it's the end of the week as we know it...



and i feel fine.

yesterday i went down to tonevendor to get the new DFA compilation, only to find they were sold out. even lauren, their hired hand knew that would happen. come on dan. when something like that comes out, you need to order a bazillion copies!

i did wind up walking out with the new Souljazz Records compilation "Miami Sound" and the Secret Shine CD. both are fantastic (and probably better than the cd i originally went in to get).

the first track on Miami Sound blew me away (Funkadelic Sound by Little Beaver). it's the track BDP sampled for "i'm still #1" (and i think 3rd bass used the beat on a song from their first album - if you are into hip hop trivia). i never heard the original track, so now my soul can rest at ease.

i was reading an article in MOJO magazine about the golden era of hip hop. they pretty much stated truth in that it all began with "raising hell" and ended with "the chronic" (no dis to dr dre, but mainstream hip hop went into the toilet starting from that album). i would have to agree. hip hop in those days was all about sampling rare grooves and bringing them back to life while creating new lyrical styles to rhyme over them. it was all about innovation. the sample laws and all the lawsuits that followed are pretty much what killed the art. somehow i can see a similarity between the sampling lawsuits back then and the RIAA lawsuits going around now.

just for the record, if it weren’t for Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, BDP, EPMD, Eric B & Rakim, Biz Markie, De La Soul, Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, NWA and yes, even 2 Live Crew, i would have never gotten into:

James Brown
Funkadelic
Led Zeppelin
the JBs
Jimmy Hendrix
Stevie Wonder
Bill Withers
Miles Davis
Milt Jackson
Kraftwerk
Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band
Lou Donaldson
The Winstons
Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers
Melvin Bliss
Bob James
Rufus Thomas

and yes

The Association

the list goes on and on and on and on...