This week I discovered that it would have been the Birthday of Nujabes, and this month is the time of the year that he sadly passed away in a car crash. I discovered Nujabes at a young age having no idea of his influence on the worlds hip-hop scene; and indeed the scene of instrumental beat producers that I now admire. It wasn’t until I was introduced to J-Dilla in my early 20s (yes, it took that long) before I found out that both Nujabes and Dilla go hand in hand. Often referenced by the same admirers.

This lead to me thinking about a few things: At the age I discovered Nujabes I was watching an amazing anime called ‘Samurai Champloo’ (if you haven’t watched it go and check it out), the soundtrack to this was my first introduction to ‘trip-hop’, a sound that unknowingly a few years later I would fall in love with again but in a different world: ‘Beat Music’, a term that many musicians held in that category often ignore; simply the label given to the generalised sound (Check out this video ‘Not a Beat, Not a Scene‘)

ANYWAY. There here are a few iconic tracks/artists/albums that I discovered/heard around the time of Samurai Champloo, and this playlist is a small compilation of such. If I’m honest this music has been my only ever reference to Hip-Hop in my life. I jumped on the instrumental/beatmaker bandwagon before ever knowing what the lifestyle was; but I like to think that I have followed it subconsciously in some shape or form…