Side A, 1999When you get down to it, jungle beats are basically just the standard “boom-bap” from hip-hop tracks played at double-speed and dolled up with weirder and darker effects more related to electronic music; some jungle DJs, like Joseph Candidi (a.k.a. J Smooth, the guy in the red t-shirt), perfected the art of cutting hip-hop records into their jungle sets. J hails from Philly, and he definitely took a lot of time in recording his mixtapes; this is just one of his many mixes, and is cut with a side by Toronto junglist Freaky Flow. While you often had DJs that would cut in one or two sampled bits from rap songs, J’s entire mixes were jam-packed with both popular and obscure hip-hop or movie references & samples. I was happy to hear that J still spins, and even plays in a non-electronic band as well.
