2006: Of Mexican Descent - Exitos y Mas Exitos [Deluxe Edition]

Exitos y Mas Exitos is a lost hip-hop classic, originally released in 1997 as a vinyl-only EP. With production help from Antimc, KutMaster Kurt, and Elvin “Nobody” Estela, the original seven-track EP appeared alongside Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus, at the beginning of hip-hop’s big leftfield backpacker movement (thank Gawd for that movement). “Money Is Meaningless” just predates Dose One’s style with slightly more political lyrics, while the cinematic beat for “Lady Of The Lake” tells as much of a story as the words of 2mex and Xololanxinxo. This re-release augments the original with almost every other track Of Mexican Descent ever caught on tape, but there’s not much in the way of filler. Actually, the bonus tracks give the short-lived LA outfit a surprising amount of depth. The 1993-recorded, Chong-sampling, tape-warped “Something Cool” beats art-hop and Quasimoto to the punch by years, yet it’s supposedly a skit -- so even the filler is killer. In sight of this, it becomes clear what a tragedy it is they couldn’t keep up the momentum in North America. Whatever “it” is, they had it with tons to spare.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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