Mercury Kush - Pipomixes


What better day to re-post Mercury Kush.

The concept behind this mix dates back a few years to when I was reading Brian Coleman's Check the Technique book. In the linear notes of all our favorite classic hip hop albums, I remember being surprised to read how Dr. Dre's production on Straight Outta Compton heavily influenced Q-Tip's production on Low End Theory. In turn, Dre also explained that hearing Low End Theory forced him to one-up Q-Tip's production on The Chronic. A few years later, I also remember reading an article in Wax Poetics about how heavily influenced Dr. Dre was by the production of The Bomb Squad, and vice versa. All of that got me to thinking that the It Takes a Nation..., The Chronic, and The Low End Theory albums were all game changers in terms of the hip hop production landscape. Then I started thinking about what recent album really served to change the production landscape, when I concluded that the album had to be none other than Dilla's Donuts. Though all four albums have a very different sound, I was amazed how well the four album blended together.

As many of you know, the whole idea of the Kush series is a takeoff from Dre's Chronic album. During the recording of The Chronic, "chronic" became a term in the studio that was synonymous with some "next level" ish. Borrowing from that train of thought, I created the Kush series for mixes that sound a little "different." In the spirit of the "kush," I concluded that mixing together four albums that altered the production paradigm would be an appropriate return to the Kush series. Originally, the mix was going to be titled It Takes the Chronic and Low End Donuts to Hold Us Back, but I decided that Mercury Kush was better. Hope you all enjoy the mix.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

pipo my herrrooo. Another great mix :) Last time i thought about u and the behind the scene thing. You must listen a lot of mix (i mean A LOT) and mostly bad mix. We forget when we are on your site than there are bad mixes but there are a lot we just need to go on mixcrate by our own for notice that. So i feel for you thank you for the great selection and the time you spend.

Your number one fan ;)

pipomixes said...

Thank you for the kind words. Truth is that most mixes that have been sent my way are very good. The most common reason doesn't get posted is due to having a redundant theme, not necessarily poor mixing. You are right though, there are many wack mixes that bring nothing to the table. The one thing that the popularity of my blog has taught me is that people need a selecta more than ever these days to help filter all the music out.