In the interests of navel-gazery and material-recyclage, I'm going to take some time to go into more detail about my favorite ablbums of 2008. You can expect to see more whenever, you know, I have nothing to actually write about. Today we look at my number 1 spot, Steinski's What Does It All Mean? Steinski is a pioneer of hip-hop pastiche, without whom we probably wouldn't have the work of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Prince Paul, Coldcut, or Girl Talk as we know it. His funky musical mosaics have circulated through the underground mainly through bootlegs, as they are so riddled with copyrighted material that commercial release would just be begging for a lawsuit. Luckily, that is exactly the stock in trade of the heroic, aptly named activist label Illegal Art, who compiled all of Steinski's legendary tracks along with a spectacular mix he made for Solid Steel, Coldcut's venerable radio program. Read more on Wikipedia (as if I had to tell you that) or check out his nifty interview on AV Club. Also, here is the blurb I wrote for Port Folio. I'll leave you with some instructive mp3s courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan. Please do not download these whilst eating meat in New York City.
Lesson 1: The Payoff Mix
Lesson 2: The James Brown Mix
Lesson 3: The History of Hip Hop
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