Looks like June 2023 is fast becoming the stand-out month this year for sample-based releases with big-ass singles from Voodoocuts, Tom Caruana and Del Gazeebo already. Admittedly, those all fall into the mash-up/ edit category but here’s something massive that does not and it’s a whole LP to boot – Paul Sitter’s new Hip-Hop Delivery album on Breakbeat Paradise. Turns out it’s the first vinyl LP from the label since 2019 and goes about as large as you could hope for. Musically it features Sitter’s often 60s and 70s-sample sourced beats with sterling guest MC appearances from either side of the pond courtesy of Juice Crew legend Craig G, Ugly Duckling’s Andy Cooper, Deftex’s Chrome, Dr Syntax, and Vancouver MC Birdapres. The overall vibe is not unlike that of DJ Format’s first hip-hop LP, Music For The Mature B-Boy from all the way back in 2003 in combining funky hip-hop and instrumental breakbeat music of the resolutely party variety.
If you’ve been following Mr Sitter’s 45 releases you can’t fail to have noticed his ear for what works on the dancefloor. Only two of those former singles are included here though – the uptempo Dr Syntax cut – It’s On Like That with it’s excellent spaghetti-western-influenced B-side B-Boys Impressions and one of the Andy Cooper cuts (the Charles Wright-sampling Go Move) and its Run DMC-sampling flip King Of Rock. Which means the larger part of this is new. The first track proper (after the intro) is the Craig G-featuring Global Chemistry which firmly establishes Sitter’s hip-hop credentials and is every bit as as dope as you’d expect – sample lyric, “We only focus on those timeless tracks/ that make the boys say rewind it back because the lines were packed/ with those nouns and verbs that were superb/ Nothing like the sound that belongs on the curb.” Birdapres vehicle Wild Thing manages to sample both The Troggs’ classic and The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie while another banger is the funky fanfare of LP centrepiece Chasing The Funk which sees Andy Cooper make his second appearance in the set. Before the end there’s also time for the Bollywood-sampling breakbeat action of Bollywood Cannot Carry Double and then it’s all about closer Nothing Gonna Change (His Way) which pairs electro 808 claps with atmospheric vintage organ loops. Hip-hop delivery? You better believe it.
(Out now on Breakbeat Paradise Recordings)