This is straight from the homie super producer K-Murdock:
Last year I was fortunate enough to be involved (via the homie Random) in a pretty dope remix project featuring Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” album. The concept was simple; Flip Jigga’s acapellas to new, video game-sampled beats! The project contains 10 tracks which sample everything from “Resident Evil” to “Final Fantasy” to “Castlevania”, and you can download it for free HERE! Also, for nerd-dom sake, listen to my personal favorite of the 3 remixes i did below, and see if you can figure out what classic game i used for it…
About a year and a half ago, the one thing that helped this blog make a name for itself was the Amercan Gangster Remix. It’s pretty much all we posted for two months straight [see here]. Well it’s a year and a half later and people are still remixing Jay-Z’s American Gangster. Just recently I got submissions from two resident Nottinghammers — Isbjerg and Young K, both reppin’ their native countries with Danish Gangster and Canadian Gangster respectively. We decided to put these two remix albums up head to head to see who has the best overall remix album. So if you will, download the remix albums after the cut and tell us what you think. Feel free to compare individual remixes in the comments.
It’s not available yet, but dude put together this bad ass video for his “Blue Magic” remix to build the hype. After seeing the video, I had to put it up here. You wouldn’t believe that I still receive American Gangster remixes to this day! Most of them, I end up deleting, but this vid caught my eye. This is Mydus, out of Miami… check the vid!
It’s been a LONG TIME since we’ve posted an American Gangster remix album on the site. Remember those days when that’s basically all we posted? Well my homie J Clyde hit me up with his version and I could not resist the post.
Most of you all know I live in Miami now, but my roots are the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area and I will always rep my hometown! J Clyde, who comes at us from Norfolk VA, has a pretty impressive resume; producing for acts such as Phaorohe Monche, Styles P, and Smiff-N-Wesson, to name a few.
This remix is definitely worth a listen… so what are you waiting for? Hit that download!
It’s only been a month and a half since I stopped posting the American Gangster remixes, but lately my email seems to have become flooded with new remix albums. I can’t comment on any of these as I have not had the time, nor the desire, to listen. But I figured I would put them up to share with you all. Enjoy!
I’m not posting these American Gangster remix albums on the regular anymore, but every now and then there will be one that is definitely worth posting. I could not turn my back on this particular one. Jay over old school beats like Public Enemy, D.O.C, and N.W.A.? This one is classic! Hence the name, Classic Gangster.
This was done by a couple of radio DJs up in Vancouver Canada, called Jay Swing & Flipout. They really did a great job with this and that album cover is amazing!
If you love old school rap, I’m sure you’ll like Classic Gangster.
Just check out the tracklist….
Jay-Z vs. Ice-T – Intro
Jay-Z vs. Boogie Down Productions – Pray
Jay-Z vs. The D.O.C. – American Dreamin
Jay-Z vs. Big Daddy Kane – Hello Brooklyn 3.0
Jay-Z vs. Kool G. Rap – No Hook
Jay-Z vs. Public Enemey – Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)
Yours truly has been mentioned in an article over at RapReviews.com concerning hip hop marketing and the impact of the hip hop remix album. It’s an excellent read and I recommend everyone go check it out. On top of it all, the author of the article (Nervous) compiled her own ‘best of’ compilation of the American Gangster remixes. It’s called American Compilation. Jump straight to the article…
I know I said that I would stop posting American Gangster remixes at the end of January, but I just had to make an exception for the one remix album most of us have been waiting for. I gotta give props to Nofrillz over at Can’t Stop Fanatics for droppin’ this 2 days ago. Wait… 2 days ago? Where have I been? I am really surprised that we all did not catch wind of it over here.
At any rate, it’s here. This is 9th Wonder’sAmerican Wonder. I’m not sure what happened to the original title (Black American Gangster) and I’m not even sure if this is an official release or not as there is no mention of it on 9th’s web site or MySpace. Ironically enough, if we were still doing American Gangster rounds over here, this one would be Round 99. Crazy!
