flute.....at the same time! We love his link ups with Beardy Man as demonstrated in the video below :

Finally we want to celebrate the rising profile of Kieren Dickins AKA  DELS. An incredibly versatile and experimental MC who believe it or not comes from little old Ipswich ; BLS second home after Sarf London. We are naturally proud of DELS sucsess as it's proof, if needed, that there is a huge amount of talent in this Eastern backwater. We can't claim any part of his sucsess, it was in fact electro rockers Hot Chip, although we have enjoyed working with his hugely talented Ip's producers and rappers PEP's and Eli.(More about them soon) We are hoping these local heroes might be next to signed too DELS label Big Dada, home to UK Hip Hop Hero Roots Manuva. DEL's is also an extreamly talented graphic designer (See artwork for his Shapeshift EP below)

Hip Hop and Indie Rock

Tame impala V Bruno Mars/BOB - DJ Tommy2bob mix by blessedlovestudio

UPDATE : This as good a place as any to post our latest rock/hip hop mash up of Tame impala V Bruno Mars/BOB 

Just to proove that here at BLS we are not all about Hip Hop/Urban musical styles we present a new mash up of South Central LA's Hip Hop Slackers The Pharcyde on Oxford Indie 'Shoegazers' Ride track 'Leave Them all behind'.

Ride versus The Pharcyde : Leave them passing me by by blessedlovestudio

It has also made us think it would be a good idea to highlight some of our favourite Hip Hop and Rock hook ups over the years. Probably the most influential rock/hip hop crossovers would be RunDMC and Areosmiths 1986 track 'Walk This Way' (The groundbreaking video is below)

The story goes that Run DMC's late, great DJ; Jam Master Jay used to use the opening

two measure drum beat intro by Areosmith drummer  Joey Kramer in thier early sets, looping it into an endless beat. Years later when approached by thier Record Company to release the track with the 70's glam rockers Areosmith, Run DMC were suprised and revealed they had never listend to the track beyond the drum beat intro!

  

Rick Rubin & Jay Z

The sucsess of the track opened the floodgates and produced a rash of rock and hip hop collaborations. Although not a collaboration, The Beastie Boys work with Def Jam producer Rick Rubin, produced one of the greatest collision of rap and hip hop in thier track 'Fight for your Right to Party'. (Video of the original track and the star studded 2011 update below)

Rubin went on to work with artists as varied as and has worked with artists as varied as Slayer, Slipknot, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Mars Volta, Danzig, Dixie Chicks, Metallica, AC/DC, Weezer, System of a Down, The Cult, Neil Diamond, Mick Jagger, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine

On the heavy side of things we have to mention hook ups like Public Enemy and Anthrax seen performing below at the 2004 Hip Hop awards

 Also loving his thrash metal is Ice T and his rock outfit 'Body Count' made infamous for thier LAPD baiting track 'Cop Killer', which suprisingly didnt go down with the United States 'moral majority'. Ice T said when asked about the bands name stated : 

 "We named the group Body Count because every Sunday night in L.A., I'd watch the news, and the newscasters would tally up the youths killed in gang homicides that week and then just segue to sports. 'Is that all I am,' I thought, 'a body count?'"

You can see how this trend lead to one of the most sucsessfull Rock/Rap collaboration, Jay Z and 'emo' rockers Linkin Park (video below)










Most of this mid eighties craze for Rock/Rap hybrids concentrated on the heavy side of the US 'thrash metal' scene like Anthrax and Slayer. However where things get more interesting is on the mash up scene that cast a wider net of both the rock and Rap/RnB scene. Probably the greatest mash up was Freelance Hellraisrers The Strokes Vs Christina Aguilera mash up - 'A Stroke Of Genie-us' (video below)

We also have to mention Belgium based art rockers SoulWax '2 Many DJ's' bootie/mash up project that mixed Salt n Peppa with the Stooges and Nirvana with Beyonce

(check back for updates, this blog will be updated, please add ur sugestions for the best rock/rap crossovers in the comments section)

Cream of Mash Up Mix 2011

Cream of Mash Up 2011 by blessedlovestudio

TRACKLIST:  

