29
July
2007
I suck. I know. It’s been way over due for a new mix to get posted. Apologies. Between a day job, getting bronchitis, and having actual paid gigs (!), I just hadn’t gotten around to finding some free time to spend to throw down a mix for you all.
Anyhow, here’s a nice hour long mix to start to make up to everyone. Enjoy!
–
Musiq Soulchild - Buddy
Mario Winans - Don’t Want To Know
Nick Cannon - My Wife
Beyonce - Crazy In Love
Pras - Ghetto Superstar (X-Mix)
T Pain - I’m Sprung
Too $hort - Blow The Whistle
Jay-Z - I Just Wanna Love U (Remix Mafia Party Break)
Daddy Yankee - Impacto
DMX - Party Up
Cypress Hill - I Could Just Kill A Man
2Pac - All About You
DJ Felli Fell - Buck In Here
Tony Sunshine - Oh My God
Far-East Movement - Satisfaction
Down - Lean Like A Cholo
Ne-Yo - Because of You
Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen (2nd Nature Remix)
T Pain vs Hall & Oats - 80’s Bartender (Victor Menegaux)
Indeep vs Earth Wind and Fire - A Brazillian DJ Saved Me (DJ 2nd Nature)
DJ Khaled - We Takin’ Over
Ying Yang Twins ft Wyclef Jean - Dangerous (Blackline Mix)
Modjo vs Justin Timberlake - I Love A Sexy Lady’s Back (Architect Davey B)
Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back
Rihanna - Please Don’t Stop the Music
Afro-Rican - Give It All You Got
2 Live Crew - Hoochie Mama
Ann Lee - Two Times
Human League - Fascination
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
bakasan 
old school, R&B, bakasan, booty bass 
2 Comments » |
25
June
2007
Junior Mafia - Get Money
Lil Kim - Lighters Up
Ludacris - Runaway Love
Arrested Development - Everyday People
Busta Rhymes - Woo Hah!
Fugees - Take It Easy
Killer Mike - ADIDAS
Big Pun - Still Not A Player
Ne-Yo - Sexy Love
Janet Jackson - Enjoy
Method Man ft Mary J Blige - All I Need
Pharcyde - Runnin’
Shabba Ranks - Slow And Sexy
2 Pac ft Ashanti - Pac’s Life
Beyonce ft Shakira - Beautiful Life
Maroon 5 vs Young Gunz - Can’t Stop Nothing Lasts Forever
De La Soul - All Good
P Diddy ft Nicole Scherzinger - Come To Me
Jiggy - Stop 97
Big Tymers - Oh Yeah
Gwen Stefani - Now That You Got It
–
Post my thoughts later… 
–
This mix is pretty damn overdue, my apologies for that. I’d been ridiculously busy at work for awhile, and when my project finally got out the door, I thought I’d be jumping immediately on the decks. Instead I found myself just needing a week or two of doing absolutely nothing (it was everything I imagined it could be….) to decompress.
Had my chance to relax and now I’m back on the decks and hopefully back on schedule again to drop a mix a week again.
Hope you enjoy this… listening back through it again, it’s one of my favorite mixes I think I’ve *ever* recorded. Like all my mixes, it’s all just impromptu and a live set (i.e. press record and cross fingers), but for whatever reason I think it all just comes across pretty clean–and it’s pretty representative of me as a DJ now. The musical choices are all fairly upbeat, represent a decently broad range of genres and provide a nice spectrum of beats and melodies. Can’t quite place it fully, but to me the mix is just very…. me. Been at this now for 3 years approximately, and looking at this mix and comparing to stuff I have from way back when, I think I’ve come quite a long way.. 
Anyhow, enough self back patting. Enjoy, hope you like it as much as I enjoyed the time on the decks recording it.
bakasan old school, R&B, bakasan 1 Comment » |
29
May
2007
UD - Turn It Up
Montell Jordan - This Is How We Do It
Kriss Kross - Jump
Paperboy - Ditty
PM Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
Candyman - Knocking The Boots
Color Me Badd - I Wanna Sex You Up
MC Breed - Ain’t No Future In Yo’ Frontin’
New Edition - If It Isn’t Love
hello people, its been a while. a friend of bakasan and i made a little mix himself and wanted me to post it up for him. give it a listen. it consists of some old school joints.
