My Day: A Friday in Mashups

This is how it is

It’s a Friday, ya’ll. I know because I have a page-a-day calendar, and when I peeled off the page from yesterday (which was a Thursday page, fyi), it revealed a page which said “Friday,” replete with an adorable picture of a kitten in a fireman costume. This is how I know the things I know. Citation: Adorable Kittens Page-a-day 2009, page 310. Harper Collins, Detroit. 2008 ISBN: 8173372300-1. That is the proper Chicago format for citing page-a-day calendars. Memorize it; it’ll come in useful later.

It being a Friday and all, you need some mashups. You need them so bad. And I’ve got some sick new ones, from a few mashup artists you almost certainly haven’t heard of yet.

The first comes from Xaphoon Jones, who’s a Philly artist responsible for a seriously nasty mixtape. You may have heard of him before, because he produces for Chiddy Bang, whose “Kids” was a debut single for the ages. Believe it or not, my proper introduction to him came from the New York Times write-up of the Stereogum-affiliated CMJ, where he got a pretty huge shout-out. His Radiohead/”Touch the Sky” pairing is surprisingly awesome.

Next is an artist I’m very proud to have the internet debut of: my good friend Nate Fritts, who mixes, chops, and screws under the slip-pad name Carpe-DMC. Nate’s a huge Weezy fan, and one day I tried to play him the Animal Show’s favorite summer mash, “Comfortable Up in Here.” His response was, “nah, man, you’ve got to hear this!” and then he put on a Ratatat-Wayne mashup he’d made. I’m going to save that one for another day to keep you salivating; for today, rock out to his “Move, Barry,” which manages to make “Barry Bonds,” arguably the weakest song off of Graduation, a serious gem, tying it to LEN’s timeless classic, “Steal My Sunshine.” Keep your eyes here for more from Carpe-DMC…

The final is a perfect outro, crafted by another newbie, DJ Moondance, whose body of work, frankly, is entirely non-noteworthy. Seriously. His first album was a Jay-Z/DMB effort. But this shows serious promise, with a nice Blink-182 sample behind Birdman/Lil Wayne. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled to his mashes in the future.

Testify (Kanye West vs Lupe Fiasco vs Radiohead) – Xaphoon Jones (YSI)

Move Barry (Kanye West vs Ludacris vs LEN) – Carpe-DMC (YSI)

Stuntin 182 (Blink-182 vs Lil Wayne vs Train vs Birdman) – DJ Moondance (YSI)