This right here is really the first tape i’m pulling out of the vault–one that only friends have heard and really the last of my old style of mixtape. Since we’re going backwards chronologically you’ll see what I mean in the coming weeks, but mostly it means i remixed EVERY track on here. When I first started DJing, I (along with Jaysonic who used to make tapes with me) wanted to create a kind of library of mixtapes, so we started with Vol. 1, Vol. 2, etc… The reason this is called Vol. 0 is because the content is mostly stuff from when i first started DJing, or even before. Around this time in ‘98 I started bringing back the early 90’s music heavy, most likely a backlash from the then reigning “shiny-suit era” (which seems pretty appealing nowadays I gotta say). This is also the first tape I did on my brand new gold Vestax mixer as I said goodbye to Geminis forever. Damn line-switches. This isn’t on some “For My People”, the songs on here are some of the most well known from that era, but I re-did them…Mek style. Enjoy this one… Oh yeah, special eff-you to the chump at Guitar Center who swore up and down that Vestax never made a gold mixer. I said “But I use one every day!” yet he maintained that i was wrong. Guitar Center…pfffff….

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD VOLUME ZERO – GUMMY BEARS

The second and last installment of my monthly WMEK tapes is my favorite of the two. After this tape, I was back on the real radio waves and that was the end of this concept. The whole idea of these tapes was to blend older, slightly slept-on songs with brand new songs. I always thought if there actually was a radio station that did that 24 hours a day, it would be the be-all, end-all of radio. My favorite, and Comel’s favorite track on here is the Del and Mr. Lif remix I did. I always wished that song had a more melodic beat, so i remixed it. My man Beatbox Josh was all about the Roots song on here–white label only–produced by DJ Spinna (!); sh*t is tough! And of course one of my favorites, “Solar Power” by Binary Star. “And Rodney King, ain’t never felt the beat like this”…Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin about.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD WMEK DECEMBER 2000

Basically, I wasn’t spinning on the radio during this time, and wanted to be spinning on the radio, so I created my own radio station: WMEK, which not surprisingly had an all-mixshow format. I clearly wanted to make a mixtape badly because I filled up a 120 minute tape. At the time, i was doing tape duplication at Volume Productions, which was/is an electronic music DJ crew out of Providence. My dude Dek One hooked me up with the job, and with the kid John aka Myth who did these covers. The picture of me is from a Halloween party that Jaysonic threw when he was still in D.C., where I let out my inner nerd. Myth had the concept to put me at a different national monument for each tape. Suspenders, orange pants, and oxford shirt all courtesy of my father’s wardrobe.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD WMEK NOVEMBER 2000