Stick the kettle on, sit back and brew to Boxbeats Vol. 2— a super chilled instrumental hip hop project put together by the beat collective Phonophanatic out of The Netherlands.

The 2nd installment in the Phonophanatic Boxbeats series and just like Vol. 1, expect a broad variety of exclusive, instrumental hip-hop beats crafted by a group of young but deadly-talented producers from around the world.

It’s free to download via the player and for more info on each artist and on the series visit the bandcamp.

Hailing from NYC, Bigg Dogg with a bigg track.

Available on Ecko’s Underground Airplay mixtape.

In conjunction with it’s new Spring 13′ collection, Ecko Unlimited is proud to present the “Underground Airplay” mixtape. A takeover of the hip-hop airwaves and a nod to underground music and media as well as up & coming artists who lead and influence our world of youth culture. New tracks will be available to download every week featuring Big K.R.I.T., Joey Bada$$, Smoke DZA, Pro Era, Cashius Green and many more! The Takeover is in full effect.

It’s that time of year again when we come together and celebrate the genius that was the late J Dilla.

For the last seven years The Doctor’s Orders and thousands of dedicated fans have celebrated the life and work of the incredible and legendary James “J-Dilla” Yancey.

Before his death at just 32 years of age, Jay-Dee or J-Dilla, has be cited as creating a new sound in Hip-Hop inspiring beat smiths, MCs and music lovers worldwide. He has produced for many of the greatest names in the genre including De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, The Pharcyde, Janet Jackson, Busta Rhymes, Common, D’Angelo and his own crew Slum Village.

We recommend you get your tickets now, it sells out every year.

Remember all proceeds from tickets & merchandise go to J-Dilla Foundation & Lupus UK.

Karriem Riggins‘ 34-track instrumental hip-hop album Alone Together is something quite special.

A characteristic Stones Throw release, in short it’s a percussion masterpiece packed with jazz infused drumming, hip hop nostalgia— ’J Dilla Is The Greatest’ and cunning breaks— ‘OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAA’, bridging the perfectly rebellious nature and beat impact of both hip hop and jazz.

Those are of course two worlds Riggins name is synonymous with; he currently plays drums for Jazz Legend Diana Krall and has produced for the likes of The Roots, Erykah Badu, Common, J Dilla, Slum Village to name a few and

Fans of the above you are in for a treat.

Go get buy it from Stones Throw now.

Today we recommend our favourite track from Essa (formally known as Yungun) eargly awaited and exciting new EP Time For Something New via First Word Records.

‘A Walk In The Park’ is the sequel to his classic hip hop track ‘City breaks’ produced by UK legends LG & Lopez and appearing on his 2004 debut The Essance.

Know appearing under his new name with Time For Something New, Essa has returned with the same quality we have come to love but with hints of a maturer self.

With the EP also featuring Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck, UK Hip-Hop legend Skinny Man, Detroit don Waajeed / Jeedo (Slum Village / PPP), Simbad (Gilles Peterson Worldwide Family) and Hyperdub rising stars LV its a clear window into what the accomplished wordsmith has planned for the future.

Buy Time For Something New.

Any new group that are brave enough to cover one of our favourite hip hop tracks ever—’93 Til Infinity’— are top cats in our book.

Epidemic, a hip-hop group based out of South Florida consisting of MC’s Hex One and Tek-nition are just that.

‘Inifinty’ is the first single off of their new album Monochrome Skies and is is a rendition of the classic Souls of Mischief song. Remade as a tribute to real Hip-hop and the pioneers who paved the way, the song and album were entirely produced by Jesse James, a beat-maker from Luxembourg.

Download the track for free via the player.

Here is something quite innovative from Pokerjunkie.com

For all those hip hop heads who send hours of late nights homing their skills in poker, Pokerjunkie.com have made poker hip hop music, producing a variety of playlists for their tournaments.

Cleverly as you progress each stage of the tournament presents a new playlist of classic hip hop, and before you think this is straight commercial marketing at its worse check the finely selected playlists for yourselves.

Tracks like; The Roots – Stay Cool, Digable Planets – Pacifists, Common – I Used To Love H.E.R, Ice Cube – It Was A Good Day, Dialated Peoples – Worst Comes To Worst, Mos Def – UMI Says, Jazzmatazz – Loungin’, MF Grimm – Scars And Memories, Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, Scarface – This Can’t Be Life, Notorious B.I.G – Sky’s The Limit, The Pharcyde – Running, Action Bronson – Imported Goods, Nas – One Love (MF Doom Remix) are just the first stage of the tournament.

