mi fresh prince -john
In addition to the new Hold Steady record (Stay Positive! Hurry up and come out on vinyl!) all that has been in my car for the past week is the brand-new summertime poolside must Mi Fresh by Austin’s own Prince Klassen. I picked this up at Waterloo Records and can’t stop listening to it. It is extremely diverse; showcasing his love for scratching, soul, dancehall, boom bap, and the 80’s cross dressing classic Just One of the Guys. Klassen is Austin’s equivalent of Baltimore’s DJ Blaqstarr in that he is unapologetically eclectic and is able to make world beats, rap lyrics, and dance jamz sound innovative and modernize them into one big dance celebration of music itself.
The mixtape title, Mi Fresh is taken from a song of the same name from the underrated hip-hop group, Poor Righteous Teachers. The sample is brought back again and again at different speeds and at different intervals as a motif to all four sections of the CD. It gets in your brain like a boll weevil. I find myself saying “mi fresh” through out the day uncontrollably.
In addition to the song selection of the mix, one thing that is interesting about it is how Klassen takes different vocal samples and really rides them out- almost to the point of them outstaying their welcome. Repetition is nothing new in songs especially in the electronic music genre but it is interesting how he does it with funk and hip hop. It is not a new idea by any means, but by letting his crafted samples build and build and build he creates his own style. This is quite the feat in the DJ game since all of the elements are chunks of what other musicians and DJs have already done.
The whole party mix ends with Santogold. This is a perfect artist to represent of the whole idea of what Klassen achieved with his technique. Santi White is one of the best in the independent music game right now who mixes and matches genres in a pleasing way (for an example of doing it wrong- see NERD’s latest.) Klassen finds just the right place for her on Mi Fresh along with James Brown, Lord Finesse, Sharon Jones, South Rakkas Crew, and more.
You can grab the mix at local Austin record stores and go jump over an apartment complex’s fence and get you swim on. Once they are gone they are gone and then what is going to remind you of Summer 2008?
Here is part one in streaming form: