Words by Teddy King and DJ Gravy
Recently, our own DJ Gravy and DJ Teddy King of Boundless NY partnered on Back in Time, a mixtape gathering some of the best hiphop remixes of ’90s dancehall tunes. As you may (or may not) recall, in the ’90s it was fairly common practice for popular dancehall singles–especially ones by street-oriented artists like Bounty Killer, Supercat and Louie Rankin–to be remixed by replacing the original dancehall riddims with familiar hip-hop beats, theoretically enhancing the tunes’ crossover appeal in the States. In a few cases, such as Salaam Remi’s mix of Supercat’s “Ghetto Red Hot” and Lil Jon & Paul’s (yes, that Lil Jon) twist on Capleton’s “Tour,” these would go on to be the best known versions of these respective songs. More often, they simply became underground classics, encapsulating a time when there truly was a great exchange of ideas between hip-hop and dancehall. This kind of stuff is totally our shit, so we had Teddy and Gravy go back in time once more and run down their favorite tunes from the period (and the mixtape, specifically). —Jesse Serwer