Tapehead

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/dont-sink-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'Trouble In The Water Acapella' by De La Soul and DJ Honda

Visuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2auRPCFGxv0


I’ve been listening to a lot of disco recently, it started by digging through songs to sample but then I was just enjoying it so much I immersed myself in the genre for a bit. This beat samples a disco song, and originally when I first chopped and sequenced it, I pitched down the sample by -90 on the MPC (which is a lot), to make a really grimey sounding beat that I wanted to put this acapella over, because it fit the really melancholic vibe of the sample. However when I revisited the beat this week after listening to a lot of disco, I decided to completely change what I did; the sample sounded too distorted for how pitched down it was, and because of that it was basically impossible to mix it well. Whilst experimenting with how to fix it I decided to just do the inverse of what I’d done, and pitched the sample up by +90 on the MPC, and worked out completely new sequences for the melody and bassline. This made a way more upbeat track, but it still fit the trouble in the water acapella crazily, I think it works because De La Soul have always experimented and innovated beyond conventions, so this different approach fit their style well.

Because I pitched the sample up so much this was unbelievably long to mix, the high pitch gave it so much next resonance which was too harsh to listen to, so it was a real challenge to lessen that without losing all of the highs and making the track sound muddy, because that completely clashes with the vibe its going for. I think it came out OK, its definitely an interesting outcome, I’m not really sure how I feel about it. Also the record I took the acapella from is pretty beat up, which made this even harder to mix, there’s tons of vinyl crackle which sounds awful (especially on some S sounds in the vocal) and basically gave the vocals the same problem as the sample. I cleaned it up as best I could and I think they both sound good together, not too muddy etc, but I’m for sure going to buy a copy of the acapella in better condition in the future, and do a cleaner mix of this track, but for now I’m happy with how this turned out.

200th upload

Don't Sink

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/fly-wunz-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'The Mad Wunz Acapella' by Masta Ace Incorporated

Visuals: https://youtu.be/nnYd0Ylnj_M

This is one of my favourite Masta Ace verses. I just love the attitude and style he brings so much, always gets me gassed. I’m not even from America but the line ‘Don’t try to flex or you’ll fall like September’ is just too mad to me: so creative and it gets me every time. I think the best thing about Ace’s flow from ’93 is the way he hits the kicks, it gives the track such a mad bounce to it which I always try and focus on in my remixes and my own verses, but with acapellas like this one and the Jeep Ass Acapella, I’m always blown away by how on point the flow is in that area. It’s like the perfect style for boom bap beats basically, so I always have mad amounts of fun remixing Ace. I’ve been trying to get my hands on the Masta Ace acapella record for a while now, so as soon as I do I’ll for sure be recording all of those to make a whole album of boom bap Ace remixes.

I originally uploaded this beat with the Hell On Earth acapella over it ( https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/hell-on-earth-remix ), which I still think fits the dark vibe of the beat, but I'm much happier with how this one turned out, particularly the drums: I think the layering I did here does the sample justice, it really is the kind of beat that needs hard hitting booming drums which I think the original upload was lacking, and then once I added those drums on this version, I knew Masta Ace would fit the style perfectly.

Peace and thank you to everyone who listens!

The Fly Wunz

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/guitar-swing-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Hail Mary Acapella’ by 2pac and The Outlawz

Visuals: https://youtu.be/-1YU8xoWj7U

I vividly remember making this beat, I’d probably been producing for about 3 months, and was showing someone who was getting into old school hip hop how the beats are produced etc. I was tryna make a simple beat so it would be quick and not too time consuming, to clearly demonstrate the process without spending too long chopping up samples etc. This guitar sample instantly stood out to me, and I chopped it up and made this 2 bar loop instantly, the whole process of flipping the beat defo took under 30 minutes which is crazy quick for me. It’s always fun when beats just turn out naturally like that, cause to me it shows how pure the inspiration is from the sample, and the result is as organic as possible.

Originally I had Havoc’s verse from Hell On Earth over this beat, but seeing as I remixed that recently I thought I’d try something different. I haven’t remixed Tupac vocals that often, and I thought his voice and style would fit this beat, the sample has a west coast kind of feel to it, even if the drums are NY boom bap sounding. 

Peace and thanks for listening! Really appreciate all the feedback and support I've been getting.

Hail Mary

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/blunted-whose-world-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals and scratches from 'America's Most Blunted Acapella' by MF DOOM and Quasimoto 

Visuals: https://youtu.be/0McuvBMEFWo

I flipped this sample back in October 2017, and have already reworked the beat in 2020, but I decided to rework it again for this remix.

