The Dope Shit Volume 1

mixtape includes: pacewon, pack fm, akrobatik, heltah skeltah, non-phixion, royal flush, artifacts, copywrite, planet asia, others.
year of release: 2002
 
From the clumsy beginnings of the "Fresh Stuff" compilations, the Swiss hip hop music scene grew and got better. And that after Basle has already established itself as a graff capitol of the world, and Swiss breaking crews made a name for themselves at the battle of they years. From the popular Frog tapes, to the excellent written rhyming skills of Rennie, the popularity of Double Pact, the incredible freestyles by Bandit, to the major label success of Bligg, to the dope mixtape by DJ Vair, you don't have to bear mediocre ish anymore, when it comes to listening to something homegrown.
This mixtape, by the previously mentioned Vair, however is only partially homegrown. Because while this cat resides in the French speaking section of Switzerland, he chooses to spin mainly US artists on his tape. Yes tape. Not mix CD. This is taking us straight back to the analogue, the back to the side a and side b. No matter in what format however, this record bumps. DJ Vair knows a good track when he hears it. Thus his selection is on point. With the turntable skills being in place too, he's mixing and blending and scratching his way through the record with ease and without glitches. Those skills get full grown on some quick interludes between the songs, but they are also flexed when it's about time to go from one track to the other.

 
 
But as said, also the selection is good, as it takes you through new and older underground favorites, all containing enough bounce by the ounce, to keep your head in constant up and down motion. As Pacewon does "Step Up", The Odd Couple ask "Per Que", McEnroe spits "Ahm The Original", AK Skills speaks on the "Night Of Fear Remix", Helta Skeltah rhyme about "Caca Gosa Vixen", while Goretex feels "Hated". That's on side a along with tracks by Pack FM, Media 101, The Dwellas, Akrobatik and Mr. Supreme, plus some of those mentioned interludes, that also invite gust DJ's like DJ Rack to do his thing. Unfortunately we however also get Dario of Black Market do "Real Niggaz", that seems to be an exclusive track for this record. Dario rolls his 'r's nicely, but at the same time he struggles to keep up with the from across the big pond heavyweights.
Side b then takes us through Royal Flush's "WorldWide Remix", Copywrite's "Three Words", Non Phixion's "Black Helicopter", Athletic Mic Leagues's "Lyrictricity Remix", but also the Artifacts' "Art Of Facts Remix", along with more songs by N-Light-N, Punchline & Wordsworth, Planet Asia & Evidence, The Reprezentativz, Bedroom Wizard and Rick D.'s "Strange 2 Me" that gets a copyright mentioning, so again this looks to be something from Vair's special crate.
So to round this up, and kinda beating on the same bush a couple of more times, this tape is excellent, and the perfect friend to your walkman or car tape deck. It's a put in and stay happy for something like a hundred minutes type of offering. That does not only get the full approval from our good friends over at boombox.net, but also from us.
review: tadah
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