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Intro

I couldn't afford to buy stuff when growing up. My family had enough money for the necessities, but that was it. There was an attitude of frugality that has stayed with me. Even now it's hard for me to splurge on nicer things and that's why free stuff was so important to me.
Now, the early internet was a wild place for free stuff. I lived on free music, usually in the form of mixes.* Something about an hourlong set made it free. Mustard Pimp, Pigeons + Planes, Tinkerhelm† all regularly put out mixes that I would live on. Listening to them over and over and over on my cassette tape adapter plugged into a boombox I got from the senior center. The song selections were so cool, the mixing was good, and they were more than just music. Because I had a small pool of free stuff to listen to, these couple dozen free mixes have completely shaped my musical taste. Everyone is molded by what they have available.

And there could be no one better for my musical taste than DJ Troublemaker. Holy shit. Almost everything he touched became my absolute favorite thing‡. King Fantastic and Rad Omen have so many good tracks and such raw style. Hollyrock§^ had a great musically diverse lineup. But I want to talk about his mixes. How good were these mixes? So good that they stuck with me for years until I realized I needed to stop and look at why there were so good.

And I'm try doing this with Murder Beats Not People - Troublemaker

The theme

Let's talk about with the art and name. In the absolute sea of dj sets and mixes, it's hard to remember what a big deal these were. This was a cohesive, named thing, not like "Lights Down Fest - 2019" or "Troublemaker Mix Series 7" but a free-standing piece of art/music. There was a bit of a theme with the mixes with the square preview and larger text highlighting Troublemaker, but that was the only thing indicating a mix was part of a set, and I think that's really great, that the artist is the only thing ties these works together.

The song selection

01. Phonat - Set Me Free (High Rankin Remix)
02. Nero - Act Like You Know feat. Naptron
03. The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition (Doorly Remix)
04. Jay-Z - D.O.A. (Chase and Status Remix)
05. Joker - Digidesign feat. Micah James
06. Calvin Harris - Not Alone (Doorly Remix) feat. Hollywood Holt
07. Si Begg - Pete Fucking Tong
08. Major Lazer - Pon de Floor feat. Vybz Kartel and The 87 Stick Up Kids
09. Basement Jaxx - Raindrops (Joker and Ginz Remix)
10. Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Nasty Ways Remix)
11. T.I. - Whatever You Like (DiscoTech Remix) feat. Adam Tensta and Eboi
12. Stagga - Sick As Sin
13. HavocNdeeD - Bass Fo Ya Face feat. Phoenix Orion
14. Bassnectar - Cozza Frenzy (Bassnectar Remix)
15. Mastodon - Oblivion (Troublemaker Remix)
16. Mujava - Township Funk (Diplo Remix)
17. Bat for Lashes - Daniel (Duke Dumont Remix)
18. La Roux - In for the Kill (Skream Remix)
Just look at this list. Its musicality has a massive breadth, Nero to Jay-Z to Si Begg to La Roux and it wasn't just straight songs from those artists, it was remixes that flowed together so well. Pon de Floor into Raindrops is a transition so smooth it took me years to tease out what parts where from which song. In fact, to this day I'll catch snippets of songs in other mixes and think to myself "oh hey i heard this in a Troublemaker mix". The selection was a musical education.
One track I want to highlight from this mix is **Calvin Harris - Not Alone (Doorly Remix) feat. Hollywood Holt**. Troublemaker has a talent for layering together lyrics and songs from different sources as if they were made for each other. I'm not sure in what other world Hollywood Holt would have had a chance mix it up with Calvin Harris/Doorly but were fortunate to have gotten it here. ¶ The recipe is usually a lesser known remix of a popular song with the vocals from a smaller artist and how well they fit together accents how much of fame must be luck.

The stuff between the songs

Troublemaker always has a message, be it about relationships, fame, hope, poverty, politics, racism, it's always present. There's a quote in one of these mixers about how DJs are storyteller and Troublemaker is that to a T. The mood of the tracks meanders through different emotions without losing the listener, the previous song adding context to the next #. But the secret weapon is the vocal samples. Skip to 7:15 in the mix and you'll hear a smooth beat, soulful singing, and emotional quote about anger in society. The vocals fit the mix so well, they are as much a part of the mixtape as the songs or art. ♠Keep listening til 10:30 and you'll hear a quote from Obama about roles in society. I don't think I'm doing this justice with words so just listen to it. Please.

Outro

So what is this? It started out being about how meaningful free stuff can be to people, then dialed way into one of the formative artists in my life. Part of the reason I'm writing about this now is because these mixes are gone or disappearing ♥ ♦and I'm... sad I guess is the best word. Melancholy maybe. Getting a new computer really triggered all of this because I don't have my harddrive hooked up to this. I think I have most of them saved somewhere but it's moreso the artists leaving or being able to continue. I've probably heard some of my favorite songs for the last time already.

Ultimately, I fucked up. All these mixes meant the world to me but I didn't let the people behind it know. I never reached out thanking them. I wasn't able to support them financially the way they clearly deserved. The best I can do is write this and change how I act moving forwards.♣