The whole vibe of this beat is really dark, reflecting the situation I was in at the time I made it. I had just started my 2nd year at university, and was badly trapped in the lifestyle of smoking weed. I was smoking far too often to escape an unhappy reality which I myself had created through all the bad decisions and destructive life choices I made throughout my 1st year. I can’t remember much about making this beat at all, except I made it late at night, sampling the Fantastic Planet soundtrack, which I knew had been used by Madlib and Rascalz to make beats. I layered two parts of the sample to give it a gritty textured feel, originally flipping the sample at a way faster tempo (around 114BPM). However, I chose to slow it down to 95BPM for a much darker vibe, which I was feeling a lot more at the time, as it fit the general melody I created out of the sample much better.

To me, this beat sounds like I’m expressing feelings of sinking further and further without any hope. Thinking on my situation at the time only strengthens this idea to me, as I was starting another year in the same negative environment that I had grown to hate during first year, so the crushing weight of a seemingly inevitable and inescapable year of unhappiness and regret is shown in the overall sound and vibe of this beat. Because of all that, I thought it would make sense to put this acapella over the beat, because it's a song dedicated to smoking, and this beat is also born out of that place, just from a very different viewpoint and perspective. I think they work well together, definitely very different to the vibe of the original.

Peace and thank you for listening!

Here's the other versions of this beat: 
Original upload: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/whose-world
2020 Rework: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/whose-world-instrumental

Blunted

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/who-the-is-you-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'Question (Extended Raw Rhymes Version)' by MF DOOM and Kurious

Visuals: https://youtu.be/lxUNK3th8yA

Operation Doomsday is probably my favourite MF DOOM album (it’s hard to say really, Vaudeville Villain is a close second). Being a huge old school hip hop fan, when I first heard the album it blew me away with how innovative everything was. There’s something about DOOM in this period which is just different to me, he was making music for the pure love of it, was homeless at some points, and you can just hear that this album was born out of sheer passion to keep on with music to continue what he and his brother started, and what they had planned. It’s always resonated with me.

This acapella is the Extended Raw Rhymes version of Question from the deluxe version of the album. I've actually tried to remix this a couple of times, and each time I went straight to the main verses and skipped DOOM and Kurious freestyling at the start. For this beat I thought it fit a kind of stripped down freestyle vibe cause it has that rugged feel to it, so I tried their freestyles over this beat and was immediately bugging out and have just been mad motivated to work on this throughout the week. The freestyle just sounded right over the beat to me, DOOM's flow is so crazy cause he's not really trying too hard, just coming at the beat with mad style and aggression which works crazily, and is definitely something that I hear all over Operation Doomsday. 

This beat has always had 2 flips, so I thought it would make sense to switch the beat up when DOOM and Kurious finished freestyling and started their verses from Question. I didn't want to remix the last verse because I think it's too emotional for this kind of beat, and I've already got an idea for how I'll be remixing that in the future. 

Really hope people enjoy this one, peace and thank you for listening.

For anyone interested, here's the original mix on this beat: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/one-love-1

Who The ? Is You

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Meat Grinder Acapella’, ‘Raedawn Acapella’, and ‘The Time We Faced Doom’ by MF DOOM/Viktor Vaughn

Visuals: https://youtu.be/9BO7hPGEwj8

I can’t think of anything to say about DOOM that hasn’t been said before, all I can do is thank him for inspiring me and countless others. There’s no doubt that I would never have thought about making music if I hadn’t heard his work, the way he approached Hip Hop was so unique and interesting, it really made it clear that anyone can do music if they want, no need to feel constricted by ‘rules’ or trends or anything, just do your own thing. Ontop of that, his workrate was crazily inspiring to me, I just couldn’t believe the amount of music he had out under different names, a lot of it released really close together too. When I first discovered DOOM and really looked into his discography I must have almost exclusively listened to his music for a year, it was that crazy to me and there really is that much of it ( I also was playing a lot of MF GRIMM, Quasimoto and Monsta Island Czars as a part of looking into artists he was affiliated with). 

