Strictly Butter | 02

Tabou (Roots Remix) - Les Nubians

Keep It Real - DJ LBR & Cut Killer

Going Home - DJ Mitsu The Beats

Back In The Day (Puff) - Erykah Badu

Ain't No Sunshine - J. Rocc Remix - Kashmere Stage Band

Concrete Waves DJ Premier Remix - Kendra Morris

Dont Cry ft Sparky T - Those Guys From Athens

Twice (Questlove’s Twice Baked Remix) - Robert Glasper Experiment Feat. Solange Knowles & The Roots

Brokenfolks - Georgia Anne Muldrow

New York (U.S.) - Madlib

Why Don't You" - Cleo Sol

Travel In Blue - Mos Def Feat Jazz Liberatorz

Fall in Love (Suns of Dub Mix feat. Addis Pablo Extended BDR Edit) - Slum Village

If I Ruled The World feat. Nas - Nina Simone & Lauryn Hill

Eye Know (7' Version) - De La Soul

“Tabou (Roots Remix)” — Les Nubians
Cameroonian sisters fold Francophone neo-soul into late-’90s hip-hop with their cover of Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo,” retitled “Tabou.” U.S. momentum came off “Makeda,” which helped their debut sell close to 400,000 in the States by 2003 (remarkable for a French-language record) and the album was tracked at Soul II Soul’s London studio. On wax, the “Tabou (Remixes)” 12 inch lines up Black Thought’s verse beside an 8:12 “Roots Remix” and a “W/O Rap” club/radio tool. In the U.K., “Tabou/Makeda” briefly charted as a double-A, and the album became the most successful French-language LP to chart in the U.S. in sixteen years.

“Keep It Real” — DJ LBR & Cut Killer
Paris tape-era standard: Cut Killer’s Mixtape N°15 – Keep It Real circulated on cassette in 1995, with later pressings and CD issues widening its reach. The series featured French DJs weaving U.S. rap cuts with local beats, scratches, and shout-outs. This installment floated under both Cut Killer solo issues and compilations with DJ LBR tags over time as the material was re-pressed and repackaged through the ’90s and mid-2010s.

“Going Home” — DJ Mitsu The Beats
From Celebration of Jay (Jazzy Sport, 2014), Mitsu’s Dilla salute where short cinematic interludes stitch Rhodes-and-drum vignettes; “Going Home” lands at ~1:57 on digital and 2:00 on some vinyl listings. The project dropped in August 2014 and later on Japanese vinyl (JSV-161) with mastering credited to Taiji Okuda (MSR+); Mitsu has since expanded the concept into numbered sequels on Bandcamp.

“Back in the Day (Puff)” — Erykah Badu
Second single off Worldwide Underground—written/produced with James Poyser and Rashad “Ringo” Smith and tracked between Electric Lady (NYC), The Studio (Philly), and Palmyra (Dallas). U.S. 12 inchs carried album/radio/instrumental versions for mix-show use. The track replays/samples Flight’s “Face to Face,” anchoring Badu’s Motown-distributed era to ’70s jazz-funk bedrock.

“Ain’t No Sunshine — J. Rocc Remix” — Kashmere Stage Band
A gem from Now-Again’s excavation of Conrad O. Johnson’s legendary Houston high-school funk orchestra. The Ain’t No Sunshine (Remixes) 12 inch (2006) paired J. Rocc’s head-nod dub-space mix with a Bonus Beat, arriving in parallel with reissue campaigns like Texas Thunder Soul; contemporary press singled out J. Rocc’s approach to archival funk for its distinct feel.

“Concrete Waves (DJ Premier Remix)” — Kendra Morris
Issued Nov 22, 2011 on Wax Poetics Records, the single arrived with a DJ Premier “320 Remix” and, in a crate-bait twist, a Serato Control Vinyl edition carrying control tone on the flip. Primo’s version tightens the kicks, swings the hats, and peppers siren jabs while Morris’s vocal stays raw and haunting.

