Secret Vinyl Download #6

This one gets filed right next to the DJ Mink record(s). It's a little more in your face, but it's the same kind of vibe I want to hear in a good hip-hop mix. No surprise then that I first heard this in Liam Howlett's masterful Dirtchamber mix. So much incredible stuff in that mix, it's really amazing they managed to clear probably 95% of the original mix for release, including the then-unavailable (at least in a legal sense) original "trance" version of The KLF's What Time Is Love.

Mink did do some other production work that's known of outside Hey! Hey!, but not much. That Blue Eyes track is nice if you can ignore Blue Eyes himself. Ugh, he was wack even in 91. Uptown though is a similar but different enough story. He showed up on a DJ Premier remix of Omar's Keep Steppin' (I don't know who he is either, but here's a YouTube link for the track) and worked with Buckshot LeFonque, Branford Marsalis' now defunct jazz troop. I'm not a fan of Marsalis, more for his (and his father's) open hostility towards jazz musicians and their individual perspectives, but I can't deny he's a talented guy. He must have had a good, albeit brief, relationship with Premo, as he produced much of the first Buckshot album. Uptown supposedly made a guest appearance on a remix of Breakfast @ Denny's (man, that video is hard to watch, and Leno's joke doesn't make it any easier) and also appeared on the second Buckshot album, although there he was credited as 50 Styles: The Unknown Soldier. Premo isn't on that second album, and although it's been a long time since I listened to it, I remember it being the type of thing I'd imagine Marsalis saw as very forward thinking despite not doing much interesting to anyone other than himself. He did have some excellent collaborators though, with Uptown showing up on another remix from the first album (Salaam Remi is responsible for this one, and it's quite nice.) and Buckethead playing lead guitar on a track, so he must have been doing something right.

Anyway, if you don't know Dope On Plastic, it's an awesome late-eighties breakbeat classic. Again, it seems to have been mostly wiped from existence, at least in the US, though it did appear on a number or rare tracks compilations in the 90s and 00s. The b-side, It's My Turn, appeared on a number of comps too, though it's not on the same level. Not bad, just not as brutally hard and funky. Right now, Dope On Plastic, the track itself, it's available on the Tommy Boy Essentials: Hip Hop Vol. 1 comp, which I'm thoroughly pleased to report is on streaming services after having disappeared for years. I'm less pleased to report there is only a volume 1, as this is the type of comp that would've been a great series, especially on double vinyl for DJs and heads. Furthermore, the original 12" of Dope On Plastic seems to have been out of print for, let's see... A GOOD WHILE. Looks like it might have been given a reissue in the UK in 2001 and 2006, though those are almost certainly dead out of print, and it doesn't seem to have ever been officially reissued in the US. So...

I bought this off eBay waaaaay back in the day, pretty sure before Discogs was really an option. It says it's a test pressing, but I'm sure this is more like a Tommy Boy white label. It's in pretty good shape and I've kept it that way since. So, since it's not available in it's entirety online, let alone in high resolution or lossless, here's another one for your listening pleasure. Hopefully Uptown himself is doing alright wherever he is. Here's hoping the same for Mink.





(not so) Secret Vinyl Download #6

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