The cover art for Dibia$e’s ‘Baker’s Dozen’ album.

The Micro-Chop Daily X #5 — Fat Beats Edition

A Micro-Chop playlist featuring 10 hand-picked instrumentals — every single day for an entire year.

Gino Sorcinelli
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

I still remember the first time I went to the New York Fat Beats location vividly. It was late 1999, probably September or October, and my family was visiting extended family in the city.

The Micro-Chop Daily X #5 — Fat Beats Edition. Ten hand-picked instrumentals for your listening enjoyment.

I was a sophomore in high school growing up in Massachusetts college town and I had just purchased my first set of Technics turntables — the ones I still own today. Going into the city to buy records at such a legendary spot was an out of body experience. I remember sifting through endless rows of 12"s while some DJ flipped doubles of Gang Starr’s “Full Clip”, repeating and scratching “Big L rest in peace” while a group of people nodded along in approval. I ended up buying Kool Keith’s Matthew album, U-God’s “Bizarre” 12", Eve’s “Gotta Man” 12", and a whole mess of other records and tapes.

I made return visits several times over the year sand every single one was memorable. I believe the final visit was in the spring of 2006. I was visiting New York with a college friend I used to DJ with and we were picking up some new records for our upcoming gigs. As we sorted through a stack of potential purchases, I remember seeing Evil Dee casually standing there and talking to one of the employees. Though this may have been a normal site for store regulars, this was a big deal for someone who lived and grew up well outside of New York City.

I was starting in on my second year towards a master’s degree in special education in the fall of 2010 when I heard the news of Fat Beats closing both its Los Angeles and New York locations. It was the end of an era and a sad moment for DJs, rap music, and hip-hop culture. Though I read they were continuing their online operations, I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical of how successful a completely online endeavor would be.

Fat Beats demonstrated a high degree of business savvy by transitioning to physical distribution through their online store instead of their various now-closed locations. They’ve also continued to put out a variety of high-quality releases under the Fat Beats imprint while adding a digital distribution component to their business model. They even launched the prestigious Baker’s Dozen instrumental series, featuring music from Budamunk, Daedelus, Exile, Marco Polo, Wun Two, and Micro-Chop interviewees Dibia$e, Elaquent, Ras G, and ohbliv.

For a store/brand/label that has played an important part in my musical development at various stages in my life, it felt right to dedicate a Micro-Chop Daily X playlist to Fat Beats. I mainly focused on their Baker’s Dozen releases here, plucking one of my favorite beats from each one, but I also managed to sneak in a Black Milk instrumental from his Danny Brown collaboration Black and Brown for good measure. I hope the music contained within this playlist inspires you to further explore and dig into Fat Beats’ impressive catalog of releases.

The fifth playlist in this series features the following artists, with each name hyperlinked to bring you directly to their Bandcamp, SoundCloud, or website: Ohbliv, Daedulus, wun two, Marco Polo, Budamunk, Black Milk, Dibia$e, Elaquent, Exile, Ras G.

Be on the lookout for The Micro-Chop Daily X #6 dropping tomorrow.


If you enjoyed this piece, please consider following my Micro-Chop and Bookshelf Beats publications or donating to the Micro-Chop Patreon page. You can also read my work at HipHopDX or follow me on Twitter.

Micro-Chop

Dissecting beatmaking, DJing, music production, rapping, and sampling.

Gino Sorcinelli

Written by

Freelance journalist @Ableton, ‏@HipHopDX, @okayplayer, @Passionweiss, @RBMA, @ughhdotcom + @wearestillcrew. Creator of www.Micro-Chop.com and @bookshelfbeats.

Micro-Chop

Dissecting beatmaking, DJing, music production, rapping, and sampling.

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