“Don’t Cry (ft. Sparky T)” — Those Guys From Athens
A product of the modern Athens edit-scene: issued Dec 15, 2021, with scratches credited to Sparky T, rolled out concurrently on Bandcamp and SoundCloud. The cut pairs a plaintive chopped vocal with muted guitar, while the scratches act like call-and-response, carrying the arrangement across breakdowns.

“Twice (Questlove’s Twice Baked Remix)” — Robert Glasper Experiment feat. Solange & The Roots
From Black Radio Recovered: The Remix EP (Blue Note, 2012), where ?uestlove stretches Glasper’s Little Dragon cover into a 9:22 slow-burn with pocket-heavy Roots drums and Solange’s distinct ad-libs. The EP framed Black Radio’s crossover with remixer heavyweights (9th Wonder, Pete Rock, Georgia Anne Muldrow) and guests (Yasiin Bey, Bilal), formalizing a jazz-hip-hop feedback loop Blue Note continues to support.

“Brokenfolks” — Georgia Anne Muldrow
Self-written/produced/mixed on VWETO II (Mello Music Group, 2019), part of Muldrow’s long-running instrumental beat-suite series (VWETO = “gravity” in Amharic). Where Overload (2018) centered vocals, VWETO II returns to MPC-and-synth sketchbooks with 16 cuts of low-end and celestial chords built for head-nodding and grooving.

“New York (U.S.)” — Madlib
From Madlib Medicine Show #11: Low Budget High-Fi Music (2011), the campaign’s penultimate drop. The series’ art direction went full cult-worthy: silk-screened sleeves and even “Hennessy-infused paint” on a limited vinyl set. “New York (U.S.)” flips Black Ivory’s “Find the One Who Loves You” for Harlem soul threaded through Oxnard beat mastery.

“Why Don’t You” — Cleo Sol
Early-sequence standout (track 2) from Rose in the Dark (Forever Living Originals, 2020), produced by Inflo. The album cemented Sol’s solo profile beyond SAULT, landing on year-end lists across the U.K. press, painting a contemporary London soul palette that moves from low-light ballads to warm-timbre mid-tempos, with this cut among the most replayed and playlisted.

“Travel In Blue” — Mos Def feat. Jazz Liberatorz
A DJ-circulated blend that marries Mos Def/Yasiin Bey verses to a Jazz Liberatorz bed from the Clin d’Oeil/Fruit of the Past era, very much of late-’00s Paris beat circles. It travels now via uploads and channels as a mashup/unofficial pairing.

“Fall in Love (Suns of Dub Mix feat. Addis Pablo — Extended Edit)” — Slum Village
Born from LargeUp’s 2014 premiere push, Suns of Dub laid melodica (by Addis Pablo, Augustus Pablo's son) over J Dilla’s classic SV instrumental; first within a Walshy Fire/Major Lazer mixtape rollout, then as a standalone share for Dilla Month. A cross-Atlantic recut that honors both swing and time space.

“If I Ruled the World (feat. Nas)” — Nina Simone & Lauryn Hill
From Amerigo Gazaway’s Soul Mates concept The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon—imagined session between Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill (with Nas passages dropped in). The project lived as an acclaimed bootleg-to-limited-vinyl series via Gazaway’s site label, connecting Hill’s It Was Written-era hooks to Simone’s gospel-jazz.

“Eye Know (7 inch Version)” — De La Soul
Prince Paul’s jewel from 3 Feet High and Rising—peaked at No. 14 U.K. in 1989. The 7″/12″ version spawned “The Know It All Mix” and “The Kiss Mix,” while the original stacks a teacher’s-pet sample set: Steely Dan “Peg,” The Mad Lads “Make This Young Lady Mine,” Otis Redding’s whistle from “Dock of the Bay,” Lee Dorsey drums, plus extra Sly & The Family Stone hits. A sampler-era master class.

Listen to: Strictly Butter | 01