Shadow

I've just listened to the Essential Mix that he has done for Radio 1 in the UK. It was good but I was expecting more. He played 80 mins of old skool hip hop stuff and then some weird 60s sounding rock which I suppose is what I should have expected but I just felt it was lacking. A good mix but it got a bit monotonous after a while and you definitely couldn't dance around to it. More a mix to chill out to and drink some beer with your buds!

DJ Shadow is just one heck of an amazing artist. He was the one, that helped expand the audience of abstract trippy hip-hop, sampling and turntablism, and just re-wrote it all, and made it better.

His productions are cinematic, creepy and best of all, just pure cool. His album "Endtroducing" has to be one of the greatest albums of all time, plus I also really like his complation album "Preemptive Strike", and his second LP, "The Private Press". One thing to avoid of this, however is his last album "The Outsider", that was a cash-in on the Hyphy trend. while I did agree that Shadow shouldn't just repeat Endtroducing again, and again, I do think he should not have gone for the commerical rap route.

Save the Outsider, anything with Shadow's name on is just pure gold.

I also listened to the Essential mix and I thought it was one of the best mixes ever. You are right though, it isnt made much for dancing.