From the station’s launch in summer 2002 to summer 2004 I was one of two Hip Hop mix show DJs on the BBC’s station for ‘new black music’, 1Xtra. This month marks the station’s 20th Anniversary, so I’ve embraced the embarrassment of my 1Xtra press photo and picked a selection of mixes I did on the station during that period to upload on Mixcloud for the first time. They’re definitely from a different era – pre-Serato, they’re vinyl only, recorded live on a simple two channel mixer with no effects … and with that comes a certain amount of imperfection I wouldn’t stand by today, but they represent the time well, and in some cases the music I was playing in clubs at the time. Full disclosure – I have given most of these mixes a light edit, cutting out a few sections I didn’t like, but for the most part they’re as they come. I’ll be uploading another of these mixes each week over the next couple of months and posting tracklists for each of them here.
Tracklist:
- Chris Read – Theme #1
- MCM – I Got Soul
- Extra Prolific – First Sermon
- Extra Prolific – In Front of the Kids
- Blak Twang – U Know (Instrumental)
- Beats Rhymes & Life – U Know (Nas Megamix)
- The Herbaliser feat Rakaa / Iriscience – Verbal Anime
- Beats Rhymes & Life – Alchemist 2001 Remix (feat Mobb Deep, Royce 5’9″, Apathy, J Zone & Huggy Bear)
- Supernatural – Cosmic Slop (Instrumental)
- Gang Starr – The Militia (Pete Rock Remix)
- Ed O.G – To Much to Live Fo’
- Kurious – All Great
- Paul Nice – Bonus Beat #2
- Brand Nubian – Hold On
- Hieroglyphics – Soweto (Instrumental)
- Mr Lif – Pull Out Your Cut
- Gang Starr – Skillz
- The Nudge – Window Pain
- The Clipse – When The Last Time (Acapella)