Rhythm Roulette

Mass Appeal is kicking off 2014 with a special installment with DC's own Damu The Fudgemunk. Repping his Redefinition Records, Damu stops by Fat Beats and hits up their drumkit to school us on his history and process when it comes to putting together beats and searching for "drum breaks." Enjoy!

In this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal brought Mr. Green out to Green Village Junk shop in Bushwick. Then, we headed back with the New Jersey native to his home studio in Brooklyn. He put the Barbara Streisand, Dr. Shivago, and Henry Mancini wax to the needle, ran some samples through his Mashine, and created a slapper.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents the co-founder of Fools Gold Records, Nick Catchdubs. The man who wears many hats has also added solo-artist/producer to his resume, with an upcoming project titled Smoke Machine featuring IAMSU, Troy Ave, Heems, World's Fair, MNDR, B.I.C. and more. Check out above to see what Nick makes out of a few Latin records and "Vans" by The Pack.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal decided to stray away from sample based hip hop beats and explored the possibilities of sampling for other genres of music. Chicago born, Brooklyn resident Brenmar helped lead the way as he created a what we feel could easily be a huge hit in the club.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal linked up with one of our favorite producers here at Mass Appeal, Black Milk. Fresh off the release of his LP No Poison No Paradise and Glitches in the Break EP, Black Milk invited us down to his studio in Dallas, TX to participate in the blindfolded challenge.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette Mass Appeal presents the one and only legendary Erick Sermon - 1/2 EPMD and 1/4 of Def Squad.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents the legendary Ski Beatz. From legendary tracks like Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents" to modern day classics like Curren$y's Pilot Talk, Ski has been laying legendary production down for more than 20 plus years.

Digga met Mass Appeal at 125th and Madison in the heart of Harlem for Rhythm Roulette, where he blindly copped some records from a local street vendor. After pulling some Peabo Bryson, Chaka Khan Live, and Johnny Mathis, Digga brought us back to his classroom at a middle school in Harlem, where he quickly crafted a banger using his midi keyboard and Reason.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal travels up to “The D” to meet up with the King of ’97 Cool Edit chopping— Apollo Brown.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents 1/3 of Dilated Peoples and member of the World Famous Beat Junkies, DJ Babu. Many don’t know that along with being a highly skilled battle DJ (known for his legendary “Blind Alley” beat juggle), the ITF champion also gets it in on the production tip. From Super Duck Breaks to The Beat Tape series, Babu crafts hip hop shit that knocks, while managing to be progressive at the same time.

In this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal took Cardiak to Amoeba Records in Los Angeles to make his blindfolded picks for the records he would be attempting to flip. Little did Cardiak know, he would pick out some self-described "bullshit." But that didn't stop him from making the best out of his picks, primarily using Allure's "Kool Wit Me" to craft his patented hard-hitting wave of layered funk. Cardiak did this shit pretty effortlessly, despite almost striking out three times on his record picks.

For this installment of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents Jonwayne, the man who tears down shows in Teva sandals. We took Jonwayne to Poobah Records in Pasadena, CA to pick out three records while blindfolded. The fun begins once we start to witness what he came up with. Out of the three records, he ended up going drawing joints from The Ritchie Family's Give Me A Break, as well as The Stylistics' Sun & Soul record he considered using to be "cheating," because it's a given that there is good shit on there. Nonetheless, your boy crafted two joints back-to-back for your listening pleasure.

On this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents Mac Miller aka Larry Fisherman. Traveling out to LA, we headed over to Record Surplus where Mac went into the Jazz selection and got his fingers dusty. Heading back to his studio, Mac quickly sifted through the three records and began crafting the skeleton of the beat before finishing the production by playing keys and guitar over the track.

We’re back with another episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents Stones Throw producer and emcee Pyramid Vritra. We took PV over to Mount Analog in Los Angeles, where he immediately got down to business. After making his picks, we headed to the studio so he could get to flippin’ his selections. The final result is a hazy, hard-hitting jawn that you can easily vibe out to.

In celebration of Oh No and Alchemist producing the score for Rockstar Video Game's GTAV, we present to you a flip on Rhythm Roulette. GTAV soundtrack in stores now on CD and vinyl. While each producer has a unique spin on how they sample, Oh No’s Rhythm Roulette is truly one of a kind, as he took to a video game store and selected three Nintendo 64 games to sample from. Using sounds from NWO/WCW Revenge, Karate Champ, and Nascar ’99, Oh No had his work cut out for him. However, he didn’t stress one bit, and proceeded to play all the games, then make a beat out of the sounds he recorded during gameplay.

For this episode of Rhythm Roulette, Mass Appeal presents DJ Nu-Mark, aka Uncle Nu. He picked up three records—The Rockettes, George Benson, and Charlie Mingus—and created something magical. In fact, the final result was quite puzzling, in a “How the fuck did you do that?” kind of way.