2016

2016 was a year to remember. 

Ever since hosting college radio in 2000, I thought about new music through a perspective of my own top 10 charts. It's how I distinguished the new music I was listening to from the old.  A few times I wrote blogs listing my top Hip Hop albums of the year and  reported weekly to College Media Journal (CMJ).  Some of it was based on promos the radio station received and most based on music I was checking for on my own. The last time I hosted a radio show was in 2008, a week before finishing school and moving on. The fun of being inundated with new music, listening to the unknown, rotating music live on air, and sharing my thoughts about music for eight years straight is how I continued to imagine music I accumulated post radio dayz. Its also what I wrote about from time to time on this blog under the #LHHSCharts and #HHbeAtz10 tags. In 2017, its time to let that go. 

There is so much music out there. Every morning I turn the ignition in the ride and connect the auxiliary cord to listen to Southern Vangard radio, other podcasts, or a CD...or whenever I setup my iPOD for a run around the track or gym...Its a process free from my routine on radio to now as a casual listener. Especially when I discover music I want to replay a few times. It could be a record I pull from neglected crate...some mp3 files lost in folders disorganized after years of CD burns and downloads. I'm interested in being more patient with my music. More time to explore the details and remember the process I fell in love with before music and our access to it became an all-you-can-hear affair. Back to a time when I'd look through my father's record collection...to a point where a Weather Report album cover would came alive in my dreams.  

I've conducted a lot of interviews with eMCees, beatmakers, writers, poets, and groups for radio and web.  The same way I remember charting music is the same way I imagine questions I would ask today if I could.  I'm a big fan of interview shows and podcasts and getting the chance to understand the interviewer and the kind of story they're trying to pull from the interviewee. I love that process and the preparation and research that goes into it. I'd like to find ways to channel that interest more and research what I'm listening to. Not just when something new comes out, but for any record at any given time. I look forward to using this blog to take time and document the stories of music, including some of my own.  A process that's free from any sort of structure, time frame, and any order of charts, real or imagined...a process more conducive to someone who simply loves music.

With that said its time to close the book on #LHHSCharts. The collage of records above that pretty much defined my 2016 is the last of this idea of imagining top 10s inspired by the radio dayz...

Before the new year, I finally listened to A Tribe Called Quest's We Got it From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service.  A line from Nate Denver off Grimm's American Hunger album came to mind..."there's no Tribe Called Quest if there is no Phife". I was only able to listen to the new ATCQ once wondering what it took to finally happen.  It made me wonder if everything happened when it was suppose to or if we simply ran out of time at the dawn of a new era in this country. It made me wonder more about a Phife record than anything else and what he envisioned beyond the Ventilation LP...free from the anticipation and constant expectations of an ATCQ reunion that maybe was never meant to be in the first place. 

Nobody hits on Hip Hop nostalgia and life to me like Junclassic. The ((Father's Day)) song he composed in 2016 to Wun Two's production had the emotion and power of a ((Dear Mama)) Pac track to me...to me it spoke for sons who grew up watching their fathers put in work and stand up to the insurmountable responsibility and resilience of doing their part to hold a family together through struggle, tragedy, set backs, and success.  Better than Fiction Too is the kind of record that's gonna last my whole life which is how I've gotten to know Junclassic's music since day one. Better than Fiction Too is soul music with the poetic grit of of the Hip Hop we've come to love out of NYC since the beginning.

ScHoolBoy Q...The Blank Face LP is brilliant. Many of us that came up on Hip Hop in the early 90s in the Southwest were hit by that \/\/est Coast influence before anything else. For me it came by way of Ice Cube, Eazy E, NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik, Warren G, Too Short, E-40, Rappin 4 Tay, MC Eiht/CMW, Cypress Hill and others. Much of it channeled through some of our favorite films, Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, etc.  The mayhem of Pac's demise made me realize that the \/\/est went beyond what made it popular in the early 90s...the void of losing Pac introduced me to eMCees like Ras Kass, Hiero, Cali Agents, Paris, everything out of Stones Throw a few years later, Dilated Peoples, Sevin from Sacramento, and many more...through their sound I thought about styles differently and learned to appreciate the ground work of groups like Freestyle Fellowship, the Pharcyde, J5, Souls of Mischief and other eMCees/groups I never would've known about if I didn't search. I love thinking about what TDE records means in that context now and what they'll mean later. Especially since I'm more preoccupied enjoying TDE's music than trying to decipher the wordplay and beat production. The beats are an ill anomaly to me and makes me reflect back on Organized Noize production, the Dungeon Family, and ATLiens. I wonder about the magic of sampling listening to TDE...a scrapbook of what the \/\/est coast has experienced and what it has to offer today. Beyond the state of California, TDE makes me think about what Marc Spekt of Broady Champs said on a Southern Vangard interview session describing Hip Hop as fine art.

