Knights of the Roundtable is another one of the foundational projects in my classics catalog. I made this title while in the middle of the rollout for Das Efx’s 5th and final studio album “How We Do” We were doing a lot of traveling. We were in Germany every few weeks and doing a promo run in the states as well. We even teamed up with the Rza as he was putting out a Bobby Digital album and we hit many states together. I would do a few mixes when I got the chance before heading back out on the road and when we had a few weeks break I finally locked in and completed it. This and the 4 Horsemen 1 were when the world really started to take notice of what I was doing and I truly began to solidify my spot in the mixtape game. Below is the entire mixtape and once again please subscribe to my YouTube channel so I can keep these uploads coming. ✌🏾
Man, YouTube has been giving me a rough time lately. In the past few weeks at least 5 mixtapes I tried to put on YouTube have been blocked after I took the time to edit, render and upload them. 😡 This is one of them. I was able to upload it to soundcloud though without any hassles. Another timeless mix, this time of some of our favorite 90s hip hop classics. Spark a Phillie blunt for old times sake and enjoy.
When I was younger The Fat Boys were one of my favorite groups. They were actually the Disco 3 when I bought their first 12” single. I spent hours trying to emulate the beat box sounds of Buffy and replaying their amazing songs. Years later I produced a track for Das Efx sampling one of their songs to pay homage to them as well as Larry Smith, the criminally slept on producer of the original Can You Feel It. You don’t want to do too much to a classic but I put a few touched to the timeless original beat to create the Das Efx version which was made to be a feel good, throwback type of song. Check it out below and don’t be afraid to do a break dance move or pop lock while listening. 😃#RealHipHop
There have been many influences on my career. Jam Master Jay, Grand Master Flash and Mixmaster Ice are some but one of the biggest has to be DJ Premier.I was a fan of Gangstarr when they first dropped but the production styles of Preemo is what really drew me in. Over the years I would study their music and try to reverse engineer their tracks to better understand the art of production. I learned many subtle nuances of beat making from analyzing DJ Premier’s tracks.
Years later after making my own lane as a Dj/Producer I made a mixtape featuring the production of Premier flipped in my own way. I even had the honor of having him host it himself. Shoutout to Phat Phillie. Below is most of that project. Enjoy and feel free to share. Do remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel.
By the mid 90’s I was knee deep in the music grind. I had dropped out of college after 3 years to focus all of my attention on music. I was doing parties, making mixtapes, selling remix dub plates and working on being a producer. A high school classmate, Adante Ace, was an upstart manager and we began to work together. He had a new group he was working with and they were two Italian guys he met while in the Army. They were B Rockwell and Cody aka C-Love aka The Rap Gustapo and they would be known as Nature Born. At the time I was making beats on a Gemini Scratch Master mixer with an 8 second sampler and a Lexicon Jam Man to layer the sounds to loop. I couldn’t save the beats but could only record the ideas to tape and then recreate them at the studio on better equipment . Before I bought my Akai MPC 2000 Cody had purchased an MPC 3000 and seeing I had a knack for production lent it to me so I could made beats for Nature Born. I made a few beats for them that they would record to and release independent singles with.
One day I came across a sample of some Italian music and I knew this could be something for Nature Born.I flipped it and they loved the beat when they first heard it. They had also linked up with another Italian MC from Yonkers named Genovese who had recently made an underground hit featuring the LOX named “Genovese Thesis” We all got together at D.R. Period’s studio in Bushwick and in short time we had created “The Sitdown”. We all knew this was a banger. It would go on to be a successful independent single and would get radio and mixtape play worldwide from DJ Clue & DJ Envy in NY to Phat Phillie in Croatia.
Years later while in Italy with Krazy Drayz of Das Efx doing a tour for his solo album “Showtime” we sat down for dinner with the team we were running with in Bologna. One of the guys gave me his phone and says, “This is my favorite hip hop song of all time”. I was shocked when I looked to see he was showing me “The Sitdown”. I told him I produced the song and he was equally as shocked. That experience showed me just how far reaching the influence of hip hop music is and just how small of a place this world truly is.