dj retrospekt
retrospekt old school, R&B 1 Comment » |
11
May
2007
Dido - White Flag (Rock-It! Fuel Mix)
Jurassic 5 ft Dave Matthews Band - Work It Out
Headnodic ft Procussions - The Drive
All Natural - Writer’s Block
Del Tha FUnkee Homosapien - Thank Youse
DJ Format - Now You
Jurassic 5 - Jurass Finish First
Ugly Duckling - Turn It Up
Young Black Teenagers - Tap The Bottle
112 - Peaches and Cream
Wreckx N Effect - Rump Shaker
JD ft Snoop - We Just Wanna Party Wit You
Musiq - Musiqforthenight
Lumidee ft Tony Sunshine - She’s Like The Wind
Cassie - Long Way 2 Go
Mase - Feels So Good
Down - Leak Like A Cholo
Will Smith - Gettin Jiggy With It
Danity Kane - Touching My Body
Gwen Stefani - Holla Back Girl
Ne-Yo - Because of You (Kanye Remix)
Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
Nelly Futardo - Say It Right
Beatles vs Missy Elliott - Obla Di Obla Da
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name
Kelly Clarkson vs Blur - Since Song #2 Been Gone (DJ Steve1der)
–
I should make it a policy to stop mixing when I’m dead tired. This mix was nearly 4 hours of sheer comedy gold. Feeling bad for cutting my mix short last time, I decided to throw down an hour long mix for ya’ll. Too bad I didn’t find out until the very end that I’d plugged my recording gear into the headphone jack of my laptop and not the microphone input. Strike 1. Correct the wire and determined, I decided to try again. An hour later, guess what, I’d managed to hit the wrong button on my recording software and I have a nice hour long file of dead silence. Strike 2. At this point it’s 1:30 AM and I debate whether to give it another try. Figured what the hell… and the result is this mix… not quite an hour… was exhausted. Sue me.
So this mix is all about style and defining a signature sound as a DJ. I’m all over the map musically as a bit of an experiment. The mix runs from breakbeats to old school hip hop to mainstream R&B to rock to adult contemporary to funky jazz.
–
I’d gotten into a conversation with someone recently about what defined a DJ’s “style”. We went back and forth a bit on what constitutes style and what distinguishes one DJ from another (beside just sheer technical ability which is difficult for the laymen to measure anyhow). It basically boiled down to what they played, the way they mix from song to song, and the overall energy they have behind the decks.
At the very end of the conversation, my friend (lives and DJs in Washington DC) said I had a very “West Coast” sound. Probing what that meant, by his count the crux of the West Coast DJ sound was a set that pulls deep from the crates–nothing is really off limits. The mix goes from track to track very quickly, any given song is only playing for a bit more than a minute, probably not more than two. The technical skills are demonstrated throughout in each individual mix. And there’s a healthy, healthy love for the use of old school hip hop side by side with newer material.
After hearing this, I guess it fits my overall “sound”. As somewhat of a joke though, this mix is me trying to be as West Coast as possible. Whatever that means. It’s got its rough patches since I was purposely trying to go all over the place genre wise , but ah well. (Jeremy, tell me if I slipped and got a little too East Coast).
–
By request I’m going to start making my posts in a slightly better bitrate than I’d been posting as.
bakasan jiggy, old school, indy, R&B, mashup, bakasan 2 Comments » |
14
April
2007
Robin Thicke vs Notorious BIG - Lost Without U (DJ JD Remix)
Lil Rob - Summer Nights (Mad Method Mix)
Rihanna ft Jay Z - Umbrella
Fort Minor - Where’d You Go
Game ft Kanye West - Wouldn’t Get Far
Ne-Yo - Sexy Love
Dru Hill - How Deep Is Your Love
Gwen Stefani - Don’t Get It Twisted
Lloyd Banks ft Lil Wayne - You
Deep Side - Let’s Make Love
Akon ft Sean Paul - I Wanna Love You (Sean Paul Remix)
Cassie - Me & U
Red 1 - No Fuss No Fight
T-Pain - I’m Sprung
Rihanna ft Elephant Man - Pon De Replay
Wayne Wonder - Gonna Love Me
Various Artists - Keep Bouncin Party Break
–
Thoughts
Saturday night at home after a some what crazy Friday night out w/ co-workers. Got bored so I hopped on the decks to throw down a quick set. The sound quality is a little bit iffy at times, I think I might need to replace a cable in my set up. Before you even ask, the mix title is after a couple shows that were on the TV in the background–couldn’t think of anything else..
