One of the common threads I share with ever other member of my crew, Illvibe Collective, is a love for traditional hip hop.  When we formed Illvibe Collective nearly ten years ago, we were totally focused on hip hop DJing, turntablism, and mixtapes from a purist perspective.  A few months ago, I gave away “Ill Transmission” mixed by Panek and Phillee Blunt which featured a gang of current hip hop flavors from that year (1999).  Shortly after that mixtape was released, we officially formed the collective and began the Illvibe Mixtape Series in 2000 which also featured a ton of underground hip hop and exclusives from artists we were building relationships with.

Fast forward a couple years to 2003.  People were beginning to feel the “underground/traditional hip hop” movement had run it’s course and immediately associated anything “real hip hop” with dudes standing around smoking blunts with backpacks, nodding their heads, and challenging each other’s hip hop knowledge. What a drag…

What we had been doing at parties for years though was working in music by artists who would widely be considered underground and creating a new context for their records. At events like BODYROCK, Soul Clap, and The Difference among others, and during my guest DJ sets around the world with veterans like Rich Medina, Madlib, J-Live, and so on, I would slam hours of hip-hop classics and blend in joints from People Under The Stairs, Dilla (before he became a household name), Slum Village, Maspyke, Unspoken Heard, Jurassic 5, Reflection Eternal, and the list can go on for hours.

What I realized is that in the right setting, people on the dancefloor will move to underground rap as long as the proper context is created for them first and although folks may not know the words to a lot of joints, when the shit is funky enough, they cannot resist shaking a butt muscle.  This was my sole purpose in starting the Handcrafted Mixtape Series.  You’ll notice that unlike most mixtapes released after the DJ Clue era, the CD is put together very much like a club mix and provides a fun soundtrack on any given night for those who are open minded to something different than what’s in the typical rotation. For anyone of you who’ve been rocking with me since it’s release, you may know it’s the Illvibe release I was promoting on the One Step Forward Tour with Schoolz of Thought, Les Nubians, and Zap Mama.  A whole lot has changed since those days but man did we have some fun!  Enjoy HANDCRAFTED now, free for the first time…

Download | Right Click: Save As