Max Tannone: Mos Dub- In My Math

Freqnik & WDRE : Black & Yellow Reggae Mashup

Max Tannone : Dub Kweli-Panta Move

J Star – Regulate Rock

DJ Moodz : Jackson 5-ABC- Remix

Jimi Needles : M.I.A vs The Honey Drippers - Paper Presidents

Freqnik & WDRE: The Message vs The Message Funk Mashup

Jimi Needles: Dizzee Rascal vs Dizzy Gillespie - Dizzy Sirens

The Gaff : Bring the Noise

DJ Tommy2Bob : Champ V Tramp mash

Blade : The Coming Is Near

Hi Karate : I Got Soul

???- One for The Money

DJ Tommy 2Bob: Let's Breath & Stop

DJ Tommy 2Bob : Dangerous Horn

Here at BLS we are still huge fans of the mash up genre and present to you today a roundup of some of the best mash up artists out there. The great thing is that nearly all of them are from Soundcloud and can be downloaded for free. Below the tracklist for the mix we have pasted in the original tracks (with no radio edits, we had to censor the mix for broadcast)
We have chosen to select dub, reggae and funk tracks combined with 90’s era hip hop accapella’s, which to be honest always seem to work the best on a mash up level.  

A couple of artists we have to big up in particular for their genius level mashology. Firstly New York based producer & DJ Max Tannone who is represented here by the excellent track ‘Panta Move’ which combines Talib Kweli’s ‘Move Something’ with Lee Scratch Perry’s incredibly influential riddim track ‘Black Panta’. I heard about Max from trawling my favourite NYC record shop Turntable Lab and seeing his album of Talib Kweli versus Dub Reggae called ‘Dub Kweli’. A bit of research and i found the album had been bootlegged from his own free upload on his website.Max has uploaded both the Dub Kweli album and his Mos Def versus Reggae album and the incredibly useful (for any potential mash up producer) instrumentals for free download.

Next up is probably the most well known of all the producers here is Londons own J Star. We have been buying and playing out his 7" for years and i have nearly worn out my copy of his stylus stimulating classic hip hop/reggae mash up 'Tooting Gangstar' (Toots and the Maytals versus Gangstar- its on our mixtape UK Bass Culture Vol2) His Soundcloud page is as good as anywhere to start and you can get some of vinyl releases still on the aforementioned Turntablelab.
But its back to NYC for 'Producers, Party Rockers & Record Nerds' Freqnik and WDRE who really get the party started on the mixtape with thier inspired funky reggae version of Wiz Khalifa's Black & Yellow, and just when you thought you were two bored of 'The Message' mashups they produce an almost definitive mix of Grandmaster Flash's slightly corny social message track that rumour has it they were instructed to produce by the pony tails in A&R .
Another UK DJ & Mashup producer rinsing out the Soundcloud community is 'bootlegger extrordinaire' Jimi Needles . This guy really knows his battle breaks and adds quirky, complex jazz and funk rythms to MIA & Dizzy Rascal on the two tracks we have selected. We also loved Canada's The Gaff's mash of Public Enemy's 'Bring The Noise' ; his use of the Lowell Fusion's (or is it the Brothers Lloyds all star version? i cant tell) instrumental of the funk classic 'Tramp' inspired us to include our own little Tramp v Champ cut up's that we have sporadically dropped in to our live DJ sets over the years.

 The Soundcloud Top 9 Mash Ups tracks (In order as on the mixtape) :

Mos Dub - 04 - In My Math by Max Tannone

Black & Yellow Freqnik & WDRE Reggae Mashup by Freqnik & WDRE

 
Dub Kweli - 04 - Panta Move by Max Tannone

 

REGULATE ROCK by Jstar

Jackson 5-ABC-DJ Moodz Remix by DJ Moodz:Classics



M.I.A vs The Honey Drippers - Paper Presidents (Jimi Needles Summer Cocktail) by Jimi Needles

The Message vs The Message Funk Mashup off the forthcoming Captain Obvious E.P by Freqnik & WDRE

Dizzee Rascal vs Dizzy Gillespie ft. KRS ONE - Dizzy Sirens (Jimi Needles' Big Band Cocktail) by Jimi Needles

Bring the noise-gaff's trampy whatnaughts mix by THE GAFF