Forget all of the intros this week.  We’ve got some great mixes for you, and the more time you spend reading, the less time you can spend listening to the ten mixes on deck this week.   Dam-Funk unearths some rarities from the boogie wonderland. Mark Force of the Bugz In The Attic collective showcases some of the best West London boogie of recent years. DJ Food serve up a massive eight-part tribute to the music of Kraftwerk.

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The Magnificent DJ Jazzy Jeff crosses the pond on Saturday, April 13th to headline the 250th installment of UK DJ Spin Doctor’s party “The Doctor’s Orders,” which has been satisfying London party & concertgoers since 2005!  Joining Jeff for the event are Rich Medina, and the tag-team duo The Nextmen who will be rocking the party on 4 turntables!

DJ Spin Doctor’s “The Doctor’s Orders” are always legendary and we wanna give one lucky Londoner a pair of tickets to #250! Fill out the below entry form and you can win! If you aren’t feeling lucky, you can always buy tickets online!  The contest has ended!

THE DOCTOR’S ORDERS 250
Celebrating our 250th Party in style
10pm-5am Saturday 13th April 2013
@ Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, Kings Cross, London N1 9NL

DJ Jazzy Jeff (Philadelphia USA)
ft Skillz
The Nextmen (4 Deck Set)
Rich Medina
Mr Thing
Spin Doctor
Chris P Cuts
Mo Fingaz
Chris Read & Nickname (B2B)
& MC Prankster

An Interview with DJ Spin Doctor

OKP: WOW, 250, congratulations. When was the first “The Doctor’s Orders” party and how did it come to be?

Spin Doctor: Thank you! The first party under the name The Doctor’s Orders was in July 2005 with DJ Cash Money and was my birthday party.
Thankfully it went really well so they invited us back to do a monthly jam the second of which was with Bobitto and third with Maseo, we have been carrying on in the same vein of throwing unpretentious Hip-Hop led parties ever since.

OKP: What are some of your personal highlights from over the course of 249 events?

Spin Doctor: Probably the number of great people I have met and become great friends with through DJing and promoting parties. Another aspect has been the fact that the fan boy in me has got to work alongside some genuine heroes like Ali Shaheed & Phife from Tribe Called Quest, ?uestlove, Just Blaze, De La Soul and so many more.

In terms of specific highlights I would have to say the Dilla tributes we do every year stand out. The first one we did the year after he passed and we had no idea what to expect. We left is up to people what to donate and just threw the doors open on a Sunday night and the place was packed to capacity within an hour, it was nuts! Since then we have built that into an annual event that now brings in 1,200+ people and we have brought over Ma Dukes for the event. We try and do at least two charity parties a year of which that is one.

OKP: How would you say thing have changed from when you started until now?

Spin Doctor: Kinda hard to say. Our ethos has remained the same. When I first started going to Hip-Hop clubs most were playing incredible music, this was the era of Wu Tang, Nas, Brand Nubian, Tribe, De La, and so on but on the whole they were just full of dudes trying to look tough, standing around with their hoods up nodding and you knew the 5 girls in the place had been dragged there by their men so there was no point trying to chat them up anyhow. At the same time I was going to all kinds of parties whether they be indie rock or house etc that were straight up parties where people went to dance to the music they loved and it was always my intention to try and combine the two things. To make an environment where Hip-Hop felt fun and people came to shock out, have a great time with friends and not worry about how they looked or were perceived. I like to think we have done that.

While the Hip-Hop scene has changed considerably in that time, and in my mind a lot of the music has not been as great as it once was, one interesting change has been people’s openness to different kinds of music. I put this down to what I call the i-pod shuffle generation. When I was a kid most people were really defined by the music they listened to; you were a Hip-Hop head, Rocker, Goth, Junglist etc etc. Now it seems that people are as well versed in A$AP as they are Coldplay which makes them much more open to throwing different things into the mix at the party which I love and find really exciting. I’m a sucker for playing Paul Simon at a Hip-Hop jam!

OKP: Serato is a sponsor of this event. Talk to us about the effects of DJ software that you’ve seen?

Spin Doctor: Interestingly I remember booking A-Trak when not only was he probably still too young to be in the club but was also road testing a prototype of Serato. It seemed like which-craft to me. I was like “it does what?” and just could not get my head round it.

I have to admit that initially I was skeptical and held out for a while insisting as many of us did that vinyl was king and that I would never swap over but as the technology advanced I saw the advantages and now I am all for it. I think it’s a great thing that break through artists can have their music discovered and played without having the cost of getting it pressed up. On the whole I do try and only play stuff that I own in a physical format if available but now we even do an all AV (audio visual) party where we mix videos which would not have been possible were it not for Serato and the advances they have made.