I reworked these beats this time last year and just dropped that instrumental, but I’ve learnt a lot since then about mixing and mastering, so I thought I could improve on it a lot after relistening. The main thing that made me sure I wanted to use these beats though, was the way both creepshow flips blended together when I layered them, cause I knew it would elevate the potential of this remix, which I always thought was solid conceptually, cause DOOM really fits the comic style of the creepshow sample well. When I first made the beat years ago I had Meat Grinder over it, then when I reworked it I changed it to a Viktor Vaughn acapella, so for this upload I wanted to combine the two, updating the Meat Grinder remix and then having Viktor Vaughn over the switch up. What got me the most excited though was how I managed to fit ‘The Time We Faced Doom’ over the beat at the end, seeing as that’s the intro to my personal favourite MF DOOM album, it felt like a nice way to end this tribute.

Here's the older versions for comparison:
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/change-the-beat-creepshow-mix
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/meat-grinder

Really hope people enjoy this one, all I’m trying to do here is honour DOOM as an artist and pay respect to the music he made, and just show how much he always has, and continues to inspire me.

Peace

DOOMSDAY

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/used-to-love-her-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘I Used To Love H.E.R. Acapella’ by Common Sense

Visuals: https://youtu.be/J_b2wfQjntQ

This original track from Common is an absolute classic, being the lead single to ‘Resurrection’, which is my personal favourite of all his albums (which is pretty difficult to say because he has so many great ones). Also an interesting fact on this song is H.E.R. is an acronym for Hearing Every Rhyme. For a fan of 90s Hip Hop, this is really is the perfect track and the perfect album from Common, I can’t really say too much aside from highly recommending listening to the full thing back to back. I personally don’t think there’s a weak track, all the production from No ID is so crazy, one of the best ‘jazzy’ Hip Hop albums of the 90s for sure. I’d say this is up in my top 10 favourite albums, and definitely in my top 10 most played albums over the years, and every time I always enjoy it just as much. I actually vividly remember playing the tape for the first time on the way to school and I was bugging out on it, and just played it again and again throughout the day whenever I could. It really was crazy to be listening to these classic albums for the first time, and this is without a doubt one that I have the most vivid memories of, in terms of being blown away by how unique the sound was, and also how dope Common was as an emcee. His style is definitely unique, it’s hard to pinpoint cause it’s not crazily out there or mad abstract, he just has charisma and a very very mad outlook on things, which gives him such a good perspective and presence as an emcee on the mic. I guess that’s shown clearly in this song, it’s a very powerful song and message, which is executed in such an interesting way that works well and has definitely stood the test of time, I’m pretty sure Kanye West even referenced the opening lines to this song in one of his tracks. 

When I originally made the first beat in this remix I instantly thought about putting this acapella over it, and did a very rushed remix which was mixed very badly. The levels on the drums are all over the place and the acapella sounded horrible, but I was really gassed off it at the time as a concept, and wasn’t really experienced in mixing and mastering so just put it out as it was: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/what-i-loved-most 

I’ve wanted to revisit this idea for a while now, but always felt like the beat wasn’t enough on it’s own to remix more than one verse, so every now and then I’ve been experimenting with other beats that would blend well with this one. I wanted to keep the first beat as it was for the first verse, because that’s where Common is setting up his love for Hip Hop, so I thought a beat with less emotion and more of a straight up Hip Hop vibe would work for that. When I started thinking about that, I was then thinking on what would work well for the later verses in the track, and I definitely wanted to focus on the way Common gets a bit more ‘emotional’ as he starts talking about how Hip Hop changed, making him fall out of love etc. Cause of this I wanted a more emotional beat, but kept it as a piano so the switch up wasn’t too jarring, and I think it worked out OK. I was mad happy with how they blended together at the end of the track too as an outro, it’s just dope when things come together like that, I was thinking the way Common reminisces saying ‘I used to love her’ at the end, made perfect sense to then bring that first beat back, and I’m just glad they blended together OK making that possible.

Peace!

Used To (Love Her)

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/got-to-stop-you-dont-care-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Ghostwhirl Acapella’ by MF DOOM and ‘Ms Fat Booty Acapella’ by Mos Def

Visuals: https://youtu.be/Rx2QMOen6aw

I’ve always wanted to put a DOOM and Mos Def acapella together in the same remix, ever since I saw this video of Mos Def bugging out over DOOM lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTBIvIDnnv8

I never really deeped what the DOOM acapella from ‘Ghostwhirl’ is even about until I found this sample, and before I made the beat I was thinking about what acapellas would work over it. DOOM is being pretty abstract but once I got it was about the stress and strain of relationships, mind games etc, I was crazily motivated to flip the sample, and once I had the first beat I realized it would go perfectly with the story Mos Def tells in ‘Ms Fat Booty’, so I flipped the second beat from the same sample. It was dope to really plan out the remix in this way cause it gave the track more progression. With this one I was trying to focus on the emotional release in the sample, the vocals are almost screaming there’s so much pain in them, so I thought it would pair well with these two verses that speak on heartache and manipulation of emotions. Even though it’s not the real focus in the original tracks, I think by using this sample it brought out that side to the verses and made that the focus of this remix, which is definitely what I was trying to do, so I hope it worked out.

