- Melbourne's DJ J-Red has been gaining notoriety lately not just for displaying his wicked scratching skills at DJ competitions - recently placing 4th in the DMC team battle finals - but also being able to rock a club set, mixing the party tracks while being able to scratch competently in between - his skills taking him to guest spots in Sydney for the All City parties and around the country. Streets Ahead is his first legal mix CD representing for the underground hip hop scene with tunes from US, UK and Australian scenes.
Scratch intro!!!! - As if I wasn't expecting one! Nowadays, the name check is the all important aspect of a DJ's mix and on top of that so are the shout outs from other like-minded luminaries such as NZ's DJ Raw and D-Styles from the Beat Junkies, but onto the music...
Mr Complex opens the mix with a tune about his favourite topic - Glue, well actually his favourite topic is the female of our species, and gets the Biz on sing-a-long chorus duties. Melbourne's Lyrical Commission represent with the Press Release - MC's Trem and Rob Natrule rapping over an acoustic guitar... and nothing else! Damn, never have I heard production so minimal in hip hop yet so effective!
Hip Hop's always been about success and with that pushin' fat whips and dubs comes into the game (translation: driving nice luxury cars - all done up with rims, interiors and beefed up engines). J-Zone turns it all around with 5-$tar Hooptie a tribute to his piece of shit on wheels with a dope harpsichord riff on the production.
Delta, another locally based artist comes in with his self produced block rockin', hard knockin b-boy styled tune - Paper Weight with turntable skills from Adelaide's Kim Dezen - reaffirming the fact that locally grown shit has as much potential as imported product. On another local tip, J-Red flexes his production muscle to pull off a turntablist remix of Prowla's 1,2 Drop A Verse.
The trans-continental link between the UK and Australia is enforced with Forward featuring Jolz, Brad Strut and Raph alongside the UK's Taskforce on a head-nodding ragga beat which the MC's do their utmost to highlight the audible differences between both countries accents. Also representing for the UK are the Extremists on Groundbreaking and Klashnekoff on Parrowdice with ex-Scratch Pervert Harry Love on production duties.
Good to see some bigger names get included in the list with the Teacher - KRS-One on Philosophy with KRS showing no deterioration in his delivery from his 16 or so years in the biz, yet I think he should have chosen a different producer for the tune as the beat doesn't compliment his style. The Jigmastas bring out their jazzy funk based hip hop grooves on Stones with J-Red pulling off a juggle routine in the mix.
To round it all off - Motion Man with Kool Keith and L.C. on We Work Styles - anything with Kool Keith's and Motion Man's abstract rhyming has got to be good - they're probably the underground version of Redman & Method Man.
Laced with turntablist interludes throughout the mix, Streets Ahead stays true to it's name - it represents forward thinking hip hop from the streets - and J-Red does a good job of not including any mainstream hit pop acts into the mix.