Tall Black Guy - I Wanna Play Summthin' For You

A bit late on this one, two months late to be precise, but my good friend Lucas has just put me onto this Detroit-born producer. He has some top quality releases on his Bandcamp, but this groovy piece of Soul-Hop is taken from Hollyweird 2.0, his latest mixtape that is available for FREE over at Gritty Goat. Smooth.

Slabofmisuse - Makes Me Smile x Silent Spring

Here are two of my favourite tracks from the fifth installament of Cold Busted's incredible Street Bangerz series, which has now been taken over by Slabofmisuse. Gramatik was the originator and the man behind the exceptional first three, but after leaving the label Krystian Shek took the reigns and smashed number four - for me though, this effort from the South African beat maker is just as good, if not better than the aforementioned fourth installement. Funky basslines, classic and obscure samples which make for 56 minutes of music that you just can't help but nod your head to. 2011 has been an amazing year for this label thus far, and you can expect a few more top quality releases before we're done. October 25th is the release date.

Jesse Futerman - Driva'man

Been a massive fan of Jesse Futerman ever since Gilles Peterson introduced me to him a few months ago, so it made me very happy to see that the 19-year old Canadian producer has blessed us with a new release entitled The Super Basement EP. The EP is a refined collection of 6 beautifully crafted and constructed tracks, delving deep through strings and brass to deliver a haunting, yet eloquently soulful experience. Genuinely one of the most exciting young men in music. You would be stupid to not get your FREE download.

Häzel - The Mint x Ninety Eight

Two of my favourite beats from The Lost Tapes, which is a 16 track selection from Häzel’s deep catalogue (which includes features from Drake & Slakah). Even though some have been around a while, all of these are previously unreleased, and you can purchase them HERE! One of the most incredibly talented producers I have ever heard - Dilla lives on through this guys music.

Gramatik - Break Loose x Happiness On A Leash

So, after leaving Cold Busted and joining up with Pretty Lights, Gramatik is back with a new release entitled Beatz & Pieces Vol. 1. As Gramatik explains, "The Beatz & Pieces series comes as a successor to the popular Street Bangerz series which was my first work as a producer. I never really considered these volumes to be albums.  I always looked at them as hip-hop beats on steroids. They are still raw, sample based beats, but with evolved arrangements and wrapped in a fine layer of live instrumentation.  And the reason I started adding live instruments is because I felt that classic hip-hop beats without vocals lose me after two minutes.  I want to keep the listener through the whole track!". This guy is one of my favourite producers in the world, and I believe his sampling style is the most unique and refreshing around right now. He never fails me, and even though I was sad to see him leave CB, this is up to the high standard that I have come to expect from him over the past 3/4 years. Slovenian Hip-Hop beats are cool.

Akshin Alizadeh - Walkin' 2gether

My favourite track from Akshin Alizadeh's Cold Busted debut, El Gran Duelo, which will be available on August 17th. As with any CB release, the samples are as obscure and spectacular ever (which are mainly Spanish this time round, if you couldn't guess from the title), but this has a lot more funk than usual and is the most enjoyable release to come from the label in a while - 10 tracks of pure Downtempo genius with lots of soul and groove thrown in there for good measure. Those keys make me feel happy about life.

"WALK, WALK, YEAHAHHH!"

Astro Raph - You & Me x Song For The Gods

Been a while since I've posted some Cold Busted material, but here are two of my favourite tracks from Astro Raph's debut LP on the label, which will be available to buy on July 20th. The two pieces that I have picked show the diversity of Astro and the album itself, switching between Trip-Hop, Drum & Bass and wide variety other electronic genres. Many artists/producers who try to do this usually fail, but everyone on Cold Busted seems to have the ability to be able to create cohesive mult-genre albums. A simply brilliant release.

Vanilla - Work It Out x The People x Whisper

Vanilla is a UK based Hip-Hop producer - there isn't much more I can tell you about him (because that's all I know), but I do know one thing, he is one talented geezer who judging by his SoundCloud has had a very busy 12 months. A couple of weeks ago he released High Life, which is a beat tape of 27 soul-sampling hip hop instrumentals, inspired by some of the greatest producers to ever live such as Dilla, Madlib and Onra. This is genuinely one of the best beat tapes I have heard for years - he has sampled some of my favourite Soul records of all-time and brought back that real soulful Hip-Hop sound, which I feel has been somewhat lost in recent times. I think Dilla would be happy that there is still music like this being made, and that more than anything makes me a very happy man. This will probably be the most played thing on my iPod during 2011 - it is THAT good! Get your copy of this for FREE - you would be an idiot if you didn't.

P.S. I even decided to put up 3 tracks in order to convince you.

Rise - Shine Down

Here is my favourite track from this Mancunian beat technician/crate digger/musician's debut album, Messages. The album is a deep, spiritual Jazz record with splashes of Hip Hop and heavily influenced by Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Madlib, Strata East & Black Jazz. Super dope.

Samiyam - Escape x My Buddy

Sam Baker, better known as Samiyam, is an instrumental Hip-Hop producer from Michigan who was first discovered in 2008 by the incredble Flying Lotus. His latest release, Sam Baker's Album, is 40 minutes of pure listening pleasure, a series of woozy, off-centre Hip-Hop instrumentals drawing heavily on Baker’s love of electronic funk. Always unique, and never ordinary, this is a must have if you are a Samiyam fan - his best work to date.