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Mostly hip hop this week with a downtempo and reggae intro. I just saw Beats, Rhymes, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest so I had to hit you up with a double dose of Tribe. For fans of hip hop and of the group specifically, I highly recommend the movie. It was interesting to see the parallels between this movie and the Fishbone documentary (Also highly recommended, but also a bit depressing) I saw a few months back. Both groups seemed to suffer from similar dynamics at times.

Then a triple dose of 3rd Base just ‘cuz, and a triple dose of Common, who was just in town and lit Flame Central with a ridiculously good live show. Colour me impressed. The rapper/actor’s been in town for a few months filming the first season of a new AMC series called Hell On Wheels and has been spotted around town doing his thing. During the show he dropped what will likely be remembered (by me, atleast) as the best Calgary-based freestyle by a big out-of-town rapper ever: Dropping local knowledge, he referenced 17th Ave, the Flames and Iginla, and then went deep for referrences to the Bow and Gratitude Cafe, among others.

If you missed the concert, this show won’t even begin to hint at what you missed, but here it is anyways.

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Started it out this week by paying my respects to Amy Winehouse . Tragic yes, and all too predictable. Still, Amy Winehouse managed to get quite a few parties started for me as a DJ, and if her fame helped widen the awareness for less well-known contemporaries such as Sharon Jones, then that too is something positive to draw from this.

Amy Winehouse, in better times

Winehouse first caught my ear via In My Bed, and mostly because it jacks the same beat as Nas’ Made You Look . Her first album Frank, though hinting at the sounds of retro-soul, had more of an R&B feel to it but once she hooked up with Mark Ronson (who brought along the Dap-Kings and their might horns) for her sophomore effort Back To Black, things really took off – and subsequently also started to spiral down.

We follow up the quick retrospective with some nice mellow beats and breaks before rolling through some hip hop and speeding it up for the last movement with some disco and funky breaks.

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Most days, I’m pretty happy with how my show plays out. This week not so much – A few too many wrecked mixes, I feel like J-live . I give it 2.5 stars. Makes me want to not even put this up, but there’s some nice hip hop in this show, and I do like all the tracks. Plus, you folks probably nitpick the mixes less than I do. Or so I hope…

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Oh, looky – another show…

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Just trying to get the blog updated quickly now, so no long stories…

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Another pretty varied show, from downtempo to dancehall, jungle and house. All in a day’s work here at the Fat Beat Diet.

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A nice extended version of the Fat Beat Diet tonight, which enabled me to tick a few more boxes than I usually do – especially kicking it off with some jazz, which I haven’t done in ages.

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The Fat Beat Diet, June 20th 2011 – Part II (mp3 – 69Mb)

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Apparently, I am incapable of correctly remembering the name of Ice-T’s first album, Rhyme Pays — I always think it’s named after its famous single, 6 in the Morning. Oh well. Quibbles about fact checking aside, this show features some funk, downtempo and hip hop.

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Taking a few moments on the Fat Beat Diet tonight to pay respects to one of the greats who sadly recently passed away: Gil Scott Heron. Jody Rosen puts together a very good obituary on Slate.com as did Joshua Ostsroff in the G&M, contextualizing Scott Heron’s work in the larger socio-political landscape.

I must have heard pleanty of Gil Scott Heron’s work sampled in early hip hop, and I was aware of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, but the first time I remember taking notice was the first time I heard The Bottle, which was probably already 15 or so years after it was released on 1974’s incredible ‘Winter in America’. Driving funk accompanied by biting social commentary as was typical of his work. Delving more into that album was revelatory. I get teary-eyed just thinking of Your Daddy Loves You; God help me if I every have a daughter because then that song will just be too personal.

Gil Scott Heron clearly changed the music scene and without him, hip hop would likely have been a far less interesting art form. Public Enemy did what they did because Gil Scott Heron did what he did, as stated by Chuck D. But Scott Heron disavowed the title bestowed on him of ‘Godfather of Rap’, and even though on the show I often double up original sample sources with the tracks that sample them, for this hasty tribute mix I’ve chosen just to let Gil Scott Heron’s varied work speak for itself.

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We start the second part of the show with a duo of tracks which sample from Gil Scott Heron, before just rollin’ with some hip hop beats.

The Fat Beat Diet, May 23rd 2011 part 2 (mp3 – 35Mb)

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