Parts I and II, if you’re so inclined.

Shouts to the dude Brian, the man behind The Mixtape Club.

Al Wilson – Show and Tell
The Main Ingredient – It’s So Sweet (Loving You)
Patrice Rushen – When I Found You
A Taste of Honey – Youre In Good Hands
Roy Ayers – You Send Me
The Whispers – Chocolate Girl
Midnight Star – Slow Jam
Ennio Morricone – Ti Prego, Amami
Luther Vandross – If Only For One Night
Prince – Do Me Baby

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There are a few things I can attribute it to. After my hard drive debacle I was in a real rut, and even when I was able to get 70% of my music back, I felt that everything in it had stopped existing. My previous project Jams had put my usual throwback mode under what felt like an electron microscope, and I overloaded on musical nostalgia. And most importantly, everyone on my twitter was talking about artists i didn’t know, so I had to get schooled.

So, in a sense, me losing all my music was actually a good thing – it helped me start fresh and with new determination. I was finding new music through the trifecta soundcloud + tumblr + twitter, as well as friend referrals via email or fb. Soon I realized that there were certain users/blogs/labels that I really trust with music, and they basically shaped a lot of my listening trends through the year.

This new method of music consumption was(and is) exciting, in that it all felt very organic and uncontrived. And with all the social networking available to artists/producers and its growing ubiquity, it’s incredibly easy to connect even further with someone you dig, really get into the rhyme and reason of their music and personality. Wildly different from just like six years ago. I’d never really been one to read album reviews either, but now even moreso – I’m better off just waiting for my feed to chime in on it. I’m finally understanding the power of the social network.

All that being said, as a sometimes dj I still can’t totally avoid pop/what’s hot in the clubs. And who am I to deny the infectious properties of the 2chainz birthday song?

For me, 2012 was the year in where my network dictated my listening trends in a very profound way. I’m hesitantly curious, scared, excited, to see what 2013 has in store.

(music journalism sidenote: interesting article here by maura j)

Recently I’d been digging through the crates and realized that I really missed Mariah Carey. Not like the Mimi that runs on her own tracks, but the Mariah accompanied by rappers, the Mariah that guests on the hook. Twista. Snoop. Jermaine Dupri. Jadakiss. Busta Bust. Jams for sure. This got me to thinking, who’s got the most memorable hooks? Think back to Faith on Juicy. Or Faith on on 1nce Again! AND Stressed Out! Mary J, Lauryn, Aaliyah all sit on hooks of some really influential cuts. (c’mon.. All My Time? dead.) Out of the Mariah tracks I listed I’m probably feeling that Jadakiss one the most lately. That Scott Storch shit was heatish back in the day. P.S. – Storch on keys, dude is rad.

Beat is Lotus Flower Bomb flipped by Bahwee.

Bedroom kinda mix. Enjoy.

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The Dream – Roc
Ciara – Promise (Instrumental)
Jeremih – Waiter
112 – Anywhere
Somethin’ For The People – My Love Is The Shhh
Missy Elliot – Beep Me 911
Aaliyah – One In A Million
The Weeknd – Gone (Sango Remix)
Jeremih – 773 Love (Cyril Hahn 4AM Bootleg)
Foxes – White Coats (Xaphoon Jones In The Zone Remix)
The Dream – Fast Car (Exeter 88MPH Edit)
eerojohannes – HEYGURLGIMMEURURL
The Dream – Rockin That Thang (Instrumental)
Tinashe – Let You Love Me (Remix)
Bei Maejor – Party @ The Crib
Frank Ocean – Dying For Your Love
Aaliyah – Don’t Know What To Tell Ya
Ginuwine – What’s So Different
D’Angelo – Brown Sugar (Beatminerz Remix)

I’d been planning the trip for a monthish before my August departure: intent on avoiding major cities, I planned out most of the drive based on a daily mileage cap and an affinity for smaller highways. I tried to avoid interstates as much as possible. With a low of 258 miles to a high of 474 miles per day, I had planned a flexible 20 day itinerary – breaks included when I would be seeing friends or family, but otherwise most destinations were for the night.

The main draw to driving across the country was to stop frequently and take pictures, but I realized I also had/have/will continue to have a strong desire to see small towns. Areas of America that avoided growth and sprawl, and not even out of choice but out of geographical position. Coming from Los Angeles, which you really can’t even call a city, I’m so used to a large and disjointed sense of community, where many smaller cities are jutted up shoulder to shoulder jockeying for importance, self worth, bragging rights for the coveted ‘best’. The thought of a small town being so singular and isolated, with no desire to be ‘best’ at anything except existing has such a purity and innocence that I can’t help but romanticize the notion. I wanted to see what I thought was so beautiful and out of reach. Even the towns that I breezed through I could get a sense of their lives and aspirations based on the commercial flora and fauna. Along PCH they were surf shops, motels, campsites. In North Dakota they were used truck lots, farmland, agriculture industries. In Minnesota they were boat sales and tackle shops. They were slices of life that were so distinct to the location yet still American.

I learned a lot about myself as well. I rented a car, the cheapest I could find(which mind you was still not cheap – a rental is fucking expensive), and with the price I sacrificed cruise control. I definitely learned how much I can stretch myself driving, alternating my feet on the gas when I was getting too tired. I figured out the least amount of sleep I can get per night to still be able to drive about ten hours per day(the answer: five). I also learned that my lack of sleep, while not affecting my desire to drive, did affect my immune system. I also learned, begrudgingly, that I can get sick of burgers.