In my mind there is no substitute for the knowledge of music and the skills of playing that music in a way that makes people want to dance. Whatever format you choose to play that music in be it 45′s, MP3, CD or whatever it is all good by me.

The post Win Tix To The Doctor’s Orders #250 In London Featuring DJ Spin Doctor, Jazzy Jeff & Rich Medina appeared first on Okayplayer.

We’ve been anticipating the beginning of Spring ever since Winter began.  Now that Spring is here, we can breathe a tiny bit easier, metaphorically speaking of course. Once allergy season gets in full swing we might single-handedly be responsible for a boost in Claritin-D profits.  Anyway, you guys didn’t come to hear us talk about the changing seasons.  Just makin’ small talk at the beginning of a new week.  Okay.  We’ll shut up and let you get to this week’s selections: a birthday tribute to DJ Premier from HOT 97′s Cipha Sounds & Rosenberg, Mr. Critical & DJ Moneyshot have a funky soundclash, and Simbad lays down a smooth house set!

The post Mixtape Mondays: Cipha Sounds & Rosenberg x DJ Premier, Simbad, Mr Critical & DJ Moneyshot appeared first on Okayplayer.

I saw the setlist for last night’s D’Angelo/?uestlove Brooklyn Bowl funkfest (recapped here) shortly after the show began, and hoped in my heart that the song listed on the sheet as “Tell Me If You Care” was indeed the S.O.S. Band‘s early 80′s classic “Tell Me If You Still Care.”

It was.

And it was awesome.

Producer and Editor: Allison Swank
Videographers: Myo Campbell + Nelson Mandela Nance

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Itching for your Mixtape Mondays fix? Check out these brand new mixes that we’ve been digging on.  DJ Woody delivers a mix of tracks from Chopped Herrings Records out of England.  D.C.DJ Soulmind offers up a lengthy genre-hopping smorgasbord of music.  And we play catch up with a sexy mix from Mike Milosh & Robin Hannibal, aka Rhye.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

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This week’s Mixtape Mondays is all about the old school. Gilles Peterson is back for the second week in a row with part two of his tribute to the late Donald Byrd.  45 King lays down a mix of smooth disco & boogie gems.  KM/FM (King Most, Freddy Azures and Livin Proof) pay homage to the work of Stevie Wonder.

Some gems this week.  Let’s get started…

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This February 21st, Okayplayer celebrates the 80th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Nina Simone.  Perhaps our favorite Nina Simone moment has to be her appearance at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival.  Through the course of her 70 minute set, Nina takes you through the gamut of human emotion in a way that’s so honest and raw that watching this performance is kind of exhausting… in a good way though.

The Nina Simone estate has made the entirety of her set available for viewing online via Vimeo.  We definitely recommend finding some time today (or someday soon) to sit and watch this uninterrupted.

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Giving some credence to rumors that he’s done with releasing proper albums, an acoustic guitar-and-vocal demo of a new song called “That Girl Thang” has popped up for sale on Prince‘s webstore, 3rdEyeGirl.  We hate to use words like “comeback” and “return to form” when it comes to Prince, because he hasn’t really gone anywhere or changed up his steez.  But even in its bare state, this is by far one of the best songs Prince has released in the last 15 years.

“That Girl Thang” is presented with a level of rawness and intimacy that has been missing from his most recent releases.  The song sounds as if it were recorded on a four-track in one take, allowing the melody and lyric to shine without being bogged down by layer upon layer of overdubs – a common complaint levied against the songs on Prince’s 1997 almost-but-not-quite-100%-acoustic album, The Truth.

Take a listen to “That Girl Thang” below, and head over to 3rdEyeGirl.com to add it to your collection!

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Happy Presidents Day everyone!  Many of you in the US are off work today – lucky you!   The OKP hustle continues on though!  So while you’re  loafing about at home, turn up your speakers, and click through for  tribute mixes to Mary J Blige and Donald Byrd, as well as the third episode of Headspace Radio!

The post Mixtape Mondays: KJ Butta, Gilles Peterson, DJ L’Oqenz appeared first on Okayplayer.

Tim Dog died today after suffering a seizure believed to be related to his battle with diabetes. He was 46.

Tim came to prominence in the early 90′s with his single “Fuck Compton,” an angry response to the growing dominance of West Coast hip-hop taken from his debut album, 1991′s Penicillin On Wax. The song took shots at the members of NWA, and even elicited a response from Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg on the song “Dre Day.”  “Fuck Compton” is regularly included on lists of the greatest diss records of all time.

Tim Dog was in the news again in 2012 thanks to an appearance on Dateline NBC in an exposé regarding an online dating scam in which he was involved.

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