Peace and thank you for listening!

Got To Stop  (You Don't Care)

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/street-dreams-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Street Dreams Acapella’ by Nas

Visuals: https://youtu.be/B2nN8bCGQO0

I remixed the Street Dreams acapella over this beat a few months after I originally made the beat back in 2016, when I was much less focused in general and less dedicated to making music. This is one of those beats that doesn't have any particularly deep meaning behind it to me, I was in a good mood when I made it and was in an even better mood afterwards. Seeing as I made this only a couple of months after I started producing, I do think it's an important beat, because the feeling I got from making this beat and the positive vibe of the sample was unlike anything I'd felt before, and it was one of those moments that made me really start to become passionate about making music, cause of the happiness and contentment it was bringing me, and after this beat I was very motivated, and was making beats more and more often, if that makes sense. Last year I revisited and reworked this beat to get it sounding how I wanted it to when I originally made it by improving the drums, but I only remixed the hook from Street Dreams over it because I didn’t have much experience in mixing and EQing vocals. Now that I’m way more experienced overall I thought it would be dope to do a finalised version of this remix to try and do the idea justice, and just sort of celebrate/reflect on the progress I’ve made even over the last year with this more positive vibe. I revisited the sample for a switchup but I still like my original flip the most, definitely used the best parts of the sample, but I think the new flip adds some variation and highlights the difference between both the verses I remixed. The first feels like more of a story being told by Nas, whereas to me the second is more reflective and nostalgic looking back at the past. Where I’m at now is somewhere I could only have dreamed of a few years ago for real, and it’s really got me dedicated to keep on doing what I love no matter what. The whole hook and vibe of Street Dreams really did feel like something I wanted to remix now, it was just resonating crazily, so I hope people enjoy it too!

Original mix: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/street-dreams
2020 Rework: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/street-dreams-2

Peace

Street Dreams

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/dont-mind-me-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Money Folder Acapella’ by MF DOOM

Visuals: https://youtu.be/a81-toGlUWk

Back when I first flipped this sample I put the acapella from ‘Strange Ways’ over it cause I thought the beat fit DOOM’s style. Looking back though it’s clear that the vibe of the beat doesn’t really fit what DOOM’s talking about on that track, so I switched up my approach for this rework. I thought ‘Money Folder’ fit it way better, DOOM has a sort of carefree attitude on that track which I think goes with the beat, has a sort of go with the flow kind of vibe. I’ve been wanting to make this one for a long time now, I actually first put the Money Folder Acapella over this beat at the very start of the year when I was working on my first DOOM tribute track, and then left it for time as a rough concept idea. Now after spending this year really dedicating myself to music, I felt crazily motivated to revisit this idea and do it justice. I really am too grateful and humbled by all the support I’ve been getting throughout the year, and I’m now more than dedicated to keeping on and growing/improving as much as I can. To me this beat gives of that vibe of contentment and focus: knowing what you want to do and being in a blessed place doing it. It makes sense to me that I set up the ideas for this remix at the start of the year with that focus and grind to music in mind, and am now revisiting and releasing it after spending the year doing what I set out to do, if that makes sense. 

Peace and thank you for all the support and feedback, hope people enjoy the vibe of this one!

Original version: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/same-game

Don't Mind Me

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Wherever You Are Acapella’ by Mic Geronimo 

Visuals: https://youtu.be/iHZ3EDYs3FU

This is the first new beat I’ve made from scratch this year, I heard the sample after I dropped last weeks remix, and immediately bugged out and worked out a rough flip of it to do the next day. Luckily I had the Monday off of work this week cause it was a bank holiday, so I was able properly make the beat and work out this remix then, and have been mixing it all week. I’m set on making way more new beats this year, and this one was definitely a nice positive start, the sample just had such a great vibe to it and an unbelievable bassline so I had to flip it, the vocals were crazy too I had to chop loads of it up to use throughout the track, definitely looking forward to dropping the instrumental for this one.

