I know I just posted Blackstar, but fuck it.

After I found this I mentioned Shawn J. to my crew and they were “huh?” “who?”

Shawn J. was a real contributor to the Rawkus sound in the 1995-96 years with his perfect sample chops and some boom bap drums likes crispy bacon. He did classics like Children’s Story and Hater Players on the Blackstar album, Universal Magnetic for Mos, Apparently he found the big J.C., got himself a family and stopped making beats ’cause samplin’ is a’ stealin and the lord don’t like that. This is no rumor, as this japanese transcript of a story on DJ Krush from a 1998 recording session states:

Recording with Shawn J Period who’s also done a track in the previous album “MiLight.” No use of samples being the first criteria for this session with Shawn who became an obedient christian, the turntable was put away and on the equipment table in front of KRUSH were bunch of keyboards and along with SP-1200are 3 instruments that KRUSH bought for this session an egg shaker, tambourine and a triangle. In front of Shawn are Ensoniq keyboard and hammond organ,plus SP-1200 and stacks of his floppy discs with hundreds of sound sources. They’ve decided to build the track taking turns laying down each sound like theydid in the previous album, and this time, KRUSH suggested that Shawn should start off putting the drums together. Selecting snares and kicks from the discs,getting them through cassette tape at times to give them a rough quality, Shawnlaid them onto SP and programmed to create that distinctive Shawn J groove. Whenthe basic beat was finished, KRUSH laid his hands on a cheap keyboard he boughtat [sic] a free market, and did the first live instrument recording ever in his life.Then Shawn added some more keyboards, and they came up with a vast soundscape like a soundtrack of a major historical movie, but they couldn’t make a decisionwhat to do next. “Shawn just got here (yesterday) and must be jet-lagged & all,so why don’t we leave this track as it is today and decide what we would do withit tomorrow morning?” suggested KRUSH, and that ended the day.

So he’s still got it after all these years of silence? Is he gonna drop the mega-ton 2006 bomb on indie hip-hop?

Who knows. Dust off the crates and find a few more classics….

Blackstar Ft. Apani B Fly - Hater Players (Instrumental)-(Produced by Shawn J. Period) - Download

Blackstar - Children’s Story (Instrumental)-(Produced by Shawn J. Period) - Download

This next shits is from a broadcast of Deviation on BBC Radio 1 over in the UK, so it’s got beat fiend and pasty wet brit Benji B talking on it…

UPDATE: Boogie hit me up with some information…

the EP is called The Come Back and the track you heard is “journey’s process”.. and no, it doesnt sample….. but yes, he’s back. he’s teamed up with NYC’s rude movements crew.. stay tuned.

Shawn J. Period - Journey’s Process (From BBC 1) - Download

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 10th, 2005 at 1:21 am and is filed under Essential Listening, Instrumentals, Producer Features, Who next?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.