Getting love for his deeply ethereal and sometimes crunked-out sound, Shlohmo is a producer few people can put their finger on. On his first stint playing in the UK and Europe, he tells Beatnik about his journey so far, why he feels split in two, moving to New York and why it’s best to keep things DIY.

A lo-fi beat junkie and field-recording enthusiast, his crackling, low-BPM compositions resemble more the sound of one’s dreams than speakers. Although what you hear isn’t exactly hip hop, the distant references are all present.

Growing up to “stuff like DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin, M83 stuff with some sort of cinematic vision”, he processed his first beat when he was 14 but feel deeper into the LA beat scene in his late teens. That’s when he discovered the beacon of the city’s glitch beat scene and Flying Lotus’ home away from home: Low End Theory.

After his 2010 debut album Shlomoshun, he raised the stakes further last year with his critically acclaimed Bad Vibes.

Layered with those dirty textures, strange sounds and obscure samples we had become accustomed to, this time there was a greater emphasis on pace and atmospheric beauty, which has now become his signature. The album helped set him apart from other artists within the Beat genre.

Here’s what he had to say.

There’s been a lot of love for the west coast scene for some time now. You are originally a Cali native, what do they put in the water?

I dunno man. It’s weird! We get asked a lot, but I feel there is as much of a buzz around the UK sound for us. The thing that’s interesting with the west coast, I guess, is its history. It has always had this weird, psychedelic, light heartedness, palm-tree flavour whereas the UK has that more grimey and rawness to it. They obviously influence each other.

That having been said, you’ve now moved to New York, how has that been?

Its great man! I mean a lot of people were thinking it would be a weird move for me with music stuff. There’s not as much going on in terms of shows compared to the L.A. scene, or in terms of meeting people and making those connections. But its all irrelevant in the end, the Internet exists, I’m not cut off from the world, and at the end of the day, it’s New York! But to be honest I moved there for life reasons, I’m young and I wanted to try something fresh out while I still had nothing tying me down.

Taking it back a little, what’s been your relationship with music?

Well my dad is a musician, so it has always been around and encouraged. So it wasn’t so much a choice, it was just there if I wanted it. I guess I got a bit older and I really wanted to create something, put out something out there.

There’s a deeply ethereal flavour to your sound, maybe it’s the Cali vibes? Just curious, have you ever dreamt that you’re making music?

No, but actually about every year, around November, December, I get really intense, crazy dreams—for like a month or two. Without fail, for the past three or four years, like really vivid, and I remember every part of them. It’s weird like, one year it was really bad, messed up, like waking up sweating every night, and then the next it was really amazing, all sweet and beautiful.

That actually sounds about right. Tracks like ‘Teeth’, can go from a real lightness to a darker and more rugged vibe, and back again. Do you get to explore that when you play live?

The live set is very different to the recording process at home. It’s far less personal, and more about connecting with the people, the venue and the general vibe. I feed of it, like if they want to dance, then I want to dance. Also I don’t want to be a**ehole, most to the time people are out, and they wanna move, so I try to keep it lively.

You and Salva often appear I the same place, do you guys work together sometimes? Are there any other collaborations you would like to think up?

Well, we’re signed to the same label and we’ve done some touring together, but we’re actually also about to start a collaboration project with a vocalist. I can’t really talk about that right now, but we are definitely looking forward to it.

That label is Friends of Friends. What can you tell us about it?

Man it’s great, it’s a dope label out of L.A. run by a guy called Leeor Brown. It’s his baby really, he does everything from A&R to PR and the rest of business side of things, and its all out of love of what he likes and believes in creatively.

It’s rare to find people who put in the effort like that, who don’t actually make music themselves. He’s got a good ear, and a good eye; we all support him like that. This year is gonna be good year, he’s picked up a whole bunch of great guys, like LOLguys and Tomas Barfod.

There’s a strong identity in the imagery accompanying your work, do you get to involved on that side of things, do you look for interaction different mediums outside of music?

It’s funny actually, I never thought I would be doing this as my main ‘job’. I went to Art school for a while, and I do a lot of design, for my own stuff and for the ‘We did it’ imprint. But I basically dropped out of art school because it wasn’t for me. I like what I like, and it can be very specific, there were few people, including teachers that really vibed with me in that way, plus the music was happening so I guess it worked out.

If you weren’t making music, where do you think you would be…?

