Anger Is a Gift

I've finally finished my mixtape. It is available to download here and the best tracks can be previewed on the MySpace page. You may have thought it was lost in history never to be heard (like Sharky Major's mixtape that was supposed to come out 3 years ago) but here it is. Most of the tracks on here are specials, dubs or exclusives. One or two were given to me as exclusives but ended up being released before I finished this because it's taken me so long to do. The others are just favourites that I always play when I DJ out. Here is the tracklist:

01. Intro
02. Virgo feat. B-Live & Flirta D - The Clack Riddim (Prancehall Special)
03. Tempa T - Tempz
04. Terror Danjah - Zumpti Huntah
05. Jammer - Toxic Freestyle
06. Yung Joc - Do Ya Bad
07. Brains - Plastic (Instrumental)
08. Scratchy, Skepta & Breeze - Vice Freestyle
09. Jitset feat. Jammer - Mary Jane Remix
10. Brains feat. Slinga, 2-Pac & Biggie - Thug Love
11. Matt Shadetek - Bump Bump
12. Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Freestyle
13. Brains - Neva Eva
14. Big Kuntry feat. Yung Joc & T.I. - Yeah (Remix)
15. Mavado - Wah Dem A Do (Dexplicit Remix)
16. Rossi B & Luca feat. Scorcher - Not No Talker
17. Tinchy Stryder feat. Fuda Guy - Sick Ina Head
18. Matt Shadetek feat. Skepta - Reign
19. Jammer feat. Delishus - Vice Freestyle
20. DVA feat. Badness - Prancehall Dub
21. Ruff Sqwad - Untitled
22. Jammer feat. Ce'Cile - Prancehall Dub
23. Syer B - Badboy (Prancehall Special)
24. Slix - Down and Out
25. Statik feat. Faction G - Lily Allen Remix
26. Ce'Cile - Tell Me What You Love (Cheerful Riddim)
27. Ears feat. Flamin - Fergalicious Freestyle
28. Brains feat. Knuckles - Damn (Remix)
29. Riko - Prancehall Dub
30. Statik feat. Tempa T, Kraze & Esco - Bad Guys
31. Statik feat. Cham - Prancehall Story
32. Outro
BONUS TRACK:
Fish Go Deep - The Cure & The Cause (Jitset's 'The Chop & The Screw' Remix)

Some notes:
For track 5, I asked Jammer to do a vocal of "Toxic" after I heard him freestyle over it the night David Banner played at The Old Blue Last. For track number 10 my friend Jamie-James (who helped loads with this) had the idea of doing a track using the most famous deceased grime MC, Slinga from YGC, plus the two most famous deceased hip-hop MCs. He got some Slinga a cappellas off Jammer and then gave them to my friend Brains to build a track around the vocals. For track number 12 I got one of my favourite grime beats ever and gave it to VBS when they were going to Jamaica to film a documentary and asked them to get some dancehall MCs to vocal it. Mavado and Busy Signal both obliged and then when they got back, Jammer blended the two together to make one song. They followed Mavado around for a week to convince him to do it and then they had to sit around for seven hours on the day waiting for him to finally record the vocals. Having heard a different version of track 31 that Logan played on Kiss last year, Fuda Guy called up asking could he be on the mixtape. I went to meet him at some random train station in east London late one night to pick up a CD of tracks from him, only to discover when I got home that he'd just given me some really old track featuring him and Stryder that was released ages ago. He later emailed me track 17, which was an exclusive at the time, but I think it was released recently. Track 19 is another dancehall dub that VBS got for me in Jamaica, this time over a Jammer beat. Track 20 is the track I first heard Badness on. Faction G hooked it up for me some time last year and I've been a big fan of Badness ever since. Track 26 is by Ce'Cile and is all about my "big stick". This was another one from the VBS documentary in Jamaica and you can watch the making of the song here. The beat is an old Jammer classic.

