Weird Mixtape(s) Vol 2

Follow this thread through the Dutch version of Myspace and you will find not one, but about 40 old bubbling mixtapes. It's important you hear these shitty cassette and vinyl rips to understand the genre, and it's fortunate that these still exist. Many Bubbling tapes were confiscated and destroyed by the government in Curacao due to political protests (see MC Pester), and even in The Netherlands bubbling was banned from clubs and bars. Most of the Megaupload links still work, the others usually don't. Enjoy the sped up dancehall brought to you by DJ Moortje, DJ Memmie, DJ Reflex, DJ Pac...

Drop Bombs Like Hiroshima

Reflex DJ - Death Row Bubbling Battle Mix

While were still on the subject...

Weird The Club Up

Unknown DJ - Bubbling Battle Loop Mix

Bubbling battle tracks can be a scary swamp to trudge through, and you will step in plenty of shit along the way. Cramming 10 songs into 5 minutes while pulling them up and down like taffy is no easy task. The hardest part is making them not sound ridiculously corny, and tracks are often full of lame sound effects, muscle flexing, and sometimes even fucking South Park samples (I have a great track that's ruined by just that). A bad taste similar to the one Breakcore always leaves in my mouth. Yet sometimes, it all falls into the right place. This is one of those miniature DJ mixes that makes my obsession worth it and I can forget about all the incredibly dated turntable masturbation that I've put me ears through. A perfect battle track and like the best, an incredibly weird one too. Tiny guitars and a ghost organ lead into DJ Class' Tear The Club Up(!!!) and we are happy. From what I can tell, Baltimore Club isn't so rare in these parts and as strange a phenomenon as Bubbling is to begin with I'm not even surprised. There might be some kid in Suriname baking up some Juke for all I know (I can dream can't I? I mean they fuck with Paul Johnson). It's all one big mutated diaspora due to Dutch Slavery that has it's roots planted in Turkish raves, Jamaican cartoon chase footwork competitions, and the Mad Decent Website.

Edit: The DJ says his name at the end but I can't make it out very well. Maybe you can.

Nobody Move

DJ Moortje - Nobody Get Hurt (from I'm Back 1997)

This track is really interesting to someone like myself who never had a background in Drum and Bass, yet listens to plenty of music that was affected by it's existence. Discovering Bubbling has led me to rewind to the early days of Jungle to find missing pieces of the puzzle, but I haven't spent much time with DnB outside of a bit of DJ Zinc and DJ Hype. Even then it's not really for me, but Moortje pulling up Yellowman's Breakbeat hit like it was the Murder She Wrote Riddim is exciting as a parallel between genres. Technically and historically there's plenty to compare the two in a Venn Diagram, which forces me to backtrack down the paths I missed first time around and never particularly cared about. Questioning relevance is even more confusing and if the theory that technology=genres is right it will only get more so.

Pinnokkio

DJ Dopy - Speedy Megamix 2005

Everything that a Bubbling Battle track should be. Contains Everyone Falls In Love Sometimes by Beenie Man and other sped up goodies for popping and locking, aka the weird dance also known as "Pinnokkio".

Bubbling Battle

Bubbling Battle is the style of Bubbling made for kids to dance to, and it's a small world because it's a ritual similar to Chicago Footwork. It's very much a pop-and-lock dance that goes along with weird DMC sounding mixes, a few of which I've posted recently. Pretty different to the drums-only tracks, and a lot goofier. The mess DJ Moortje left behind is now considered the old school form, and it's been known to piss off Dancehall artists who don't like their music at the wrong speed. I've heard that one of the reasons people enjoyed the change in pitch is that its fast energy fit the demands of the northern Dutch country boys who had enough adrenaline (and drugs) to dance like rabid animals for 10+ hours. Your speed binge wouldn't be disturbed by the constant record changing, because that's all your attention span at that point can handle.

The Art of The Assturn

DJ Kaas - Blanka Battle Beat 2001

Gunshots, G-Funk organs, Bam Bam Riddim, spaceships, and Wu-Tang.