I’ve actually been wanting to remix this track by Mic Geronimo for a while, I’ve had the 12” with the acapella for a long time but never really felt like I had the right beat for it. As soon as I flipped this one though I had a feeling it would go well with this acapella, the heavy bassline and smooth feel to it fits the vibe of Mic Geronimo’s verses and style well I think, and his flow is so crazy it goes with the bassline and drums too well, got a proper fluid effortless feel. I’m definitely happy with how they ended up sounding together, and hope people like this one too: Peace!

Wherever You Are (Tapehead Remix)

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Wrong Side Of Da Tracks Acapella’ by Artifacts

Visuals: https://youtu.be/J-sYmg7qlEk

Like the ‘Ill Street Blues’ remix I uploaded recently, this is one of the first remix concepts I put together back when I first started producing. I was too happy with the flip of the sample, and it immediately brought this acapella to mind, so I layered it on top and was mad happy with how they sounded together. Back then I didn’t focus on drums or have any real mixing or mastering experience, so it was very rough and not put together well, but the idea always shone through to me. I actually reworked this beat last year, but pitched it down and only had the Artifacts hook over it because there was so much resonance in the verses, and I had no idea how to mix vocals back then. Now that I’ve been mixing vocals for over a year it felt like a good time to revisit this one and finally do a full rework of the idea, so I decided to have the normal pitch to start and then lower the pitch for the second verse. I also went all out filtering this one, cause to me the sample always stood out for the warm vibe the low end had, and I wanted to really focus and exaggerate that by filtering and boosting those frequencies in this mix.

Original rough mix: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/wrong-side
2020 rework: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/wrong-side-1

Peace and thank you for listening!

Wrong Side

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘One Mic Acapella’ by Nas

Visuals: https://youtu.be/H3ITC_LUFYI

This year I’ve been making sure I release a brand new beat every 2 weeks. I always have Wednesday off work so the way I’ve been doing this is I make the beat Wednesday, mix it the Wednesday after, and release it the week after that, making the next new beat the week I release the last new beat I made. I spend the 2 weeks between making new beats digging through samples to prepare and get an idea of what I might be making for the next one, and for this one I worked it out instantly. I was actually really struggling with what I was going to do because I hadn’t really found anything that was properly inspiring me, and I’d been pretty busy so I hadn’t had as much time to properly go through my unlistened records to see what I could find. On the Tuesday evening on the way home from work I put on a compilation of Jazz greats, and luckily there was a lot of traffic so I ended up listening to the whole thing. This sample was the 2nd last track, and as soon as I heard it I was gassed and after a few listens I’d worked out the rough areas I was going to chop up, and also immediately thought of putting ‘One Mic’ over it, cause I was hearing how I could layer and build up the sample in a way that would match what Nas does with his vocals on that track. This got me so motivated and the next day I was just set on making the idea a reality, and I couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out. This really feels like the beat was made for the vocals to me, and I guess in essence it was, because all the time when I was making it I was thinking about this acapella and how it would flow over it. A lot of the time it’s difficult to know what acapella would work for a remix straight away, so times like this are dope for creating something really convincing and concise. 
I also thought it was funny how I sampled from a song about ‘Mrs Jones’ with the intention of remixing One Mic, seeing as Jones is Nas’ real surname, I only just realised that now, maybe that subconsciously made me think of Nas acapellas straight away when I was listening to the sample.

I really hope people enjoy this one, I’ve been really excited to share it, and I’m way too excited about the next one which I made this week – Peace!!

One Mic (Tapehead Remix)

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘2 Stings Acapella’ and ‘Gorilla Monsoon Acapella’ by MF DOOM and Westside Gunn

Visuals: https://youtu.be/oVFvE6V6LPo

Been wanting to remix these verses for a while now, they’ve got a crazy style to them and I knew there’d be a lot of potential to flip the flows for a remix. I’ve always liked Westside Gunn, he reminds me of Ghostface Killah in his delivery and lyricism, so when this project with DOOM got released I was very gassed, especially seeing as everyone had been waiting for DOOMSTARKS for ages at that point. These ended up being really difficult to remix just because of how different the original tracks were in tempo and flow to what I wanted to do with the acapellas, I couldn’t rely on just matching the bpm cause it sped up the voices too much and sounded wack, so I had to chop the acapellas up bar by bar, and work out which ones would fit, cut the ones that didn’t, and then restructure the songs etc to fit my beats. It was definitely worth doing this though, ended up making the remix more convincing and different too, which is always something I’m trying to do. 