When I hosted radio and worked as program manager, I decided to do two things when it came to Soul music. One was set aside a slot specific to Soul music (shout out to Mz. Soulshine) and also bring everything together during my own slot...Soul, Hip Hop, Blues, Jazz, Funk, everything...whether released generations prior or present...only rule was that it go together real smooth and connect. I called my time slot The Representation Show/Soul Session and together it turned into 4 straight hours of all the music I could gather in time to go on air. Also the playlist always had to be unique, never duplicated. I also collaborated with fellow radio djs combining music slots and crashing concepts together for an unexpected marathon of anything we felt like rotating and talking about (shout out to the Moleman Rawk$hop). This year no record reminded me of the Soul Session days more than Maxwell's Black Summer's Night.  Especially when I discovered Stuart Matthewman was involved with the sound. Its one of those records that I'll revisit often.  A reconnection to everything I loved about Amel Larrieux rotations, Carl Thomas, D'Angelo, Sade, Dwele, Goapele, Alice Smith, and many other voices.  Maxwell is one of a kind.

With The Greatest X by Reks, we're talking about the best Hip Hop record to drop in 2016, period. Its appropriately titled and reflective of all the unsung-blue-collar-hard-hat work that Boston eMCees like Reks have put into the game over the past many years.  This record got anthems and is a collaborative case of organized rhyme. It goes beyond what you can burn on just one CD...a double disc respectively with enough weight to equal any three 2016  album releases combined. The Greatest X reflects the competitive lyricism with undeniable beat production that comes with having the right to stake claim to the crown. Beyond that its tied together with the storytelling of a for real eMCee....the King... Reks...the greatest unknown.

I'll wrap it up talking about four other records that made 2016 what it was for me.  While Young Roddy's The Kenner Loop got me through the start of 2016, it was Isaiah Rashad's The Sun's Tirade that got me through a summer of decisions and time I needed to regroup.  Masta Ace's The Falling Season is easily up there for one of 2016's best records and one of my favorite records of all time. Its what Masta Ace does...one of Hip Hop's greatest storytellers of Top 5 caliber rhyme... a music man of many scripts...his songs are definitely films in my imagination.  J Cole's 4 Your Eyez Only is how I actually started 2017 but the track not included on the record ((False Prophets)) is how I made sense of the remaining weeks in December reflecting on 2016.  It definitely gave me a chance to organize many faces, stories, and situations experienced throughout the year. I still need to reflect on what Cole's album means to me so I'll let time do its thing.  As for the last album on the collage, I included a record I've written about already...Elzhi's Lead Poison.  The last no. 1 album to grace the top of LHHS Charts.

With that said, here's to a new beginning of the Tape Decks blog. A new way of thinking of what I feel like writing about next when it comes to music. This is an end to the LHHS Charts and the HHbeAtz10 days and the beginning to responding to this simple question more often..."what are you listening to?"

Sincerely 2016,


Lee

p.s. This one is for the vinyl, CDs, digitals, & cassettes.

#HHbeAtz10 Update for 2016

#HHbeAtz10 2016

Instrumental Charts

Updated February 10, 2016

#HHbeAtz10

hiphopalumni.com/hhbeatz10

#HHbeAtz10

I was inspired early on by a love for beats.  At the turn of the century having access to Hip Hop vinyl, for me, was all about the instrumental versions.

Before that... when I arrived to college, the internet was just starting to pick up.  I heard about Napster but knew nothing about the internet, computers, or downloading.  In 1999, I didn't own a computer yet and knew very few people that did.    At the computer labs on campus I'd click Netscape and wander the world wide web reading whatever.  Using search engines I ran into a few corners of the web that had information about Hip Hop music.

In middle and high school, my Hip Hop collection was built from what I picked up exchanging cassette tapes with classmates, from the tapes my father brought back from his deployments overseas, from what I saw on BET's Rap City with Big Lez & Joe Clair, or YO!MTV Raps with Ed Lover & Dr. Dre... or from the few times I had enough to buy a tape or CD from a local music store or the flea market, and from rip off CD subscription plans like BMG and Columbia House.  The extent of my family's vinyl collection was the Soul that survived the CD wave now stuffed in a closet space and underneath the bed.   

