Wild Style Breakbeats - Kenny Dope's Kay-dee Records - Deluxe Book With Vinyl Records Stream 'Down By Law' [Listen]

Title: Wild Style Breakbeats Complied by Kenny Dope
Label: Kay-Dee / Get On Down
UK Release: 1st September 2014

KAY-DEE RECORDS, the online store and label owned and operated by Kenny Dope, takes things to the next level with the debut of its "Book Series."  Kenny's vision for Kay-Dee's first book was to create a premium set with a mix of well-known and never-before-seen "Wild Style" photos, in addition to liner notes detailing the stories behind the music of one of his favorite films.

Teaming up with GET ON DOWN, the record label and online boutique dedicated to presenting and celebrating music with unique packaging and exclusive extras, the two have come together to release this impressive and historically-significant musical trophy item: The Wild Style Breakbeats.

The Book features the following elements:
 
 13 songs total, spread out over seven "big hole" 45s (each with a different label color)
 
 Re-EQed audio with re-edited / extended audio versions of each song, modified from original source tapes
 
 Extensive liner notes in a 28-page book (with text by author Brian Coleman), including dozens of images - from "Wild Style" director Charlie Ahearn, among other sources - as well as interviews with Fab 5 Freddy, Chris Stein and GrandWizzard Theodore
 
 The 14th side (the B-side of the seventh 45) features unique etchings with different "Wild Style" graphics
 
 Unique "Kay-Dee Casebook" packaging - all seven 7-inches fit into a book as self-contained pages

"THE WILD STYLE BREAKBEATS" BACKGROUND

The year was 1981 and young, New York City-based filmmaker Charlie Ahearn was working on what would become one of the most important artifacts in the history of hip-hop music and culture: "Wild Style." He was scraping by to fund his efforts, which were far from a surefire money-making enterprise. Hip-hop wasn't even called "hip-hop" at the time, and it was still viewed as a fad, by both nationwide music listeners and a majority of the press.

But Ahearn and his indie film army knew that hip-hop wasn't going away, and that it was only starting to grow. They had seen it in the parks and clubs. They had felt its power, and saw how it affected young people.

As Ahearn and his crew continued to film scenes from "Wild Style" (which starred graffiti writers Lee Quinones and Lady Pink, among many other hip-hop and "Downtown" luminaries of the day), they reached an interesting juncture: what music would DJs in the film use in the soon-to-be-legendary live performance scenes?

The director - making a visionary move more than a half-decade before any sampling or music clearance lawsuits would appear - decided that he wanted to control the music to be used in these scenes. They would create their own breakbeats, instead of using known cuts of the day; for instance, The Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache" or James Brown's "Funky Drummer."

While Ahearn headed off to film more scenes, he left these important musical production duties to an up-and-comer who, thanks in part to his crucial role as Phade in the film, would grow to be one of hip-hop's and graffiti's most important ambassadors of the 1980s: Fred "Fab 5 Freddy" Brathwaite.