The best and most exciting hip-hop DJs are usually the ones whose tastes run well beyond the traditionally understood confines of hip-hop; when you're willing to use everything from Nirvana to Roots Manuva and from house to dubstep in your sets, then you've transcended hip-hop and are creating something that has the potential to be kaleidoscopically personal and maybe even new. That's what Scratch Perverts (a three-man turntablist crew consisting of Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts, and Plus One) are famous for in their live sets. Beatdown, though, showcases their skills generally while also demonstrating how much they can change up the beats and textures and still remain in the general neighborhood of a single genre: in this case, dubstep. In addition to tracks from dubstep stalwarts like Skream ("Aggy Face") and Caspa ("Rat-A-Tat-Tat"), you'll hear strong hints of soca from Zomby ("Rumours & Revolutions"), even stronger hints of house from Mujava ("Township Funk ^Boy 8-Bit Remix]") and Jesse Rose ("Touch My Horn"), and good-time electro-funk from Zinc (with the very bouncy and fun "128 Trek"). You'll hear rapping and Rasta crooning, and toward the end you'll get a blast of straight-up jungle from Spor ("Aztec"). Not every track hits equally hard, but with 34 tracks to choose from and a dizzying variety of beats and flavors, you'll never be bored. ¯ Rick Anderson

Jun 2009

Taking its name from their annual Fabric party, the mix has been designed to showcase what you'd hear in a recent club set by the trio, and totally eschews the hip-hop sound that they're best known for. Instead, Beatdown features recent cuts from the dubstep (Joker, Skream, Digital Mystikz), electro-house (Jack Beats, Laidback Luke) and drum & bass (Sigma, Lomax, Logistics) scenes, but the trio are quick to refute any suggestion that they're jumping on any bandwagons. As Perverts member Tony Vegas explains, "We're not just scene hoppers! When you play as much of a mixed bag as we do, you can get the finger pointed. It’s not true - hopefully after hearing the mix, people will come and hear us play out and realise that. We’re not doing it for any other reason apart from the fact that this is what we do and what we're listening to; this is what we’re fans of."

Fellow Pervert Plus One also cites a change in people's listening habits as another reason why they felt able to release a mix so far from their usual style. "There was a time when people wouldn’t step out of their musical zone," he explains, "but now it’s like the more diverse the better! We’re not against where we’ve been musically in the past at all - but what’s the point in just playing old school hip-hop records, when there's so much fresh new music out there on your doorstep?"