And say children, what does it all mean?

Way back in ’83 two geeky white boys namely Douglas Di Franco and Steve Stein (Double Dee & Steinski) both entered Tommy Boy Records’ contest for an original remix of tracks they later christened Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix. Their entry won the competition hands down and has ever since become a hip-hop classic. The duo added two extra mixes namely Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix and Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop in 1984 and 1985 respectively and the 3 ‘Lessons’ have been bootlegged, referenced, sampled and paid homage to by producers and DJs ranging from DJ Shadow, Prince Paul (De La Soul) and Cut Chemist (Jurassic 5) to name but a few.

With the 25th anniversary of Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix looming large, Nate Patrin of Pitchfork Media conducted an interview with the maestro himself, Steinski. Click here to read the full interview.

And speaking of the 3 remixes:
1. Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix

2. Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix

3. Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop

These are the breaks! - Kurtis Blow in Stereo

Kurtis Blow

Released: 1980

Mercury Records

What is the first rap record you’ve heard? If you’re in your mid-20s and spent most of your life in Jakarta then Snoop Doggy Dogg, Biggie, bor the forgotten (quite rightly) Coolio were most likely to feature on your list. Yet for the wider world and New York City in particular, the first full-scale Bronx approved rap record was 1980’s Kurtis Blow. Sure, Sugar Hill Gang’s 1979 radio hit Rappers’ Delight was the first universally accepted rap record to successfully make a crossover appeal yet ‘The Breaks’ put hip-hop on the map as well as coining the term ‘break’ for the first-time.



With hip-hop culture and rap music spreading around the American East Coast as well as slowly reaching other parts of the world in early 1980, a popular jive talkin’ rapper by the name of Kurtis Blow who already made a name for himself as a break-dancer and DJ in his native Harlem and Queens picked up the mic and made the transition to MC and in an even more important timeframe for this fledgling music genre, Kurtis Blow caught the ears of Mercury records and soon signed up to release his signature record and single on this label: The Breaks.

The Breaks contain all the elements in this new culture which still rings true to when you think of rap music. Although The Breaks rely on live musical instruments as opposed to loops from a turntable, the track features deft rhymes with various homophones of the word ‘break’ (“If your woman steps out with another man/("That's the breaks that's the breaks)/And she runs off with him to Japan/And the IRS says they want to chat/And you can't explain why you claimed your cat/And Ma Bell sends you a whopping bill/With eighteen phone calls to Brazil/And you borrowed money from the mob/And yesterday you lost your job/Well, these are the breaks/Break it up, break it up, break it up”),an insanely funky rhythm guitar going on in the background as well as a few extended drum beats (the hip-hop term of the word ‘break’) in the middle of the record for the break-dancers to go crazy to. This single track became a staple for other hip-hop DJs to sample for many years to come as well as it being used and referenced in other areas of popular culture (featured on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City OST to name but one).

The album itself is also a classic in the genre with the tracks using mostly the same formula as The Breaks with delightful variations to each track. In fact the first five tracks of the original LP (and the last 2 from the CD) are all personal favourites of mine and not even the major-label-induced two weak tracks of the album ‘All I Want in This World (Is to Find That Girl)’ or the rock-induced ‘Takin’ Care of Business’ take much off Kurtis Blow (the album) from being a classic and elevating Blow himself to the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash as the first pioneers of hip-hop.

I know he got soul – Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

Photos: Charles Nicholas/EPA

I’m a complete sucker for record labels (read: independent labels). They intrigue me: how it's run, how they stay afloat and especially how they create their own distinctive sound. Now how has the death of Isaac Hayes have anything to do with record labels I hear you ask? Simple really, one of those legendary labels under the genre of Soul is Stax Records based in Memphis Tennessee where Hayes played a huge role in the development of the label, especially in creating the legendary Stax sound.



Isaac Hayes passed away on August 10th 2008 in his Memphis home after more than 40 years in ‘The Biz’. Having been a talented child musician, Hayes joined Stax Records as a session musician and staff songwriter backing up and writing for luminaries such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and of course Booker T & the M.G’s to name but three. This lead to bigger and better things, namely a solo career which made Hayes the soul icon the he was best known for. His first 5 full record releases under Stax helped redefine his and Stax’s Memphis 1970s soul sound: the soulful Barry White-esque, long jazzy breakdowns of the 4-track Hot Buttered Soul (’69), The Isaac Hayes Movement (’70) …To be Continued (’70), the wah-wah backed funk of Shaft (’71) as well as the ever super hard to find Black Moses (’71). If James Brown single handedly created funk and hard funk in particular with his choppy guitars, rock steady beats and incessant screaming & shouting, Isaac Hayes was the Godfather of polished funk as his tracks were long winded sexy affairs with a slower fuzzed out sound accompanied by his slow crooning vocals.


