J Rocc has a long history of turntable wizardry—he founded the Beat Junkies with fellow artists Melo-D, Rhettmatic, DJ Babu, and Shortkut back in the early 90s, and has since put out stacks of mixes and beat compilations, making him the go-to DJ for most artists on the Stones Throw roster. A notorious crate-digger, the Funky President has traveled the world searching for rare vintage records and forgotten sounds alike. He’s released plenty of mixes before, but he asserts that this is his true debut of “original work.” If you’re a fan of stomping percussion, breaks, and rare grooves, this is for you. Stay fresh!

FCC: 10

RIYL: Peanut Butter Wolf, J Dilla, DJ Shadow, Madlib, Kid Koala/The Slew

1. Intro track—hella samples from Jay-Z to Michael Jackson to bad daytime TV commercial samples—all mashed up and lined up to introduce J Rocc.
2. Blunted, hazy, sluggish guitar plucking and a half-speed beat. Bluesy in places too.
*3. The lead single—just J Rocc doing what he does best—fresh breaks, looped horns parts, chipper downbeats. Not too experimental, just straight funky.
*4. Midtempo—vintage piano, with a morose cinematic quality. Spoken-word intro. Jangly percussion minimalist percussion punctuated by hand-claps.
5. Jazzy with a hard breakbeat—lots of twinkly xylophone samples, a starry J-Dilla influence, a bit of vocal samples.
*6. Funky Mambo breakbeat, moody strings, filmi samples. The last 1.5 min fades out into a poignant movie soundtrack—somewhere along the lines of DJ Shadow’s “Midnight in a Perfect World.”
*7. Slow-building, epic. Starts out with deep resonating chanting. Enter midtempo percussion “chasing the sun” vocal sample, and looped piano stage right. A bit effects-heavy for J Rocc, not too much scratching or chopping.
*8. Fast paced frantic, total fire! Again, this one was probably produced during his time in Brazil with Madlib—lots of Latin samples and percussion with the rawest of all drumbreaks. Ends with a sputtered vocal sample in French.
9. Bebop, jazzy super fresh intro. At the halfway point it slows down and gets a bit more funky with lots of chopped percussion and strange atmospheric, almost droney rustlings.
10. FCC (Shit) Collage of rap samples, chopped and scratched over—another ID track introducing J Rocc.
*11. Energetic, dancey as hell. Killer breaks as always, seamlessly blended with some phasered soul samples.
12. Outro track: surreal, fantastic. Lots of strings parts lifted from B-movies and a chopped up Borges-wannabe vocal samples about “magic.” Ends in laughter.