Today is my 46th birthday. Among my gifts this morning was a disc from my Amazon wishlist: the Steinski compilation What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective. Here is the significance of that album.
I launched a website at thepopview.com a decade ago, writing articles about popular culture. One of my favorite essays from the time was this piece about a record called “The Payoff Mix.” I first heard that song back in 1983, when I was in college. It was a legendary cult recording, incredibly hard to obtain. This morning, I got a 2-CD set that included “The Payoff Mix” and two sequels that are collectively known as The Lessons. That’s how much has changed in 26 years.
One of the geniuses behind “The Payoff Mix” was Steve “Steinski” Stein. Here is an article: Steinski: Ad Exec, Hip-Hop Legend. Here is a video of Steinski talking about The Lessons. Here is a fan-made video for “Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop).”
If you care about hip-hop or sampling or copyright issues, this is a key touchstone.
UPDATE: I neglected to point out that if this had not been a gift, this would have been the third time I paid for a copy of the Lessons mixes.
One Response
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Tanzanite Says:
First off – happy birthday (sorry its late!). I just wanted to say that i love your blog – i only recently found it and being a massive fan of pop culture it really speaks to me!