Fast forward time, back to the college computer lab freshman year and I discovered a webpage called Da Vault that had a catalog of instrumentals and unreleased tracks. The guy running the site made about $15 per CD (money orders only).  I'd learn what a rewritable CD was through Da Vault but still had very little knowledge about the digital mp3 and how accessible it was.  When I was at the computer lab I spent a lot of time searching Da Vault's catalog, learning about some of my favorite Hip Hop songs without words, just beats.  I recall wondering where and how he was able to get all that music on one CD.  Prior to that time, the only way I knew you could make a copy of something was to do it on cassette.  The extent of how I shared music with people was all about filling up both sides of a 90 minute Memorex cassette tape.

My first Hip Hop 12-inch single w/ instrumentals was Ras Kass ((Jack Frost)) w/ B-Side ((Anything Goes Remix)) that I found at an Albuquerque record shop along with a compilation vinyl by The Originators that had a Big L track I wanted.  This was the beginning of a beat budget and an 8 year journey doing college radio.  Doing radio gave me access to more music than I ever knew existed.  I'd spend hours at the radio station.  Even managed to finesse my way into working on staff as a music director just so that I could have access to the promos coming in the mail.  Through the radio station I picked up the halves on digital media and editing.  Started learning about record pools and charting and picked up a lot from the collections of other radio personalities that would come through.  I also built a lil' web space for myself around 2000 called leehiphopshow.com.  Got a lot more familiar with the net too discovering sharing platforms like SoulSeek and online music stores like SandboxAutomatic, Dusty Groove, and spaces like Turntable Lab that always had serious supply of instrumental vinyls from some of my favorite producers.  That was my sole purpose for getting a set of turntables and other equipment I'd need to extract audio onto tape and later on into digital form.  Whether it was for talk overs or freestyles live on air, or to listen to for school work, or simply for my every day soundtrack, thinking through my headphones...everything I was learning was all for the BEATS.  Early on, it was instrumental LPs like Madlib's The Unseen, everything and anything by J Rawls, Pete Rock, the Liquid Swords Instrumental LP, of course J Dilla, everything by The RZA in the 90s, Mobb Deep (Havoc), all production out of QB, down south music from Dungeon Family & Organized Noize production, Death Row's music (Dr. Dre, Snoop), DJ Quik, MC Eiht's producers, and the genius of projects like Illmatic.  It got to a point where the only reason I wanted to make sure I kept my grades right and not lose financial aid, was so that I could continue participating in student radio and having access to free music.  One of the first online radio programs I set up was a strictly beats platform called InstrumentalLive365.  There was also an entire semester where I had the opportunity to host an instrumental only radio slot.  Also figured out how to setup automation so that towards the end of the night and on into the early morning, if you put on 91.5 FM, you were hearing nothing but BEATS.  Learning what I knew at this point about digital media and editing, I stuffed the radio station database with as much music as I could for anyone to access and play.

HHbeAtz10 is basically a homage to the Hip Hop instrumental.  It's my current top 10.  A charting of official Hip Hop projects without words.  It's a focus on today's Hip Hop beatsmiths.  I'm planning to do some interviews through twitter.com/hiphopalumni (@hiphopalumni) when I get the chance.  Plan to also post a few interviews I've done in the past with beat makers.  Will plan on posting thoughts on the latest projects I'm #listening to and keeping the top 10 as up to date as possible.  I want to send a shout out to my boy Dune and the Fresh Produce Online radio show, which is where HHbeAtz10 is inspired from.  If I thought I knew a lot about Hip Hop beat makers before, the Fresh Produce program put me on to a whole other world of beat makers out there.

To the Hip Hop instrumental chefs, thank you.  Ya'll are Hip Hop's pulse and the inspiration for MC's that got something to say, especially for those that speak from the heart.  Hip Hop beats are conversations, a lot of questions and answers.  Deep stories that many of us have memorized only to revisit time and time again.

Wish I knew how to make beats.

Introducing HHbeAtz10.

Check twitter.com/hiphopalumni #HHbeAtz10.

The first top 10 is featured in the image above and include:

Pete Rock - PeteStrumentals2

Large Professor - Mega Philosophy

IV the Polymath - When and Where

Damu the Fudgemunk - Public Assembly 2

Kev Brown - Brown Album Instrumentals

The Beatfonics Crew - Beatxploitation, The Blacktape Vol. 7

Apollo Brown - Thirty Eight

J.Rocc & Med - Theme Music Instrumentals

Crown City Rockers - Earthtones Instrumentals

Klaus Layer - For the People Like Us

More projects currently under review.  Within the week will definitely add the Lord Finesse SP1200 Project.  And next listen, Drasar Monumental & Ayatollah...