Anyway, I haven’t listened to it yet and so far there hasn’t been any sign of a cover anywhere (maybe it’s in the download). But hey, this is 9th Wonder… I had to get this one to you all as soon as possible. Even if I am 2 days late. Enjoy!
EDIT: Ok, apparently this is not 9th Wonder’s American Gangster remix album. But it is 9th Wonder’s beats. Apparently someone took some of 9th’s old beats to make this remix. It’s actually not bad, so I’ll keep it up here. You can read 9th Wonder’s response to this mix here.
Got a few more remixes coming through. Thanks to Jordan from Thick Magazine who hooked me up with these first two!
Round 98
I think I got a new favorite right here!! How many time’s have I said that? But for real, this whole album is smooth! You all are really gonna like these remixes.
It’s called The Resident Remixes and is produced by Saint (out of Long Island, NY) and Muneshine (from Ontario, Canada).
I’ve never heard of these guys before, but they really brought back the essence of 90s hip hop. This version give American Gangster more of a throwback vintage Jay-Z style of production.
It’s hard to pick my favorite tracks off this, cuz they’re all so good.
Go ahead and download this one for sure… you will not be disappointed.
I was wondering if someone would mix Jay with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Well someone did… this is American Chili Gangster, produced by HANDCANCEL. I don’t know much on this dude as his MySpace is kind of bare, but if you’re looking for a funky American Gangser… this is it.
Even though I’m hip hop, I still listen to other types of music on occasion. I grew up on the Chili Peppers, so I’m very familiar with the samples used here. In high school I played trumpet in a funk/ska band for a little while. We did Chili Peppers and Primus covers. So this mix brought me back. Blood Sugar Sex Magic is on my iPod today!
So don’t sleep on this one… it’s pretty good as well.
This next one is called American ThugBoss and is from Darkness. I haven’t been able to download this one yet, so I can’t tell you how it is. Dude has it up over at his web site, but I think he’s been having problems with his link. So if you all wanna go over and check it out, head to his web site and see if you can download it. It kept timing out on me, but I wanted to post this before the week is up.
Ok, I was finally able to download and listen to this one and I’m glad I did! It’s nothing like I was expecting. Initially when I read “ThugBoss”, I was expecting some real hard hitting beats. You know, the kind that make your ears bleed.
Well, this joint is nothing like that. It is super soulful! Very solid production right here! This is one to get, if you haven’t already. Good job Darkness! BTW, did you get that name from the Dave Chappelle skit? LOL “Darkness!” “I’m Rick James…”
Peeps are trying to get their American Gangster remixes in before the end of the week, so I got a huge update for you all right here. I’ll actually be glad when this weeks over… it took me 2 hours to put this post together!
Round 95
This first one is actually one that I feel like I’ve been waiting for since I first starting posting these remixes. I remember when this cat contacted me and told me he had one coming. A month later, I thought he had tossed the project, but here we are with the debut of Que R!CO’s Hispanic Gangster (The Que R!CO Sessions).
Que R!CO definitely came correct with this remix album. There was previously a Hispanic Gangster from some cats from Spain, but this project is totally different. Que R!CO mixed Jay with the great salsa king Willie Colon. Living in Miami, I can definitely appreciate this one. On top of that, he threw in some Scarface dialog… nice. I don’t think anyone has ever sampled salsa in a hip hop record before. Don’t let the salsa through you though… this remix is not one to be slept on! Great job Que R!CO!
Download Hispanic Gangster (The Que R!CO Sessions):
This is another hot one and I love the title… Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster. It comes from producer Mac-Niff from Cincinnati, Ohio and DJ Graffiti out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This album hits hard! I’m listening to “Say Hello” and DAMN! Mac-Niff shows us how good it feels to be a gangster… LOL.I got a feeling we’ll be hearing more from Mac-Niff in the near future. This cat is only 21-years old and he’s been making beats for about 7 years. Check out his page below to hear more of his work.