Every day of my trip was basically driving, so much so that it felt like a job, and the distance I was gradually covering never really sinked in. Even when I finally arrived in New York, I was still incredulous to the fact that I’d just driven a distance that would cover the US almost back and forth – my trip was only one way, and I flew back out of NY a weekish later after I arrived. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t have the motivation to drive back once I arrived, but to be honest, I probably could have just driven back at the same pace to see more. I was only ending there because I’d been away for some time, and was feeling quite homesick near the end. However I most likely will be doing the trip again, going through the central belt and then returning through the south.

My favorite state: Maine. My least favorite state: Minnesota. The BEST STATE: California. o b v.

I encourage everyone that lives in the states to drive it. You’ll see vignettes of life you’ll never see from the comfort of your airplane’s window seat, from the walls of large metropolitan areas. You’ll meet random people and end up with great stories. Even a drive will seem fleeting; America is just too vast, and that’s perhaps the most exciting part: the journey will never end.

~america~

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Dwele – Without You
Nicci Gilbert – Feels So Good
TLC – Creep (Untouchables Mix)
Groove Theory – Tell Me (Bkny Rnb Mix)
Ljones – July
Mary J Blige – You Remind Me
Montell Jordan – This Is How We Do It (Puff Daddy Radio Mix)
Bewilderedbeast – Back 2 The Groove
Usher – U Don’t Have To Call (ESTA. REMIX)
Giraffage f. XXYYXX – Even Though (The One AM Radio Remix)
Byron & Onra f. Peter Hadar – Sleeping Pills
Allure – Head Over Heels (siik remix of a remix)
Ta-Ku – Sylvia
LAKIM – 4ZeeCru
The Dream – Sweat It Out

Interesting tidbits I gleaned while researching this song: Contrary to popular(my) belief, the Heavy D version of this song came out first – earlier in 1991 off of his third album Peaceful Journey. Teddy Riley then decided it’d still be a perfect r&b hitter too, so he made the all Tammy Lucas version that was featured on the Juice soundtrack. Tammy actually shows up in a few places I didn’t expect – she’s the female vocal on 1nce again, as well as the female bg vocal on superthug. In fact, Tammy and the Neptunes collaborated more than just with that track. There is a fantastic 4 part interview with her over here if you are so inclined. It’s quite interesting to get the backstory on kinda how/why she didn’t blow up as well as she should, because she has a fantastic voice. The og beat is LJones.

Every few months in the year, they have a crate digging sale over in Chinatown called Beat Swap Meet. I’ve been a couple of times and it’s always good times and familiar faces. The first time I went I kinda lost my shit though. Didn’t bring enough cash and found hella LPs that I was looking to cop. Gotta love those 1$ bins with random finds, I picked up this unlabeled ‘Party Mix’ that was pretty bangin. However one of my primo snags that first time was the 12″ for That’s The Way Love Is, which I felt was always an overlooked Bobby track. Ripped the acapella straight from the vinyl and used it for this blend. Recent tech problems have made me really cherish physical copies of music all the more. The OG is Slum Village.

I spent forever and a day with that radio, and had it finely tuned for how I listened to music. Knew the perfect volume level for when my parents are home (2 ⅓) versus home alone (3 ⅔). Knew how far the speakers could reach before the wire was too taut. Knew that having the mid EQ at halfway or lower made stuff sound better. Knew that recording had a little bit of lag, so I had to press record earlier when I was grabbing songs from the radio. I remember playing cds the fuck out on it, knowing cd’s back and forth and memorizing interludes and intros and outros, not even because I wanted to but rather because I just had to. For any music fiend, this relationship is familiar and intimate.

The boombox, as with other technological ephemera of the 80s and 90s, is long gone. A fading memory in a long litany of memories, the radio was replaced by CD players, by MP3 players, by software, by the ongoing change that we still exist in. When it comes to music, it seems our general evolution is towards size and portability – from larger home stereos to personal radios to Walkmans to iPods, we’ve become used to being able to listen to music anywhere and everywhere. All technology becomes obsolete, but with the technological evolution, something more is being forgotten – the memories and experiences associated with the medium.

Boomboxes were another outlet for expression. You could tell a lot about a person’s life by their radio, and not even counting the music pouring out of it. So lovingly placed at the top of drawers and desks, adorned with stickers, used as mantles for toys or coin plates or ash trays. You made sure that your radio’s appearance matched you. I remember all my cousins’ radios, naturally, and they all had their own unique shapes, flair, personality. Now though, I’d be hard pressed to see anything inside my nieces and nephews’ rooms except headphones and bland iPod docks.

The homogenization of hardware is, again, just another advent of our frenetic technological advance, but it’s also made us look elsewhere to show our personality. Instead of radios telling our stories, we’ve got social networks. Who cares what kind of radio you’ve got when you can show your Spotify listening trends right there? We’ve come to a point where the sum of any person’s interests is easily exhibited in a virtual space, unbound by real world limitations like drawer space and power plugs. The notion otherwise seems archaic and obsolete even.

But for the people that know how it was to have a radio, I implore you: keep listening to music off the computer, and remember how you’re listening to it.

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Tony! Toni! Toné! – (Lay Your Head On My) Pillow
Marvin Gaye – Come Live With Me Angel
Leon Ware – Phantom Lover
Mayer Hawthorne – Get To Know You
Phyllis Hyman – The Love Too Good To Last
The Isley Brothers – Sensuality
Keith Sweat – I’ll Give All My Love To You
Mint Condition – Breakin My Heart (Brown Eyed 12″ Mix)
Jodeci – Freek’n You (Funky Freeky Mix)
Aaliyah – At Your Best You Are Loved