The line between Young Jeezy and J Dilla is now that much thinner. On Friday night, Californian underground rap mainstay Madlib announced a new project with Indiana mixtape murderer Freddie Gibbs, and the two debuted two new songs, “Thuggin’” and “Deep.” Both of those tracks also appear, alongsid...

‘Tis the season for summer mixes. I made mine, the morning benders’ Chris Chu put one together for L.A.-based site Say Mayday. Plenty to love in there, like the Avalanches, Twin Sister, Bibio, Arthur Russell. One thing you get when Chu makes you a mix that you don’t get with someone like me, though, is [...]

St. Louis producer Phaseone let out a solid half-hour mixtape masterclass yesterday with The Realest Shit I Ever Wrote, finding a connective thread with which to stitch everyone from Aphex Twin to Fleetwood Mac and back to J Dilla to his quilted beat mix. Still it’s his remix of Nite Jewel’s “Want You Back&#8221...

St. Louis producer Phaseone let out a solid half-hour mixtape masterclass yesterday with The Realest Shit I Ever Wrote, finding a connective thread with which to stitch everyone from Aphex Twin to Fleetwood Mac and back to J Dilla to his quilted beat mix. Still it’s his remix of Nite Jewel’s “Want You Back&#8221...

Madlib pays tribute to the sadly departed J Dilla, a producer with whom he'd forged a mutual stylistic compatibility, one that began with beat-tape trading by mail and resulted in the underground classic Champion Sound.read more