Man I would probably still be there and hating it, but I think something would have come out of it in the long run. I think it’s a lot easier to see a path in terms of career in music than it is in art world. I’m happy to keep it as a side hobby, and get to do the music full time.

Earlier you mentioned We Did It which is your own project, tell us a little about that.

It’s just the crew really, some friends from high school, we started when we were 17, 18. We were all doing something creative and wanted to put things out there. I like things on a DIY tip, and we try to keep it like that as much as possible, but always with stuff to put out physically, like albums, mad artwork, cassettes, stuff like that.

Back to you. You’ve had a few LPs and a string of EPs, what has been on the cards recently and what can we expect in the future?

I got an EP, called ‘Vacations’ that came out a little while ago. It’s a few tracks plus some remixes by Salva, Groundislava. As for the future, there’s a real split in my music at the moment. With ‘Bad Vibes’, there’s this electronic, dancy, southern Hip-Hop kind of feeling, then there’s also this other side, which is this more folky,lo-fi guitar and vocal thing in me. We’ll have to see how things shape up, maybe.

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Shlohmo on Soundcloud

Buy Vacations EP

With a constant stream of talent flowing into the ether on the regular, it can sometimes be overwhelming keeping up who is doing what and coming out of where. One individual who is doing a lot to help push the US beat and club scenes forward is Mr. Paul Salva—or just ‘Salva’ to you and I.

From DJ to producer and now label boss for the boutique ‘Frite Nite’ imprint, and a graduate of last year’s RBMA in Madrid, Salva has been busy, and it’s already looking like another big year for him. Beatnik spoke to Salva about friends, trends, the accidental heroes of youth, and why we should definitely be keep an eye on the East coast as well as the West.

For some your name might be associated with the new wave of beatmakers out there, for others you are known for being a big part of helping to move the culture forward, how do you see your involvement with music?

I guess I’ve already been through a few manifestations of the different styles of music I’ve wanted to integrate in my life. I was never formally trained, and I guess my first incarnation in all of it was through Djaying and being a big Turntablism geek. Now, I’m somehow a little bit more of an old timer compared to some of the younger guys coming out of L.A.

You’re a Chicago native but via a few other places, you’ve been a West coast resident for little bit now, is it fair to say they all seem to come through in the music?

I guess my big thing is that I’ve always loved as much as hip-hop, in all their forms. The West coast sound really drew me, guys like Dre & Snoop, to Battlecat and DJ Quick as well as straight up Funk and other styles. For me, I feel as much influenced by those sounds, as I do by the house stuff growing up in Chicago and the sounds coming out of Detroit at the same time. I actually also lived in Miami for while, which was the hub for Drum & Bass in the U.S. when it was really cracking, and I think having had dance music play a big role in my life would probably be something that seems to somehow set the sound apart from a lot of other people in L.A. right now.

Dance music from either side of the pond has always pushed the bar for each side to experiment more, how are you experiencing it now?

I definitely always looked to the UK for inspiration, regardless of what style I was into at the time. In the last decade, and particularly more recently, so many amazing artists have been coming out here on a dance tip, playing the more tribal funky stuff or more broken beat stuff. Equally now, it feels like there’s been this revival with young cats in the UK almost migrating away from that “UK Funky” sound, and making straight up house and techno which sort of emulates old Chicago and old Detroit.

Either side really keeps feeding back off each other, but especially now with Internet culture, it’s like that for any art forms, its just this consistent recycling and feeding off each other. You have Artists changing sounds before you can even start to describe what they were making before.

People sometimes put a downer on the US Bass scene, do you think that’s fair?

I think definitely has its own identity, but it’s still a lot more isolated on the whole. I’ve had the opportunity to play in most of the major cities, and in a lot of the smaller places too, and though most places are usually up on what is on elsewhere, the average city just has less nights cultivating and pushing those certain styles.

Even with the Internet, and the fact that nothing is really ‘secluded’ in the way it used to be, a lot of what ends up getting picked up on there usually gets channeled through ‘Pop’ culture, in this sort of weird sub-mainstream area. Were talking radio, and stadium sized shows! It’s almost impossible for artists like myself to compete with that, unless you follow the format. But things have always been that way, from hair metal, to big-band jazz, there’s always fads and popularity.

The west coast sound is putting out a lot of stuff that’s being picked up all over the place these days, but can you shed some light on what else is happening these days?

The East coast is definitely back in big way. New York is cracking right now, there are always three or four parties in Brooklyn, and a lot of great artists from all over the place playing there, but also amazing guys coming out of the local scene too. Sepalcure is a huge taste maker, in fact machine drum is probably one the most eclectic and influential producers out there, am happy to say that I take a lot of influence from people like him.

