Posts tagged DJ Kayper

Mixtape Name: Bring Back YO! MTV Raps
Created By: DJ Kayper
Overall Rating: 8 out of 10
Reviewed by: Raj Lovesoul

Yo! MTV Raps is regarded as one of the most important institutions ever to those who claim ‘real hip-hop’. Just as those lucky few who walked past the Bronx, New York, parks and discovered a young Kool DJ Herc spinning early breaks; those channel surfing on analogue Sky boxes in the UK in the mid-nineties, would have seen Dr. Dre and Ed Lover goofing around, or Fab 5 Five’s ‘fresh to death’ interviews, on this classic rap video show, which was cancelled by the men in suits all too prematurely. So when pint-sized cut-hussy Kaajal ‘DJ Kayper’ Bakrania emailed me the link for the ‘Bring Back Yo! MTV Raps’ mixtape, I clicked on it faster than a ‘Pamela Anderson kissing Pamera Anderson’ link. But can a DJ from the ‘just add bhangra’ BBC Asian Network breathe life back into a time before hip-hop died? Thankfully yes, but not all in one tape…

After the muscle flexing sample scratches and ‘best female DJ that I’ve ever seen in my life’ DJ Jazzy Jeff endorsement, DJ Kayper goes straight for the throat with Eric B and Rakim’s bassy, ‘Follow the Leader’ beat juggle. Mixtape connoisseur’s able to read between the lines find out very early that this tape is as much about skills as it is about selection. It is swiftly scratch faded out into ‘Ladies First’ by Queen Latifah and Monie Love, which left me confused about which would have been the better first record by the looping lady, and felt like a bit of an unnecessary double start. However, the swift scratch blend and beat drop into Main Source’s ‘Looking at the Front Door’ quickly made this into a mere oversight.

LL’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ and Rob Base’s ‘It Takes Two’ are presented masterfully in the vein of a seasoned live hip-hop DJ looking for the screamers in a crowd, stripes that she likely earned carrying Cambridge’s Hip-Hop scene on her back for many years, or touring, since winning the Vestax Juice Competition in 2003. Although the scratch fade out appears one too many times for my liking, listen out for the way Kayper spins back ‘Method Man’ and drops ‘Bring the Pain’, it’s like a swift kick in the chest from this petit power mixer.

By this point it’s clear that there is a heavy east-coast focus, which isn’t a totally accurate representation of Yo’s choice of videos, as I clearly remember Yo! showing more love to artists such as Cali’s Snoop and Dre, or Houston’s Scarface, which I assume (with fingers crossed) will appear on a sequel. When Kayper does geo-diversify and drops Comptons N.W.A or Oakland’s Soul of Mischief, it only frustrated me more, as she did an incredible job massaging these crucial beats, and I haven’t heard many DJ’s get busy on these records for a while, so I’m definitely ready to hear more of this.

My personal highlight has to be Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s ‘T.R.O.Y’ coming in over BDP’s ‘The Bridge is Over’. This demonstrates the level of skill usually only reserved for the DJ AM’s, A-Trak’s and Jazzy Jeff’s of the world. These are all thrones on which Kayper can realistically imagine sitting on sometime in the future. So to conclude, this tape will probably go over the head of 75% of people who casually throw around that they ‘love Hip-Hop’, then riddle their iPod with 50 Cent and Omarion, (make it 95% if you listen to BBC Asian Network, no diss). But if you’re over 21, and actually saved money to go buy a tape walkman from Argos back in the day, then this should be downloaded and played immediately. It’s well worth your 65 minutes, and will only be doomed if not followed up with a sequel which will further explore the happiest days in hip-hop.

To download the mixtape click here, or for more on DJ Kayper click here.