wait what

If you: haven't heard this/haven't heard me talk about this/want this as the soundtrack for your life, get your ass over to his soundcloud. "The Notorious XX" = Notorious B.I.G. mixed over the XX.

Thank you to Nicole for showing me this. The guy behind wait what is Charlie Kubal, who is CC '08! Read his interview with Bwog from April here. A quote from it that's so fuckin true: "One thing that’s tough about Columbia is the tendency, that I found, for Columbia kids’ baseline attitude to be to dislike something — there’s a unique brand of hate that Columbia kids tend to have for new things, as if an implicitly negative attitude makes your opinion more compelling. I was guilty of this too, and when the Varsity Show touched on it (my Senior year, so ‘08), and it really resonated."

Another quote: "I like a ton of different music, and think that for any given situation, activity, or emotional state, there’s an ideal musical accompaniment. I like a lot of hip-hop, some indie rock, some straight pop — it kind of runs the gamut. One thing I try really hard to do is not let an artist’s popularity influence whether I like a song — the idea of a hipster not liking a band only because they’re popular is just as absurd, to me, as a 12-year-old not liking a song because it’s not on Now 57." Hmm wisdom. It's hard to avoid doing this for some reason. I guess because once the masses start to colonize a certain band, by listening to it, you become part of that Animal Collective-listening gang, which projects a lifestyle onto you that you don't necessarily have. But who gets to dictate these things? When it comes down to it, it you like the music, you like the music. If you only liked it to seem cool and indier-than-thou to begin with then what the hell are you doing with your life.

Anyway, back to wait what. The idea for Notorious XX started with mixing Juicy and VCR because of the "Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis" line and the image in his head of the Nintendo and the VCR of his childhood. There's something about how different the XX and Biggie are that makes them work together so well. He says the album is the extrovert meets the introvert.

He got into legal trouble for having the tracks free on his site, which is sort of ridiculous considering how many mash-ups there are out there (that are wayyy shitty in comparison). Honestly I think it expands Biggie's listenership (is that a word? should be). Case in point: me.

The Notorious XX seriously suits so many different situations. For instance: driving through the city, driving through the woods at night, walking your dog through the neighborhood in the afternoon, rainy days, jus chillin' if you get my meaning. Apparently he makes mixes every month and is/has worked as a DJ (he worked at WBAR when he was at Columbia). He lives in SF now.