DJ Imani "Sensations" (Deep Soul House and Remixes)
























Finally, my first mix of strictly Deep, Soulful House.  No Brokenbeat or Latin House in this one, like most of my others. Well I take it back, there are 2 Latin tracks, but just a little taste. I couldn't help myself.  Speaking of not being able to help myself, the model in this pic is the Bamboo Vixen at an event called Club For A Cure. It was a night where all the door money went to breast cancer research. I wouldn't mind researching the Bamboo Vixen's breasts a bit more, haha.  Wait, did I say that out loud?

I think I'm starting to focus on more upbeat tracks when I spin, like the ones in this mix. The world of Downtempo is starting to fade. I know I've said it before, sorry for sounding like a broken record.  Pun anyone???

I would love to keep spinning some Trip Hop at happy hours or lounges, but people want to dance. I am also noticing that it is getting harder and harder to find high quality tunes. Maybe I'm getting old, but so much music fuckin sucks right now, and that's in many genres. I go to Stompy.com or Traxsource.com and it is so saturated with bad music that it takes me forever to find the gems that I'm looking for. Maybe piracy has forced these great producers to get day jobs to make ends meet, therefore leaving them little time to produce. I think we really fucked ourselves here. There are so many record labels going out of business, and pretty soon the only record stores that will be open will be the massive ones like Amoeba that mainly sell used music, or these mega chains like Target or Best Buy that only sell new Pop/Radio hits, or $5 greatest hits CDs from Queen and Rod Stewart.

I went into Rasputins the other day, and they are selling porno now!?!?  Is that what it has come to to survive?!?!  When they started selling posters and T-shirts, then movies and video games, it made sense, but fucking porn??? (or butt fucking porn, hahaha)

Besides all that, I spent hours in the Electronic section and it was full of garbage. You probably won't see me in a record store anymore when I can go on amazon.com and download a song for a dollar. I'm done spending 4 hours of my time at a record store flipping through trash.  I used to do all my research and purchasing at record stores, now it just wastes my time. I used to spend entire days in record stores and walk out with bags of music. Now I walk in and it takes me forever just to find a single CD I like.

These record stores fucked up, for me at least.  Instead of focusing on making the music consumer happy, they just decided to start selling all these other mediums to bring more customers in.  PORNO FOR FUCK SAKE!!!!!  If they had better music buyers bringing in better quality, instead of just the billboard charters, they'd still have customers.  They also need to improve on those old, broken down, shitty listening stations that barely have any content in them.

Oh well, times change I guess.  I feel like a part of me died today, and I will miss those experiences, but now that I am a DJ, not merely a collector, I need to be more efficient and be able to hear the music before a purchase.

Well this blog entry sure took a turn huh?  Back to my original intention... to give you this new mix.  The title is taken from a new Deep House night that I just started with Rahiem and Rob in SF.  All the details for that are on my facebook page

1 - Music in the Air (Will Reel Soul Rodriguez Vocal) - Tyrone Ellis
2 - Fallin' (Reel Soul Remix) - Tonya Renee
3 - First Love (Feliciano Classic Mix) - Syren
4 - Love and Happiness (Ray Jones Vocal Mix) - First Choice
5 - Hang Around (Karizma's Deepah 1ne Remix) - Ben Westbeech
6 - You’re All I Need - DJ Dealer
7 - De Color (Ferry B. Original Mix) - Ferry B
8 - Curiosity Killed The House Cat (Aaron Hall Remix) - Jazzmopper J
9 - Better Than Never (Main Mix) - Orlando Vaughan
10 - Losin' My Head [Peaktime Mix] - Monkey Brothers feat Shaun Escoffery
11 - Samba Consumo (CrisP mix) - Sumo
12 - Second Guess (Grant Nelson Remix) - Reel People
13 - Everything She Wants (White Label Remix) - Wham
14 - Black Man (Deep Soul Mix) - Gianluca Pighi feat Robert Owens

Download Tracks Individually Here

"Nu Croon" Mixed By DJ IMANI (Soulful Broken Beat)
























I saw a drawing of a phonograph today, and I thought about how times have changed technologically.  We are still the same, musically, in many ways, but music is way more accessible these days, and goes almost unnoticed in many situations. We still sing about love, we still go out dancing, and enjoy a good song writer, but I feel like the passion for music 100+ years ago must have been so pure and intense.

Looking at the phonograph that probably played easily breakable 78's made of shellac, which could only fill one room with sound, and had no bass, with records that only had a couple of songs on them, I realized how unbelievably spoiled we are today. People had to work much harder to consume music back then.  Hell, at one point, live and recorded music was only accessible to the wealthy.  Music must have been much more meaningful to listen to, with even more thought put into the actual song's creation.  Way more than the saturated, disposable top 40 sounds on our current air-waves, that's for sure. Going out to hear a live performance must have been one of the highlights of someone's whole year, if not entire life.

Even though the only pictures and videos we have of certain era's are in black and white, they were way more "colorful" than we give them credit for.  Swing music is off the chain (no pun intended).  I wish I had the chance to experience a culture where there was appreciation for ballads, and better instrumentation was standard, rather than the simple dribble, and one hit wonders that we pump out regularly in our society today.

 A lot of the "Crooners" like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra were hip cats, and would probably dig some of our current tunes, but I just don't feel like most popular music these days have actually evolved for the better. There is a reason those artists are considered timeless.  Will we have any timeless musicians in our generation?  Our technology has changed the world, but in many ways we have taken giant leaps backwards.

I want to pay respect to the path that they paved for us, so here is my new mix of soulful stuff I'd like to think they'd get down to today in a club.

1 - You're So Desirable (Sunday People Remix) - Billie Holiday
2 - Relevations - Von Mondo
3 - That Night (Vikter Duplaix Remix) - Jazzanova
4 - I Love You My Hope (Do Right Remix) - Hird
5 - Restless Times - Clara Hill
6 - Pressure (Universal Sun Remix) - Lady Alma
7 - Endless Dance (Karizma Remix) - Markus Enochson
8 - Lucy Said (Landslide Remix) - Fenomenon
9 - Lockdown (Remix) - Soulstice
10 - I Forgot You (feat. Clyde) - Atjazz
11 - Like A Star - Alister Johnson
12 - So Far - Lacarno & Burns
13 - Distractions (Bugz In The Attic Remix) - Zero 7
14 - Feeling Good - The Quantic Soul Orchestra
15 - Ordinary People (Broken Remix) - John Legend

Download The Tracks Individually Here