LawntonLoudness

Classic

Tapehead

McrphnMstr

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/relaxed-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals and scratches from 'Relax Your Mind Acapella' by T-Max

Visuals: https://youtu.be/FvWxa4CYFaI

It's always nice when you get 2 flips from a sample which gel together. Here I filtered both flips to act as a bassline for the beat in different parts of the track, giving the sample more weight and flavour by combining the best bits of each, it's something I've been trying to do in most beats I make now and I definitely focused on it here, trying to give the track more variation and progression as well as building the vibe of what made the sample stand out to me.

When I made this beat I knew I'd need a laid back acapella to go over it. I tried a few Masta Ace verses from the acapella LP but I wasn't really sure. I tried this acapella from T-Max and was gassed with how his flow sounded, it fit well with the drums and sounded very very different to the last remix I did with the acapella, and it fit the laid back vibe of the beat perfectly. I was considering making the drums laid back but I decided to make them hit hard, partly cause the sample didn't have much low end so I needed the drums to fill out the mix. 

Peace and thank you for listening!

Relaxed

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/watch-your-back-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'Rainbows Acapella' by MF DOOM as Madvillain

Visuals: https://youtu.be/DTGcv762Tzk

Original upload: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/drainin-them

I remember when I originally flipped this sample I thought it had a real wild west vibe to it, the guitar just had that feel to me and I flipped it in a way that chopped it up even more, cause the notes had that short staccato quality to them which I wanted to exaggerate in the beat. 

I originally wanted to put 'Rhinestone Cowboy' over this beat for that reason, but I couldn't get the flow to match well so I started looking at other DOOM acapellas, cause I thought he'd fit the beat well regardless. I tried loads of acapellas, chopping them all up to get the flow right on the beat, and even though they fit, I still wasn't 100% sure. For about 2 days this week I was set on this track being a remix of Money Folder, cause I thought the subject matter fit the cowboy sound well, but after working on the mix for 2 days I wasn't really feeling it anymore. I didn't initially think Rainbows would sound good over this beat so I didn't actually try it until that day, and was immediately way more excited about how that sounded, cause the notes DOOM sings fit really well with the notes on the sample, and in my opinion the subject matter actually fits the vibe of the beat well too. It also worked out well that DOOMs laid back 'singing' style contrasted against the staccato sample, so both of them stood out to me in a way that both complemented each other. Even though it took a bit of experimentation I ended up happy with how this one turned out, hope people enjoy it too.

Peace and thank you for listening!

Watch Your Back

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

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/when-i-die-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Suicidal Thoughts Acapella’ by The Notorious B.I.G.

Visuals: https://youtu.be/P6gDNFEKKKc
 
I don’t think I’ve actually ever remixed this acapella before, it’s such a serious verse and subject matter so I’ve always been hesitant about working with it cause I wouldn’t want to do something that didn’t work. I had a few other beats that I was trying this verse over, all of them were sad piano melodies, but I felt like this one fit the acapella best. Originally I don’t think the beat was super sad, I actually originally made it to celebrate finishing a coursework deadline, but I pitched it down to fit the tone of Biggie’s vocals better, and with this verse ontop it really brought out the sadder side to the melody I flipped for the beat. 

I remember when I first heard this track when I was younger it sounded pretty over the top, and I didn’t really understand what made it so powerful, but it was definitely hard to listen to. Now I’m older the track still stands out, but I get why Biggie made it, and it for sure wasn’t to be shocking or over the top, you can tell he was just using lyrics and spitting as therapy to the fullest, really going deep on it. That’s something I can relate to crazily, whenever I write lyrics I’m always looking at the negatives just to come to terms with what I’m feeling and express the emotions to get them off my chest. I’ve never felt like Biggie did on this track, and it’s sad to hear he had suicidal thoughts of course, but in my opinion, it’s mad inspiring and positive that he made a track about it, 100% way better than keeping the feelings inside and not speaking on it, and to be honest, without that inspiration I’m not sure if I ever would have been as vivid and honest with myself in how I write my own lyrics. I wanted to try and build on that emotional release in the beat I chose to remix this over, and really went all out on the low end to try and emphasize the weight of what he’s saying, and how hard it must have been to actually write and record too. Hopefully that shows in the remix, peace.