Mix ranges from an opening, more laid back vibe and eventually shifts over to prime time and dance hall beats.
Once again if you want a higher quality version of any mix on the site, hit me up and I’ll get ya hooked up–assuming I don’t think you’re the spawn of satan or similar.
bakasan jiggy, R&B, bakasan 1 Comment » |
29
March
2007
Robin Thicke - Lost Without You
India Arie - Simple
Pete Rock - It’s A Love Thing
Laurnea - Keep Your Head Up
Space Hopper - Find Yourself
Jibbs - Go Too Far
Babyface - For the Cool In You
Pretty Rickey - On The Hotline
Berris Smith - Daddy Loves You
Janet Jackson - Enjoy
Yasmeen - Blue Jeans
Musiq - musiqforthenight
Al Green - L-O-V-E
–
Thoughts
This mix starts off with some jazzy beats and neo-soul and eventually transitions over to mainstream R&B. There’s some volume issues though since I was recording fairly late and couldn’t have my studio monitors turned on for fear of pissing off the guy in the apartment below mine. Doing a mix purely in your headphones isn’t any more or less difficult than mixing w/ monitors, but it does present some challenges–with me personally, it leads to ear fatigue as after a sustained session at the decks, your ears start to lose the ability to hear nuanced differences in volume–talk to a DJ who is mid-set and I guarantee you that they’ll only be able to hear in one volume decibel–LOUD.
Weakest point in the mix is the mix in and out to the Berris Smith track. I dig the song and I think it conceptually fits where it is, but it’s the first time I’d ever tried using it in a set. Fairly standard issue when working with a song you don’t know inside and out, you’re flying blind as to how the song is structured, how it sounds, when the vocals come in, the kind of build up is in the song. I’m going to have to try to get my hands on an instrumental for it to make it a bit easier to work with.
One of the most common questions I get, particularly when I give lessons on basic DJ skills, is how a DJ should pick what songs go with what. While there’s a whole technical backdrop that can answer the question (i.e. bpms, key matching, song structures), I’ll focus on the more creative aspects of song selection–at least in how I decide what to play and when.
For me personally, it boils down to a question of venue, demographics, and mood. Any time I walk into a spot to spin, be it a house party, a record store, a bar/lounge, club, I assess what the venue is like. What’s the surroundings communicating to those there? Is it a dark and moody backdrop? Sexy, lounge-y beats subtly playing to add another component to the environment. Energetic, bright, lively bar? Lively, upbeat hip hop, R&B, maybe some indy or old school depending on the demographics of the joint. Demographics–am I looking at an older crowd? Younger? A room full of other DJs and therefore music snobs? Kids around? Maybe I should watch the language and lyrical overtones of the music I’m putting out. And finally, for me at least, the most important of how I build my sets is the mood that I’m trying to establish at any given point in time.
Early in the night, get em vibing, acclimating to the bar, club, party, whatever. Not the appropriate time to bust out the “heat”. Who really wants to walk into a bar at 10PM and the first thing they’re greeted is “FROM THE WINDOWS! TO THE WALLS! TILL THE SWEAT DRIPS DOWN MY BALLS!” Doesn’t exactly exude the sexy, classy vibe that I’d want to go for usually. I want to build out from that warm, welcoming vibe to draw em out onto the floor and then build upon that energy gradually. The dj has to think like an orchestra conductor, knowing what instruments to bring in when, when to highlight one over another to maximize the impact.
With this mix I wanted something on the more soulful but sexy side. I sometimes create an arbitrary scenario or “scene” in my head when I’m formulating what I want to put down in a mix. Once the image of what that scene looks like and the actors in that scene, I go about creating the musical score for it. The scene for this mix? Late teens couple in a nice car (probably the parents’) going for a nice scenic drive, the guy wanting to front and show how suave and sophisticated he is, so he pops in this CD….basically cuz’ he wants him some. (for the SR folks, let’s call him “Barry”)
bakasan R&B, neo soul, bakasan 3 Comments » |
Standard Podcasts [54:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (2988)
Email it