So if you’re looking for something to bump in your car, go ahead and download this one. It’s quite good!
This one is International Gangster and comes from BOAC out of San Francisco, California. BOAC says he named it International Gangster cuz he sampled music from all over the world for this project.
I’m not familiar with BOAC’s other work, but apparently he’s been around awhile working with such artists as Hieroglyphics and Living Legend. Check his MySpace for a full discography.
As for the remixes… yup, they’re pretty hot. I love the “Hello Brooklyn” mix in particular. But the rest of the cuts are great too.
And big ups for the cover… simple, yet professional.
This last one was actually posted in the CBox a few days ago. it’s not bad, so I figured I’d put it up with the rest of these. It comes from DJ Ferno Boudreaux and DJ Dee both out of Arkansas and the project is called Aquemini Gangster, using samples from Outkast’s Aquemini.
This works alright. It’s really not bad, but I’m not really sure Outkast beats were meant to be mixed with Jay-Z. After I listened to this remix, I went back and listened to Aquemini and surprisingly Jay’s voice doesn’t have the same impact on these beats as Big Boi and Andre.
Overall, the project isn’t bad, but it does get boring after a while.
We got a few more American Gangster remixes coming through today. Before we get started though, I’m tossing around the idea of starting up a monthly contest over here. The details haven’t been worked out yet, but I was thinking of throwing up some acapellas at the 1st of the month for producers to remix and take submissions until the end of the month. The prize hasn’t been determined yet, but I was curious to see if there would be enough people interested in participating. Let me know if you all think this is a good idea of not. Also, if anyone knows a good source for acapella albums, let me know. I’m having a had time finding some good ones. On that note, I think it’s about time to wrap up the American Gangster remixes. If we start a new contest on the 1st, then I think I’ll stop posting American Gangster remixes on the 31st of this month. Ok, well let’s get on with these next few remixes!
Round 89
This first one is called American Moonshine and is from DJ Ingwell, who comes out of South Bay, California.
I was really impressed when I saw the album cover… looks like something for a movie trailer. Production-wise, this mix is pretty hot. DJ Ingwell definitely did his thing with these mixes. I’m gonna go out and say this this remix is up there with my favorites. I wish I would have gotten a hold of this before I put my compilations together. There are very few skippers on here. The only two tracks that don’t work for me are “Roc Boys”, which samples EWF’s “September”; and “Fallin”, whcih samples Alicia Key’s “Fallin”. The “Roc Boys” remix starts off great with the classic EWF joint, but when Jay comes in the pace slows down and it doesn’t really work for me. On “Fallin”, hearing Alicia Keys sped up like that just doesn’t work at all.
Sorry to have to point out the negatives, but the rest of the album is HOT. This one’s definitely a downloader!
This next one comes from Major Eight and is called The Frank Lucas Suite.
I gotta be honest here and say that this remix is amateurish to say the least. This would be the perfect example of when keepin’ it real goes wrong. No disrespect to Major Eight, but I gotta stay true to my opinion.
A few of the tracks have potential, but overall the project falls flat. To begin with they chose to release this mix as one big mp3 file, which is a huge turnoff from the get-go. Next the sound levels are all over the place and the sound quality is only at 128 kbps. I don’t know if this was intentional, but it can be tough on the ears when you’re wearing headphones. Finally, the acapellas don’t match up half the time and when they do match up the production style doesn’t fit Jay’s flow.
Download this one if you must, but I honestly couldn’t get through the whole thing.
Last, but not least, we got an American Gangster remix project from DJ Profit. This one’s pretty good. He used some pretty familiar samples and makes this one a definite party album! No cover available, but that’s ok… you can def rock this one.
Seems like there’s a lot of drama going on over at HipHopDX concerning their American Gangster remix contest. Head on over there and read the comments to see what’s going on. We all have our favorites and many of us disagree on their top 10, but I know it was tough for them to go through 130 remixes. I wanna try an experiment. I just set up a poll over to the right with the same top 10 that HipHopDX has. Vote for your favorite here and let’s see how our poll compares with HipHopDX’s final results. We’ll end the poll on January 29th just like them. They already have over 1,000 votes, but let’s play it out anyway.
