That sparked your interest, but you’re not ready to spend your hard earned cash yet? Well you’re in luck, because Suff has a nice collection of remixes online for free, called “Suff Refills”.

The Refills is 45mins of pure Suffness, only this time he’s put acapella’s of your (mostly US) favorite artists on top of his sample-heavy drums. Whether it’s chilled-out mood’ism, heavy boom-bap or über-funky disco tracks, Daddy matches his beats to the vocals like it’s nothing. A must-have for hip-hop heads and beat-dj’s!

Tracklist:
01 – Slum Village – Look Of Love Refill
02 – Suff Daddy & Morlockk Dilemma – Ich Trinke
03 – The Alkaholics feat. Diamond D – Next Level Refill
04 – Guilty Simpson – Before The Verdict Refill
05 – Dabrye feat. J Dilla & Phat Kat – Game Over Refill
06 – Suff Daddy & Fleur Earth – Wasichloswerdenwollte
07 – Notorious B.I.G – Big Poppa Refill Instrumental
08 – Erykah Badu – Honey Refill
09 – Phat Kat feat. Guilty Simpson – Nightmare Refill
10 – D3CCPT feat. Guilty Simpson – Psycho Refill
11 – Notorious B.I.G – Nasty Boy Refill
12 – Fleur Earth feat. Frank Nitt – Changes Refill
13 – The Alkaholiks – Hip Hop Drunkies Refill
14 – Morlockk Dilemma – Unterwegs Refill
15 -Audio 88 & Yassin feat. Morlockk Dilemma – Isolation Refill

Check out track 13 below and get the 320kbps MP3 package at Suff Daddy’s Bandcamp.

Hip Hop Drunkies (Suff Edit) by Suff Daddy

The first EP (”19/76″) that Crookram released on Budabeats back in 2008 was met with open arms in the downtempo scene because of the perfect in-style feel and melancholic atmosphere. Two year later he returns with 19 tracks to show us downtempo isn’t only not dead, it’s actually in damn good shape! Let’s do some quick highlights here of the album that came out on Budabeats as well as Bankrupt Recordings.

The album starts off with an oldschool ‘who am I and what do I do’ intro. A dope beath with a bunch of rap vocals scratched on it. Da Crook still brags and boasts and follows with ‘Crookrilla’, one of his sample-laden breakbeat tracks that Wax Tailor would be proud of.
Next up on the menu are ‘Breakadawn’ and ‘Missione Pericolosa’, two steady 90bpm groove tracks. Dope cinematic vibes with straight drums is the recipe. ‘Bij De Rest’ also features these ingredients but because of the dusty Dutch sample (nice find bro!) it has kind of an early Spinvis vibe.

Speaking about nice finds, ‘Please Get Out Of The New One If You Can’t Blend The Ancient’ is a beautiful and funny interlude. It almost seems like a message to all the young kids out there making hip beats without researching their predecessors (my words, not Crookram’s!). The title track ‘Through Windows’ and ‘Two Seven Three Eleven’ continue the downtempo stream that’s ideal for a sunsplashed sunday morning. It’s the perfect build-up to ‘Good Morning Good Days’, an interlude which welcomes you to the more uptempo track ‘Makedonija’.

After this happy segment it’s back to cinematic moodyness with ‘Your Eyes Are Full Of Hate’, ‘Bodies’ and ‘Badalamenti’, an eastern Europe influenced track in which Crookram shows us he’s capable of more than simple breaks and boom-bap drums. ‘A Man Named Ivan’ continues the exotic sample-trip before getting back to straight funk on ‘Business Is Business’ and ‘Eugène Et Le Cerceau’, which are more minimalistic and reminds me of the Belgian loop-cutters 40 Winks.

Ending the album in style, the last 3 tracks take us back to the Crookram we know from “19/76″. Dragging movie styled sampled accompanied by robust beats. A perfect goodbye and ’till next time that makes you lunge for the repeat button before the final track is over.

On “Through Windows” Crookram not only shows us his growth as a producer, but also that regular downtempo music isn’t dead and the pile of old records to sample from is still not depleted. As much as I love our new erratic stuttering synthy counterpart, I’m filing this release as a classic without a single doubt.

Check out the intro track below and download the album at Budabeats or Bankrupt Recordings (direct links).

crookram-back to school by budabeats

update: The Dutchies can check an interview with Crookram at 3voor12. And here’s a video of the track ‘Through Windows’

It’s 11am, over 30 degrees celcius outside already and I’ve been rocking “Yello-21″ since I rolled out of bed about an hour ago. So that’s over 3 times in a row already.  Ba has a really nice blend of bobbin’ hip-hop beats, laid-back samples and lovely synths. All this is packed in a more analogue sound than most of the new beats that are coming out nowadays.

There’s not one track on this little gem that oozes any kind of darkness. The release is made up of a couple of full-length tracks accompanied with 1-min shortbeats, and everything just feels like a good hot summer’s day. You got sample-heavy tracks on one hand (’Intro’ and ‘Just Now’), and groovy synthloops (’Giant Clock’ and ‘Meditation’) on the other. Put this end-80bpm pack on your mp3-player, break out the speakers, grab some beers and get your ass down to the park!

Check out the intro track below, and download the soulful pack at Bandcamp for free!

