Classic Material Bonus Mix #7: Hip Hop Club Breaks '93-98

The Classic Material ‘bonus’ mixes fill the gaps in the original Classic Material Hip Hop History mixtape series, exploring specific sub genres not covered in the main series. #7 delves into a sub genre which is not entirely easy to describe. In their day these tracks were mostly just referred to as 'Breakbeats', but that's not a useful definition because that had a quite different meaning years before and has been used (rightly or wrongly) to describe other styles since. Loops of big Hip Hop records arranged into club-friendly instrumentals, they were definitely Club records first & foremost so 'Hip Hop Club Breaks' it is. Armand Van Helden's AV8 is the label most commonly associated with the sound, although Nervous Records & its 'Strapped' sub label probably released nearly as many. A few other smaller labels like Slammin' and Kingsize also played their part. As with previous volumes the artwork reworks a popular sleeve of the era, in this case the AV8 generic sleeve & hype sticker.