This next remix comes from one of the finalists in the contest. This is Sal The Savior’s The Gangster & The Savior. The are a few mixes in the contest that we never saw here on my blog and I’m not gonna go over there and collect them all, but Sal shot me an email last night and gave me a link. This has some nice tracks on it. I’m really feeling “Hello Brooklyn”, “Sweet”, and “Say Hello”.
Sal didn’t have a cover for his project, so I shot the link over to Krome to see what she thought and the result is a banging album cover. You gotta open it full size to do it justice though. Another classic cover! One of HipHopDX’s prizes for the winner is an album cover. I’d like to see if they can do better than this! Haha…. yeah Kromey!
And I thought this site has received a lot of American Gangster remix albums… HipHopDX has reportedly received close to 130 remix albums for their American Gangster Remix contest! The contest, which ended on December 31, 2007, is nearing it’s final stages now with HipHopDX narrowing it down to the top 10 contenders.
Now the vote is in our hands as HipHopDX is letting their readers decide who gets the top spot. I was actually surprised to see that 4 out of the 10 listed I had never even heard of. If these are that good, then I guess we need to hunt them down. Overall I agree with some of their choices, but there are quite a few of my favorites that are missing from the list. But it’s possible that those remixes were never submitted to HipHopDX.
Here are HipHopDX’s Top 10 (in no particular order, I believe):
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from listening to all these American Gangster remixes, it’s that there is a lot of great talent coming out of Canada. Too often, us Americans tend to forget that there is life outside our borders and hearing all the great remixes from all over the world has really open up my eyes to the fact that hip hop is worldwide.
This remix project comes from Craig Rip out out of Vancouver. It’s called Canadian Hoser. Obviously Craig has a sense of humor, if you look at the cover. But don’t let it fool you… his beats are hot. Craig told me that he wasn’t really going for a concept here except he wanted to proved “HEAVY beats”. I think he succeeded. My favorite cut is his remix of “Sweet”. That beat is just of the hook!
Craig Rip is no newcomer to the game either. Making beats since the mid-90s, Craig made his production debut in 2005 and has produced tracks for the likes of Masta Ace, MF Grimm, and Wordsworth, among others. Give this one a listen… I’m sure your like it.
With the overwhelming popularity of the first compilation I put together last week, there was no question that I had to put together a second volume. At the time of this writing, American Gangster: Best of The Remixes, Vol. I has had over 1,000 downloads! That’s simply amazing to me. I guess some people just didn’t want to download and listen to all the remixes. I can appreciate that; that’s why today I bring you American Gangster: Best of The Remixes, Vol. II.
I honestly believe this one is just as good, if not better than the first compilation. We had a handful of producers who were so good for the first one, that we just had to find a spot for them on the second one. We also have a few producers that I wanted so bad to fit on the first one, but there was no room left. Then we have some hot tracks that were just released since the first compilation was put together. These tracks, along with the first compilation, really are the best of the best.
Many thanks again go out to Krome, who put together an amazing album cover! Krome also designed most of the new headers you see on top of the site. If you’re looking for a graphic artist to do some work for you, hit Krome up at www.kromey.com. I’ve been having problems lately with MegaUploa, so I had to upload to Rapidshare… hope this isn’t a problem for anyone.
I’m not posting these American Gangster remix albums on the regular anymore, but every now and then there will be one that is definitely worth posting. I could not turn my back on this particular one. Jay over old school beats like Public Enemy, D.O.C, and N.W.A.? This one is classic! Hence the name, Classic Gangster.
I know I said that I would stop posting American Gangster remixes at the end of January, but I just had to make an exception for the one remix album most of us have been waiting for. I gotta give props to Nofrillz over at
This next one comes from Major Eight and is called The Frank Lucas Suite.
And I thought this site has received a lot of American Gangster remix albums… 