Here's the original mix of the beat for comparison: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/proud-to-be-alive

When I Die

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/freestyle-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Freestyle Acapella’ by Masta Ace

Visuals: https://youtu.be/mitXyIvjWdU

Always love remixing Masta Ace acapellas, and I was very lucky to find the acapella LP whilst out digging recently. I’ve always thought this acapella would be a great one to remix, cause the fact that Ace is freestyling means that the style is really open to interpretation and could work in different ways on different beats, cause it’s more of a raw verse showing skills rather than a polished song which was written with a specific beat and vibe in mind. I chose these beats cause they both feel like ‘freestyle’ beats to me, by that I mean they’re beats which aren’t too focused on one specific emotion, and are more just about capturing that East Coast Hip Hop vibe, which always fits Ace super well, and I thought with this acapella in particular it would work well. 

Peace and thank you for listening!

Original mixes of these beats:
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/come-get-it-rmx
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/underground-science

Freestyle

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/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

Selection of spherical & deep Hip Hop Anthems over the past decades.

Mic Geronimo  - The Natural                                              
DJ Krush - Ground                                                                                  
DJ Krush  - Meiso w Black Thought & Malik                     
DJ Honda/Problemz - Kill the Noize                                          
Metabolics - Who I Am                                                                           
DJ Krush feat Mr. Lif  - Nosferatu                                                                 
Dj Krush                                 
DJ Krush  - Only the Strong Survive                         
Group Home - Up Against Tha Wall (Getaway Car Mix)            
DJ Krush - Zen Approach                                                   
Paradigm 70 - Verbal Infidelity                      
Pete Rock - We specialize                                                                            
Dj Krush & CL Smooth - Dillinja Remix                                                              
LPG -  It Don't Stop                
Da Grassroots feat K.O.s and Thrust                                                                                             Sphere Of Hip-Hop - Bookworm & Sharlock Poems            
Pop Da Brown - Black On Black Crime                                                          
Mr Complex - Dont you agree                                                                   
Mr Complex   - Divine Intervention                             
Mood - Tunnel Bound                                                              
Mood - Nuclear Hip-Hop                                                                      
Eva Flo - Whut You Smokin                                                                
Hi-Tek - Book Of Life Page2                                                              
Company Flow - 8 Steps To Perfection                                                        
Adagio - Upperhand                                                                                 
GZA - Labels (Beat Gates Remix)                                               
Peanut Butter Wolf - Deep Sleep by Fanatik (Remix)                                      
Micranots- Exodus                                                       
Selfsubsidence - Ceelobristics                                
Desperate Waits For Response - Ceelobristics      
Ursula Rucker  - Soon                                                                        
Mood - Sacred- Pt.1                                                            


Criminal Mixtape

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

Rhymes: Lajt
Beats: Innotic
Mix/Master: Dondi



01. Kontrakt

Back in 1983, Hashim's „Al Naafiysh“ became one of the defining electro classics. 25 years later, 2 dope boys from Berlin – Marc Hype & Jim Dunloop – pay hommage with their seminal new-funk version (available on their album „Stamp Out Reality“ and on the double a-side 12“ „Rare Occasion“). Due to the versatile qualities of the song, we started a remix competition. Our five favourites are now available on one digi EP. Don't expect the usual MPM style (if there is one for you), it's a mixed bag of 8-bit electro, deep house, knarz house and slomo dub.

Bandulero Sound System: BSS is one of Berlin's premier reggae/dancehall sounds, consisting of Riton, Marc Johnson, Joe Hondah and Jamaican foundation legend Don Gorgon. But their remix is something completely different: bangin' 8-bit electro with serious bassline action.

Al Naafiysh (The Soul) / Bandulero 8bit Soul Refix

Zetta & b_s_m_ent

Everything Remains Raw

Da Mixtape Dealer

Underground 90s Classic Mixtape , Live record (rugged Lo Fi Quality)

Da Connection

Croup

Oldschool

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

Beatmaker / Emcee
Contact: tapeheadloops@gmail.com

<--MPC2000 Classic                     

Underground Airplay

Trying to give something back to Hip Hop - really appreciate any comments or feedback.

Peace