Ghetto Palms 100: Refix Special #2: The Very Best / Los Rakas / Busy Signal/ Bunji Garlin / Chief Boima

Photographer Philipppe Macleland
May 05, 2010

There’s been so much damn genre-splicing going on around here that I was literally forced, gun to my head, to record a refix special edition part II—plus I had too much fun doing the first one. Accordingly, I started hitting up my Ghetto Palms colleagues weeks ago, reeling in exclusives and pressuring them to put final mixdowns on their works in progress. Now that the results are in, the most recurrent tropes in the refix Olympics seem to be key pieces of Gyptian, Natalie Storm and Rihanna (more on her later) but Assassin and The Very Best also get it in and Busy is always available for cross-island traffic. In the process of compiling this, I think I hit every corner in the five-sided Ghetto Palms universe—ragga soca, techno rumba, Panamanian Indocrunk, UK funkment, and even the real-life 'gyptian shit from Black Cairo—before I went down a Nuyorican tribal house wormhole.


Ghetto Palms 100 RefiXX Blend:
Los Rakas, “Abrazame” (Uproot Andy refix/Exxclusive!)
Los Rakas, “Abrazame” (Hold Yuh riddim)
DJ Sabo, “Latino Megamix”
Chief Boima, “Baobab Connect” Techno Rumba refix EP (Dutty Artz)
Natalie Storm, “Look Pon Me” (De Tropix refix/ Exxclusive!)
Assassin f. Voicemail, “Skip to My Lou” (DJ Waxfiend refix)
Mahmoud Fadi, “United Nubians,” (Saidi-style tribal refix) Egypt Noir
The Very Best, “Nsokoto” (DJ Sabo deep house refix)
Bunji Garlin f. Busy Signal “This Is How We Party”

Download: Ghetto Palms 100 RefiXX Blend

Things kick off with Uproot Andy’s refix of the Los Rakas track “Abrazame”—itself a reggaespañol refix of “Hold Yuh,” hence the double XX. You might think that this is my favorite shit ever just because it starts off with a bhangra-ish Apache Indian-style drum loop. But, No.  It’s because of the wicked dial-up modem harmonics on the bass melody. That’s an exclusive, BTW, as is Instinct’s De Tropix edit of “Look Pon Me.” But the Chief Boima joint (the only non-refix on a refix EP with versions by Uproot Andy, DJ Rupture and Matt Shadetek) and the United Nubians freakout are both available for purchase on releases called Techno Rumba and Egypt Noir, respectively. Go buy them.

In other news from around the Ghetto Archipelago: veteran singjay Tanya Stephens gave away her new LP Infallible here. Congo rockstar Baloji debuted his fly new video here. And I was just told that Montreal-based radio/google-proof blog Masalacism has decided to stop beating them and join them by launching their own label. Stay tuned!

From The Collection:

Ghetto Palms
Ghetto Palms 100: Refix Special #2: The Very Best / Los Rakas / Busy Signal/ Bunji Garlin / Chief Boima