These beats are pretty old so I did update the mixes for this and layered new drums etc, the first beat is actually the one I used for the first remix I ever made and uploaded on Soundcloud, I originally had the acapella from ‘Life’s A Bitch’ over it. ( https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/lifes-a-bitch-blend ) I still like that concept but I’ve got a different remix planned for that song, almost the opposite vibe, and I thought that hardcore vibe would fit the vibe of this collab between DOOM and Westside Gunn. I’ll be doing a proper announcement soon, but I’ve got a full length project of DOOM remixes dropping this year on Halloween, and I made this because I was struggling with some of the tracklisting and needed something to bridge a gap between two songs. There’s some tracks which I’m keeping unreleased until that album drops (there are quite a few previously released remixes on there too – I basically want it to be a collection of the remixes which I’m most proud of, presented together as one full thing). I wanted to drop this one now seeing as I’ve been working on it all week, and I’m pretty excited with how it turned out seeing as I’ve never remixed Westside Gunn before. Will definitely be looking into more of his acapellas, Griselda stuff too. 

Peace!

New York Style

Instrumental out now on Spotify and other streaming services:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4HXXXVWoRG9ubvDXklIvzs?si=fbfd3fedb20b446f&nd=1
https://music.apple.com/us/album/just-zone-instrumental-instrumental-single/1578517704?uo=4&app=apple+music

Remixed and Remastered.

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/just-zone-instrumental

Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krt3oKLg0-I&lc=Ugzs4B0w07jS99VzL8Z4AaABAg

Original upload (2018):
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/just-zone

Memories of making this beat are mad vague and hazy. It was either late 2016 or early 2017, and I was too excited over the sample. Being a very old beat the drums were terribly done, so I've added news drums and balanced out the levels on the sample a bit better.

I've always loved how the Shootouts acapella sounds over this beat, especially this verse, so I've kept that the same, but added the chorus at the start and the end of the track. I don't know why I didn't use the chorus before, because it sounds dope, but then again I was bugging back then. The decision to put Shootouts over this beat was a dope one though, and I'm glad I've got the track to a place where it now sounds a lot better.

Peace.

Just Zone

Dedicated to Josie, 30/12/2019.

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/never-give-it-up-instrumental

This day last year my Dad’s Mum passed away. I’ve been sitting on this beat for a while, and I’d like to release it today in her memory. Losing her was hard for the whole family, she was a genuine, kind, good hearted person, and was close with all of us. The weeks between her death and the funeral were all about being there for each other and coming to terms with what had happened. The funeral was emotional, of course, but for me it was overall a positive experience. In celebrating her life I was filled with a different kind of energy that motivated me to live mine to the fullest potential. I wanted to honour her memory and make her proud, knowing that she wouldn’t have wanted me being depressed and not caring for myself; I was completely motivated to do my absolute best to live my life better than I ever had before, and have been ever since. This translated into every aspect of my life, my focus on university work strengthened and my attitude to health and fitness completely changed. (I’d been going to the gym in December 2019 but it wasn’t until January 2020 when I started to really push myself and make some progress). This motivation obviously included making music to the best of my ability, doing what I loved, which she always emphasised as the most important parts of life.

When I revisited this beat in November 2020, I realised how similar its musical energy is to what I just described, that feeling of being truly motivated to never give up and reach your full potential is exactly what I felt I had experienced. When I made this beat in May 2019, I was ridiculously gassed off the energy of the sample when I flipped it. Although the sample is from a love song, with the vocals saying ‘Never gonna give you up’, I tried to chop it so the ‘you’ sounded like ‘it’, cause I was really trying to capture the idea and energy of never giving music up in a beat, and I think I achieved that. The whole atmosphere when I made this beat felt like a massive emotional celebration of music and my passion for it. Because of that, I immediately thought it would make sense to put O.C’s Born 2 Live acapella over the beat, as the celebratory aspect of the beat merged with O.C’s verse about death and grief perfectly captures my motivation to honour my Nan, and I just thought the two merged together would encapsulate that feeling well. When I had the acapella blended over the beat I was too excited, knowing it was the one for the beat, and didn’t even consider any other acapellas at all. It’s nice to finally release this beat after sitting on it for so long, but I’m glad I was able to make this with it, and I hope that it might tap into similar feelings that other people may have concerning loss and grief, showing how it can motivate you to honour those you’ve lost, and do them proud.

Rest in Peace
Josephine Wilson
1934-2019

Never Give It Up

Real honesty
Honest life = Not sold out

Not I don't tell a lie honesty

Tapehead

Honest Greg