BEAT OF THE WEEK: 20s Remix

Producer: DJ Earl-E
Year: 1996
Equipment: Mac Performa, Sound Edit (8-bit)

DJ Earl-E made this beat in a tiny upstairs one-bedroom in the underbelly of La Habra, California. The crib, housing myself, Vega$, Obskur, Juggla Vein, Earl-E, the homie Conflict, and some chick named Megan (don't ask), always had random other folks hanging out until all hours. Shadoe, Ben, The lil homies C-Rack and Lil Giddy-up... Blowin' trees, makin' beats and freestyling was an everyday thing. Gotta love ghetto livin'! It seemed like there were about 20 people there at any given time. It was around that time that we first started using the name 20 Kliks for the crew.

Obskur was the one who came up with the name 20 Kliks Records. I think it started around the idea of moving from the 20th century into the new millennium in which all the years started with 20. But there was much more to it. 20 is also a dub ($20), and a dub sack. Who doesn't love that? And Kliks are cliques (crews) and also a measurement of distance (kilometers). There's actually more to it than that as well but I don't wanna have to kill you for knowing too much. So I'll just leave it at that for now.

The beat is simply made with the Sound Edit program that gave the freedom to chop and layer samples, but had limited sound quality and no metronome. The sample may be from Grover Washington's "Mr. Magic," but really is probably only recognizable to true heads the way it was sampled, slowed down, and layered. This is one beat that didn't have any drums or bass added, just a string/keyboard sample that Juggla dug out of the crates and played from vinyl along with the beat until we found the right sound. We then decided to use the beat right away and recorded a scratch version of "20s-Remix" on the Tascam 4-track. We had just recorded the original version at a mobile studio run by some shady characters Juggla met at who-knows-where. They made us sign paperwork and we instantly knew we were never gonna pay the engineer for the master recording, so we decided to do another version that we would own outright. Since it was called 20s, you know I had to drop 20 bars.

Enjoy!

- Prose