End of The Year: 2008

As we say Game Over to 2008, and welcome in the New Year, I've decided to give a little recap of what's happened this year, along with some of my personal achievements....



First up, history was made this year, with Barack Obama winning the US presidential election (I hope you all downloaded the "Block Obama" Mini Mix). Hip Hop played a very important role in this election, and helped get to everyone out there to vote. I believe that Obama's the right man for the job.



Musically, 2008 was a pretty good year. For Hip Hop, the album of the year for me has to be "Paper Trail" by T.I. This was closely followed by Ludacris' "Theater Of The mind". Those albums are two solid pieces of work, and have been on constant rotation since copping them. Lil' Wayne also proved himself to be the hardest working rapper out there, there's no doubt about that. Other notable releases include The Cool Kids' "Bake Sale" EP, and Common's "Universal Mind Control".

On the other hand, 2008 was full of unnecessary/irrelevant beef (turning the genre into a bit of a pantomime sometimes), autotune, more crap dances (Stanky Legg, anyone?), and also the word "swagger". I somehow hope the above are banned in 2009.



The UK music scene was in good health this year, with artists such as Benga, Dizzee Rascal, Estelle, Donaeo, Bloc Party & M.I.A. all putting out great music. Props to Dizzee for getting to #1 just on legal downloads alone (on an independent label too).



Now, over to Dance music...Drum & Bass has never been healthier: Brookes Brothers, Hazard, Nu:Tone, Blame, High Contrast, and Chase & Status came with some of the best D&B I've heard in a long while. Album of the year goes to Chase & Status, who not only gave us a quality slice of D&B, but also showed that could easily make some disgusting Dubstep! "Eastern Jam" smashed up the dancefloor at practically every venue I played it, whilst "Running", with it's vocals and 80's influenced synths is an awesome joint.



Diplo, A-Trak, Craze, Sinden, Hervé and Fake Blood also put out some excellent work this year too....



Now, 2008 has also been a great year for me as a DJ. Not only was I able to represent the UK at both the DMC World Championships (shout to Sally) & the IDA World Finals, I also won the "Alizé Remixed 2008" DJ Competition (special thanks to everyone at Uproar for making the Tour night happen at Paper). I was also able to support a lot of great artists this year, such as Twista, Bobby Valentino and of course, Grandmaster Flash. To top it all off, iDJ Magazine pointed me out as one of the DJs to watch out for. I guess the hard work does pay off!

To everyone who reads the blog, I wish you all a happy and safe New Year. See you in '09.

"Alizé Remixed 2008" Tour Recap

So I finally got the pictures off my digital camera and uploaded them...Here's how the "Alizé Remixed 2008" Tour went down at Paper in London the other week...

If you haven't been to Paper (Café Royal) before, it's pretty swanky...and pretty expensive too! Luckily I wasn't really drinking that night, otherwise I could have easily spent a crazy amount (luckily there were drinks vouchers on standby!). However, the decor's pretty nice, as is the soundsystem....

So after arriving at 6pm(ish) for the soundchecks, I got to meet two of the other Remixed winners who were also spinning on the night - E Double D (the Birmingham heat winner) and DJ Stampeeder (the Leeds heat winner). We also got to chop it up with Grandmaster Flash as well before the event...





E Double D



DJ Stampeeder



One of the Jump Off dudes was down filming the event...If I remember correctly, it may make MTV Base...I'll keep you all updated.

Crowd shots:





Stampeeder smacked it with a Baltimore and Electro selection, whilst E Double D pulled out some sick old school R&B and Rare Groove joints....





Now, the original plan was for us three to spin for about 30 mins each in the 2nd room, with Flash coming on in the main room afterwards...As things had got slightly delayed during the night my set got moved to the main room, and was pushed back right until the end of the night after Flash had been on and done his thing - meaning I had the closing set of the tour....No pressure at all then....

As I had to spin for the last 45 minutes of the night, nearly every big tune had been played by the that point. I knew I couldn't go down the Hip Hop & Funk route, as Flash had smacked it with that. So I just decided to mash things up with a mixture of UK Garage (Maxwell D's "Serious" killed it!), House, New Jack Swing, R&B and some Hip Hop, finishing off with bit of Motown....It did the trick....



Overall, it was a great experience, and I met a lot of cool people too. Thanks to Alizé for putting on the event as well as the competition...Definitely one of my most memorable nights so far as a DJ.

Lastly, shouts to everyone from Uproar - Sam, Julian, Aron, Jag and Chelcie, Bluntwun who managed to pass through as well, E Double D, Stampeeder and also H20 who was in the building...

Oh, and last but not least....



In the words of Gollum, "my precious!" I'm gonna be saving these for Xmas & NYE....