There is a bit of a Bugsy Malone theme on this mixtape. Track 24 uses a sample from the "Down & Out" song off the Bugsy Malone soundtrack. After giving Slix the idea and sending him the song, he got Scholar (I never knew he produced either) to make a track for him to vocal. I really wanted to get Ears on the mixtape because he sounds good on pretty much any beat but wanted him to vocal something non-grime because I thought it would be more interesting, so went for "Fergalicious" because it's probably one of the most ridiculous songs ever. Riko made me two specials in return for DJing at his birthday bash last year. One made it on (track 29), the other was hip-hop tempo but I will use it for something one day.

Over a year ago, we held a studio session till three in the morning at Jamie-James's house with Statik, Esco, Tempa T and Kraze. Wiley was supposed to come down too, and kept calling Esco, but in the end he kept to tradition and didn't bother to show up. The sample in track 30 is another one from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack, as you probably already know if you've seen the film. I was going to get Tempa T to do a vocal of that "So You Want To Be A Boxer" song (because he boxes) but it never happened for some reason. The Cham freestyle (track 31) was one of the first songs I got for the mixtape. Statik went to Cham's hotel while he was over in the UK last year and got him to record a special for me over the "Boy" beat. Statik then licenced the beat to the Babyshambles' album or something, so he re-did the vocals over a new beat (which I think I prefer anyway). I can't be bothered to go through all the drops but I managed to get some from people like David Banner, Juvenile and 5th Ward Weebie. I was promised loads more but just didn't have the time to chase them all. The New Orleans drops were hooked up with contacts I got while I was over there last year. Finally, the bonus track is a chopped and screwed version of a funky house song that I got my friend Jitset to do.

Special thanks goes to: Jamie-James, Alex Sturrock, Daniel 7 Year Glitch, Ben, Statik, Brains, Jammer, Faction G, Jack Adams, God, Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, my gran, my two cats and Robert Mugabe.

(If the download link at the top doesn't work, click here to download the mixtape directly.)

Run up on your crew with a pumpy / I'll put you in a wheelchair, trust me / Blow off your leg and nickname you stumpy

My friend emailed me Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat" song along with some YouTube videos last Thursday (02/08/2007) telling me that the song was getting big in the US, and how he was going to put me onto it early so then I could take all the credit and pretend I discovered it, like I usually do. See my response below.



I've gotta say I'm not as into the song as everyone else. The dance is pretty funny, though. I interviewed Soulja Boy a little while back and was going to run the piece in Vice's forthcoming Student Guide, but I've been noticing everyone writing about it so I don't know if I want it to run now. First, I saw Fader post up about the dance, then this week I saw Styleslut had mentioned the song and proclaimed Soulja Boy as their "favourite rapper in the world at the moment" (wtf?). That was the final straw. I mean, I can't have a blog read by some 15 year-olds who discovered nu-rave after reading about it in a broadsheet supplement seeming to have scooped me, so I'm not sure if I'll let the interview run. When you guys get the prestige of being mentioned in the Guardian Guide's 100 per cent credible (who or what is "Spunk Rock"?) rundown of "UK rap" blogs then maybe you can pretend to know about stuff before I do.



I didn't bother to see Dizzee at Tales of the Jackalope on Saturday. The stage manager was a delusional cunt and tried to clear everyone out of backstage before Diz showed up, and had about five security guards surrounding him the whole time. Instead, I went and took a piss in the car park and skulked around looking for some free beer while he was on. I was supposed to warm up for Dizzee, but his management vetoed it owing to a little incident earlier this year, which was totally Diplo's fault. The whole thing was pretty upsetting at the time. I felt like Wiley when Dizzee blamed him for the stabbing thing in Napa. I'm over it now though.



I'm DJing at a lot of stuff this week. See the flyers over there at the bottom of the sidebar for more info. The night above is on Friday at The Old Blue Last with Trim and my amazing DJ friends Faggatronix. Come. I totally forgot to mention before that Faggatronix recorded Starkey's set at the last DO IT! which you can download from their blog. They also have a new mix which I've been playing non stop all week.

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All the CDs I was giving away have gone now. I still haven't decided who gets the Jammer hoody. I will do a poll or something before the end of the week.