Photos: Ronald Grant Archive

The decline and bankruptcy of Stax in the mid-70s spelled the end of Hayes’ first period of stardom. This was followed by the creation of his own record label ‘Hot Buttered Soul Records’ (under ABC Records), Scientology, film appearances (Escape from New York, Miami Vice, Flipper, Dr. DooLittle 2, etc.) and his most recent persona as Chef in the cartoon series ‘South Park’. In a strange twist of fate Isaac Hayes also appeared in a 2008 film, Soul Men, alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac who passed away a day before Hayes. So here’s goodbye to Isaac, a legendary songwriter, performer, actor and voice of a cartoon character. Isaac Hayes certainly had plenty of SOUL!

In the meantime…crate digging in Praha

Now there are many things a beautiful Central European city like Prague can offer; 13th century bridges, grandiose castles, renaissance style streets, medieval markets, the list goes on really. Yet if its music records that you’re after, the city doesn’t disappoint either. Yours truly took time out to venture to 5 nicely varied record shops in Prague city centre to try and serve as a small guide for anyone foolhardy enough to take a break from sightseeing, beer drinking and absinthe sampling to search for Vinyl (and Compact Disk) joints instead.

Music Antiquariant – Národni 25, Prague 1

Placed in front of a huge graffiti daubed wall close to the National Theater, this place struck me as the main HMV/Aquarius store for LPs and second hand CDs in Prague. The Vinyl section is divided mostly under rock/pop and the other genres namely jazz, classical, reggae, punk, metal, Czech pop/rock and the amusingly tiny section labeled Black Music are scattered throughout the fringes of the store. Prices are modestly priced ranging from 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) to 400 Cz (€16/Rp. 230.000) which doesn’t include the discount area LPs and CDs which go from around €1/Rp. 14.000 each.







Disco Duck - Karlova 12, Prague 1

This is my favourite store in town just a stone’s throw away from the aforementioned 13th century bridge (Charles Bridge) with an impressive collection of alternative records comprising mostly of hip-hop, reggae, soul, nu-wave, rock, punk, techno, garage, break beats, and a cool selection of t-shirts and vinyl bags as addition. The collection is by no means complete but the records they do have are interesting and you could be surprised at some of the records they do have lying around. I bagged myself a 1982 Sugar Hill Gang 12” as if to prove the point.

The downside with any seemingly interesting small record shop are the prices which in Disco Duck’s case doesn’t drop much below 300 Cz (€13/Rp. 185.000) for a 12” single and 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000) for a full length LP.







Maximum Underground - Jilská 22, Prague 1

The name describes this store pretty well. It’s by no means a straight forward record store as it sells anything required by the underground youth culture of Prague ranging from clothing, footwear, body accessories, and of course CDs and LPs. The music section of the store is also mostly attributed to the hard techno, drum & bass, punk, grime, dancehall, house, garage, metal, gothic sounds and beats.









Bbarák Hip-Hop Shop - Vodičkova 41, Prague 1

Situated in a Blok M style mini-mall, this place does exactly what is says on the tin; it sells clothes, caps and other hip-hop paraphernalia which of course includes rap, crunk, Czech & Slovakian rap, trip-hop, reggae/dancehall, and break beat 12” singles and full length LPs. The LP section might only comprise of 7/8th of the entire store but as it’s quite genre specific the selection provided yielded surprises with quite a few 12” singles from rap classics like Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck, Jeru The Damaja’s D’Original to name but two. Prices are also reasonable ranging from 150 Cz (€6/Rp. 84.000) to 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000).







Black Point Music - Zlatnická 6, Prague 1

This small and cozy little record store with a friendly shop keeper is located on a small street in the tourist free area of Prague whose selection of LPs and CDs mostly comprise of good alternative rock/folk, blues and jazz. It also features an eerie yet surprisingly welcoming poster of Tom Waits on the window and his music is heavily represented in the vinyl section of this store. Black Point is also official distributor of Fat Possum Records, a Mississippi based blues rock revivalist record label with artists like The Black Keys and Solomon Burke in full supply in this particular store. It also has a cool selection of jazz LPs with my fantastically priced 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) full length 12” of human drum machine jazz legend Billy Cobham’s Supraphon (‘74) purchased here.