Details
Track Listing
1. Pushem' Up
2. Hot Butter
3. Blakpeoplez
4. Daaboodaa Munks
5. Crooklyn Anthem
6. Ultrafunkula
7. Hood Movie Stars
8. Word up Doc
9. This Is It!
10. Out of Frame
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. 6 Minutes of Funk
13. Bounce
14. Hey Yah Heh
Album Notes
Personnel: Armand Van Helden, Sizzahandz, Funkmaster Flex (DJ); Big Kap, Madsol Desar (vocals).
Rugged All-Stars: Gary Storm, Nasty Nova (vocals).
Producers: Armand Van Helden, Sizzahandz, Madsol Desar, Funkmaster Flex.
Recorded at Ya Mutha's House, New York, New York.
As an ace DJ and in-demand remixer, Armand Van Helden has been credited in helping advance the cause of "garage house," a style best recognized by its fuzzed-out, rocking basslines and chopped-up vocal breaks (as examples, seek Van Helden's reworkings of Tori Amos' "Professional Widow" and Daft Punk's "Da Funk," among many others). But from the opening declaration that "this goes out to all the headz representin' the 'house' side of hip-hop" at the top of "Pushem' Up," its obvious that SAMPLESLAYA is a different bag altogether.
Here, Van Helden's all about East Coast flava in your ear, and MEAT MARKET basically rocks like a damn good underground mix tape, which is all that it purports to be. Based on well-worn and easily recognizable samples long ingrained in all the headz who did their hip-hop homework (Q-Tip, JB's, Rakim, etc.), the music within is the meat 'n' potatoes for a Saturday night "house party" (as opposed to "house" party). Only "Ultrafunkula," a bouncy piece of elektro that harnesses many of Van Helden's remix tricks, even contemplates marrying the old school aesthetic to the DJ's singular breakthroughs.
Industry Reviews
...Structured like a free-form party mix with its spree of chant-sewn instrumentals and tightly blended percussion breaks, MEAT MARKET drips with references to hip hop's old school...
Vibe (05/01/1998)
3.5 Stars (out of 5) - ...Van Helden's unerring sense of sound and friction--and just plain crowd-pleasing break beats--make[s] for music that really does something to a room. It starts a party...
Rolling Stone (03/05/1998)
...the Bostonian ex-hard house master...and remix king...strikes another notch for mediocrity in his culturally insignificant career by completely missing the point about American hip hop.
Melody Maker (09/13/1997)
...Van Helden here applies his pedigreed house hypnotics to hip-hop, razoring classic jams into hybrids that bump and bounce without mercy. He sometimes overdoses it with the vocal loops, but the beat architecture is flawless... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (03/13/1998)
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