I mean there’s definitely a great buzz on the West coast right now but I don’t even particularly see myself as being part of the L.A. beat scene that much, the guys at Low End Theory and Brainfeeder have it down and it is awesome, they’ve built this whole thing there, and it’s reaching insane levels of popularity which is amazing because it’s still experimental at the end of the day. It’s great to be in the middle of it, but I feel like I can bring something a little bit different.

Last year saw you come of the RBMA in Madrid. How was that, on a scale of one to ‘ridiculous’?

Euuuhm….. extra ridiculous!

Any highlights you could share?

I mean, the whole thing really, the amount of technical knowledge and the massive amounts of inspiration, from my peers and from artists I fount out looked up to me, and artists I looked up to. I mean, sitting in on the RZA giving a lecture! He has to be in one of my top five most influential artists.

Plus with all the other lecturers and even the staff, it was all just endless input, I think I’m still processing things I learnt and the relationships I made there.

The people you meet, the bonds you make, its actually very emotional, plus you don’t sleep, you’re out in the club till 5am, and in lectures by 9am, then studio all day and all night. The whole thing is ridiculous, you’re constantly having moments when you’re looking at your peers, asking yourselves ‘Is this really happening right now?’

You’re label ‘Frite Nite’ which houses fellow beat mason and recent RBMA alumni B. Bravo, how do you find running an indie imprints these days?

It’s been great, even though I released both my records on Friends of Friends last year; they’ve really embraced me having my own label. Frite Nite in itself is a crew of my friends I got close with is SF, and the reason I started it was to help them get exposure.

Guys like B. Bravo had been making music for years but had never done anything solo until we did it, and it became a platform for him to be able to grow from, and that’s hat make me the happiest. We all release on other labels, but with time and money permitting we try to do more projects from our own output.

You’ve had a pretty exciting year last year…. what can we expect now?

I’m actually working on some new stuff with of my close friends DJ G. He comes more from the ‘pure’ sort of ‘DMZ ‘Dubstep pedigree, but we’ve ended up working on some broken beat and house stuff when were doing it together. I’m also looking forward to being more present on Frite Nite, with some solo stuff on more of a Hip-Hop vibe.

Then we got some of what I honestly feel is B. Bravo’s best work to date coming out too. We’ve also been getting a ton of demos from a lot of young people, which I’m really excited about. I always wanted to be in that position, I know I’m getting older, and I love looking towards the youth. Their accidental genius is what makes music and art so great, so hopefully I‘ll get to play, but also put new cats on too.

OK and if you weren’t making music what do you think you would be doing with your time?

I can’t really imagine that at this point anymore to be honest. I used to just do a tech job and there’s no going back I think one thing I do wanna do regardless of what happens with my own music is teach. RBMA was a big part of me wanting to do that, the educational insight it gave. Again, like what RZA was saying about the ‘student-master’ relationship is that you basically learn a lot from teaching. But otherwise I wanna be in Music for the rest of my life, there’s no real doubt about that.

We certainly hope so.

Thanks.

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Frite Nite label.

Paper Tiger have come along way, since bedroom-producing futuristic hip-hop, broken beat and 2-step electronica blended with live instruments and musicians. The success of their debut EP, Worldwide Takeover, and single ‘Send Me’ on Jus Like Music, joined with their acclaimed remixes of artists like DELS, Dark Sky and Stac (Wah Wah 45s), have taken them far from those homely four walls.

Illuminated though is their best work to date. The seven-piece band from Leeds join with the fast-growing imprint Mind On Fire, crafting a varied and bubbling project full of bouncing dub, post-dubstep futuristic beats and percussion sounds that conjure an itch in your toe you probably didn’t know you had.

Bass-whooping opener ‘Delight Dub’ will have 2step heads tripping over themselves, while title track ‘Iluminated’ stands up there with those early releases from James Blake, Falty DL and Roska.

‘Modern Dymanics’ rounds off proceedings beautifully with an impossible fusion of galactic funk, computer beeps and instrumental drum n bass, playing like a spaceship tea party high on space invaders.

What’s more, each track comes with it’s own brilliant remix, like the vocal cut remix of ‘Modern Dynamics’ featuring the sensational sweet soul cries of Sabira Jade (of DJ Vadim’s The Electric)—indicating, if proof was needed, that the best is just around the corner.
Words Ali Raymond

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Buy Illuminated EP
Mind On Fire Records