This is a collection of beats and loops I created between the ages of 14-18, during the years of 1999-2003. They were recorded at home in my basement, bedroom, and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia while I was in middle school and high school...

I convinced my dad to get me my first sampler for Christmas in 1998 at age 13. It was a little blue Yamaha SU10. Very few of my family or friends really understood what a sampler was, or why I wanted one so badly. When people asked me or my dad what I had gotten for Christmas, there was always a lot of explaining involved. I, however, had been eagerly awaiting this moment, making mental and physical lists of songs I was going to loop, and hearing breakbeat symphonies in my head. The first thing I did when I initially powered on the sampler was loop up the first couple of bars from Grover Washington Jr.'s 1972 version of "Mercy Mercy Me". I'll never forget that ecstatic rush of hearing that groove loop over and over with an uncontrollable gleeful smile plastered across my face. I wasted no time in going through and grabbing other loops from my growing collection of CD's and LP's. At this point I didn't really grasp the concept of sequencing or chopping samples, so my creations were exclusively loop-based. I devised a primitive method of beat-matching samples with varying tempos by recording and bouncing things back and forth from the sampler and my Vestax 4-track cassette machine while utilizing its pitch control knob. The first beat tape I ever made is tragically lost to the ages - I brought it to school to let one of my classmates borrow it and I never got it back. I did make a few others though, and the first portion of beats you hear on this collection were ripped from the surviving cassettes of that era that I still have in my possession.

The beats that make up the second portion of this collection - from the '02-'03 era - were crafted on a desktop PC using a free demo version of Pro Tools during my senior year of high school. My older brother had taken some audio engineering/production classes at a school in Ohio, and when he came back home he kept telling me about this program called Pro Tools and how easy it would be to make beats on it. One day we downloaded a free demo version of it (which obviously had some limitations that I had to work around) and he showed me the basic techniques of cutting up and editing digital audio files. Once I got the hang of it I quickly became obsessed with using it to craft beats, and it helped me take a huge leap forward in terms of chopping up drums and rearranging portions of music instead of merely throwing some loops together. For the next couple of years I would often come straight home from high school, sit down at the computer, and mess with beats for hours. I would sample MP3's downloaded from Audiogalaxy or Kazaa, I would rip audio from LP's using Soundforge, or I would put things on my SU10 sampler first and then dump them into the computer. What you hear on this collection are tracks from that era that have survived the ages.

Some of these probably aren't the hottest beats I ever made, but they all have immense historical and sentimental value to me, and I'm proud of them. They come from an innocent, simple time when I was just figuring out how to craft these sounds. They're something very personal to me. They are the initial part of a journey that I really was taking *alone*. There was no YouTube. I couldn't Google shit. I didn't even know any other beatmakers, producers, or DJ's in my town that could teach me anything. It was always just me, alone, in a room with some equipment - chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams. What I was doing wasn't cool. Most of my peers thought I was a weirdo and couldn't care less. Creating these sounds was an anti-social endeavor. In a sense, I felt like it was me against the world, and all I had to instruct and assist me were the recordings produced by my heroes - RZA, DJ Premier, Erick Sermon, Beatminerz, Showbiz, Diamond D, Beatnuts, Prince Paul, The Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, E-Swift, Mista Lawnge, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Peanut Butter Wolf, El-P and so many more...I dedicate this collection to them, and to my older brother Joe who has always been a musical and technical guiding light for me.

Oh, and special shout out to the OG Rap Sample FAQ website and mailing list which were crucial resources for me - I stumbled upon them around '97-'98 and that twist of fate played a huge role in all of this... members.accessus.net/~xombi

PEACE
-SJ

**BTW, the cover photo is me standing on my back porch in 1998**