One man’s passion for digging couldn’t be better defined than by listening to his previous releases, The Lootpack’s Soundpieces and Quasimoto’s The Unseen. Even evidenced on his latest single, “Loop Digga”, Madlib proves himself to be one of the last of the true crate diggers. While many of today’s hip-hop producers have traded their samplers for keyboards, Madlib still rocks the SP-1200, creating dirty beats in the tradition of his forefathers, Diamond, Pete Rock, Showbiz, and others.

Madlib’s mysterious Remixes white label is a collection of lonely acapellas reinvented over his dusty grooves. But for longtime associates of Madlib, along with Oxnard, CA natives, this is nothing new. Madlib has been doing this for years, in the form of remix tapes, but with his newfound popularity in underground circles, his interpretations of several hip-hop classics (and otherwise) are now available to the public via white label wax.

What makes this so interesting is that it doesn’t contain a track listing, and several of the vocals will seem familiar, but Madlib puts an entirely new spin on them. This collection plays like a continuous mix of dirty beats and rhymes, abandoning any formulas of conventional hip-hop music that were presented in their original form. The staircase of pianos looped for Noreaga’s “Misery Loves Company” lyrics suddenly shine a new light on his otherwise stale rhymes and over this production, N.O.R.E. actually sounds dope. This continues into Big Pun’s verse from “Firewater”, at which it’s climax speeds up and lands back down at a redefinition of Cappadonna’s “Slang Editorial” that would make RZA proud. Among other tweaked selections from The Roots and Slum Village, the EP’s crowning achievement is the remix of Common’s “Car Horn”, using a less chopped, familiar set of keys last heard on Gang Starr’s “All For The Cash”.

While dealing with a disappointing (and quite foolish) Source Magazine review of The Lootpack’s Soundpieces: Da Antidote in 1999, rumors say that Madlib still received a phone call from DJ Premier telling him not to worry because he thought his shit was dope. Nevertheless, while this media driven fork in the road may have discouraged him initially, further proof of his latent lies in the pudding of production on this project. With his knack for creating quality beats, it’s only a matter of time before these same cats begin to tap Madlib for remixes - legally.