Intro (Africa Get Down) by Bagir-Ba

The mix consists of the more(up) tempo oriented tracks on which Nagano is featured, making it a nice and smooth jazzy 55mins, with some touches of electronica. With all the tracks from different sources packed together it’s easy to observe how versatile Yukimi’s vocal talents are. Whether it’s trip-hop, poppy electronica or straight-up (nu-)jazz, she seems to get into the perfect vibe with ease, adjusting her way of singing perfectly to the style.

Uncle Q does a great job blending all these different tracks together into a great mix which is easy to listen and enjoy.

Tracklist:
01. Koop – Whenever There Is You
02. Ge-ology – Blues Alley
03. Little Dragon – No Love
04. Quartermaine – Mystic Qool Breeze
05. Little Dragon – After The Rain
06. Little Dragon – Feather
07. Shuya Okino – Pieces of You
08. Little Dragon – Forever
09. Koop – Summer Sun
10. Little Dragon – Thunder Love
11. Hird – Love You My Hope (Do Right Remix)
12. Swell Session – The Music in Her Eyes
13. Koop – I See A Different You
14. Jafrosax – Drawn 2 U
15. Little Dragon – Never Never

Get it here (on z-share through thecouchsessions.com)

Just before dropping his new album with John Robinson (aka Lil’ Sci of Scienz Of Life) called “Jay Are – The 1960’s Jazz Revolution Again”, Rawls pops out  this collection of beats in conjunction with Mighty Healthy NYC.

Although I honestly can’t say this is a superb product from beginning to end (some beats are a bit.. easy or unworked), it still just what you expect from J.: minimal, soulful and funky smooth-jazz on dope beats. Thankfully the few ‘misses’ on the tape are quickly forgotten after hearing the masterpieces like ‘Equinox’, ‘Stand Down’ and ‘4 A.M.’

Also included is a track from the Jay Are album, ‘The Lee Morgan Story’ and a joint featuring L.E. called ‘American Idol’.

Get Hotel Beats vol 1. here (zshare)

Yet again this is almost 40mins of offbeat, filtered, bleeped and dusty beats. Add some commercial-snippets and hip hop acappella cuts and it’s a certified Elaquent release. He can downplay himself in the liner notes all he wants by stating that “poor mixing” was done, it doesnt’ matter because this is supposed to be downright dirty.

If you want a more complete review of the man E and his works, check out our previews review “elaquent: massive free downloads!“.

Get ‘Elaquent – In Colour vol. 3′ (MediaFire) here.

Like I said, this is a slick EP. No rough beats and samples this time, but easygoing instruments and sweet vocalism. With almost ten albums behind him, Zo! is no newcomer to the music-scene and it is to be heard music- and production-wise. Lovely clean sounds on all instruments (which the multi-instrumentalist played himself) make this teaser for his upcoming album “Sunstorm” a really sweet laid-back release.

Being connected for a while now with Foreign Exchange the featured artists on the 7-track EP are not surprising in the least, but they are certainly enjoayble: Yahzarah, Carlitta Durand, Sy Smith, Phonté and Darien Brockington deliver beautiful verses over Zo!’s light productions. Ofcourse the man himself leaves room enough for amazing solo’s (check for example My Flame) and funky basslines.

Get the EP here (through Foreign Exchange)

Infiniteskills (Eric P., LuiGi & Pat Gonzalez, the laid-back.be inhouse production team) collected a total of 12 tracks from 9 Belgian beat-producers including themselves, and put out a 12″ through Rush Hour at the end of 2007. With most of the physical copies gone they decided in 2008 to release the mp3s for free!

If you want to take a break from all the glitchy cut-up electronic stuff, you’ve got 37mins of chilled out bliss right here. Soulful sampled loops and drums with the occasional fat synthy bass is what these Belgians are all about.  Don’t mistake the smoothness of this package with softness, the drums keep rolling steady all over the sampled foundation.

A lil’ extra is also included in the package: a promo video containing some nice diggin’ footage stylishly put together and a couple of US cameo’s!

Tracklist:
Eric P. – Is this the end?
Versatell – Clap ya hands
Ame – I Hope that I
LuiGi – Hombre
Dyno – Autumn love (feat Kissey Asplund)
Flo – Love jones
Lefto – Michigan 1963
LuiGi – In my life (in memory of “le mich” van vlasselaer – RIP)
Versatell – Gamble
Pat Gonzales – As I Am
Eric P. – Turn it up
Mr Critical – Almost lost you (in the mist of my mind)

Get the release here.

While we were out there checking the headliners, a group consisting of 3 young Amsterdam natives almost managed to slip past us. Luckily a friend from Amsterdam slipped us an EP containing 7 sweet and soulful tracks by Nation Of Elzi.

I honestly have to apologize for posting this a couple of months late, because this is that summer barbeque shit right here! Jazzy rhodes, soul guitars and a lot of head-nodding beats are the ground on which some joyful and positive are laid-down. The EP can be easily filed between old Common and Slum Village albums, but without calling it a copycat-effort.

You can get this groovy release in 256kbps MP3 at the Nation Of Elzi website, and I also found a 320kbps version on ZShare for all you Serato/Traktor people out there.

Also, next saturday they’ll be opening for P.O.S. at the Sugar Factory.

It’s a soulful track with a raw edge to it, you can check it out in these places:

• my website
  
• SoundCloud
• Last.fm
• Virb
• Hyves
• MySpace

Or just click the player below:

Also, since it takes time and hard cash to run a website like this, we’re accepting donations in any form: Paypal, webspace, materials, you name it. Whatever you can miss, we can use it.
Ofcourse we won’t let the life of this site depend on the donations. We’ll be going strong either way.