My Shazam Tracks - 9

Upright Citizen

It's Not Easy Having Fun

Dawn FM

Out of Time

Distant Feels

Soul Connection

Barcelona

Funky DL has become well known for his flood of instrumental albums. From the extremely popular "Nights in Nippon Jazzstrumentals" to "The Lawshank Redemption Instrumentals" and not forgetting the Nas ode - "Jazzmatic Jazzstrumentals", Funky DL brings hip-hop lovers beat upon - boom-bap - beat... and any notable hip-hop blogger can confirm this...

The jazz-fueled sentiments continue from the "day one" starting block of 2014 with "Classic Was The Day - The Black Instrumentals"...

That's right! Funky DL went into the lab to remake (from scratch) all of the instrumentals from his debut 1997 album Classic Was The Day. Most of the original instrumental masters were destroyed back in 1997, so there has never been an instrumental version of the complete album until now...

This common request from lovers of the original album provided DL with the perfect opportunity to flip the breaks again, but with additional treats on the beats, where he adds extra elements of the original breaks on many of the tracks to bring a somewhat new twist to the sonics.

Bearing in mind, DL did not have any of the beats stored anywhere.. not on zip discs, not on floppy discs, or any computer (as he made the album before he himself had purchased any of his own studio equipment), it is truly remarkable that these instrumentals were all remade completely from the original sources of vinyl!

Any artist who releases a debut album is blessed with the opportunity to express - either musically or lyrically - every choice and special element of what they have been waiting to deliver through their music. Classic Was The Day Black exemplifies the magical jazz breaks, hand picked over a number of years to constitute this colorful album of beats for Funky DL's first effort. These are the collection of breaks he just couldn't wait to use!

So after 17 years, low and behold.... The Instrumentals that are... Classic Was The Day Black... 

Soul Silhouette (Black Instrumental)

american dream

redrum

Selfish

The Antidote

Summer Smile

Don't Think I'm Not

The Essential Cypress Hill

How I Could Just Kill a Man

Free

Love Will Be Waiting At Home

Back To Sleep

Brown Sugar

Me And Those Dreamin' Eyes Of Mine

BEcoming

Angel (feat. John Legend)

Stones

I Am...I Said (Single Version)

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)

For Your Pleasure

Nice And Easy

Fat Beats Records is proud to present the sixth installment of Baker’s Dozen, an exclusive vinyl series that shines a light on the best minds of instrumental hip-hop, ambient, and electronic music. Each installment gives one artist carte blanche to capture their signature sound.

Baker’s Dozen heads back to the East Coast where veteran producer Marco Polo brings a welcomed boom bap flavor to the series. New York City is the birthplace of Fat Beats (and as many would say, hip-hop in general) and current NYC resident Marco Polo is true to form in representing our roots.

As always, every volume of BDZ features one artist and twelve tracks (with limited random copies including the Baker’s Dozen bonus track on a flexidisc) and comes equipped with a 5x7” postcard insert that features a photo of the artist’s workspace along with the equipment used in their music making process.

A personal narrative of how they got into beat making in the first place is featured on the back of the jacket. Visually cohesive and packaged with the utmost attention to detail, Baker’s Dozen is a series that speaks up for artists whose craft renders voices superfluous, and whose instrumentals alone suffice to make a statement.
Shouts to Buckshot, KRS-One and Duck Down.

"Another nerdy thing I dig about these versions is most of them are the OG raw MPC versions before they got all mixed down and separated. My fellow producers can relate to the agonizing process of “chasing the demo sound” in the final mix…we wanted to keep it 100% rare and unreleased.” – Marco Polo

My Shazam Tracks - 9

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