January Is For Beats: Peter Phillips

I was just going to write “HORNS” for this but I figured I might as well actually write something. If you haven’t heard of Peter Phillips then you are reading this in some parallel universe where he turned out to be a mildly retarded elementary school janitor with a stuttering problem. There would also need to be some weird rip in the fabric of reality to allow this post to pass through unaltered. I’m assuming none of that is true so, needless to say, you’ve heard of the Chocolate Boy Wonder. I spent some time with “Mecca & The Soul Brother” this weekend and really enjoyed it again. I hadn’t listened to it for several years now but it still holds up and The Creator still says “what,” “yeah,” or “ow” at the end of each bar. CL has always been one of my favorite MC’s and the two of them made a classic record. But this is about Petey and his crates. The dude put little beats snippets in front of songs as if to say, “yeah, I could have used this but I have too many beats so check it out.” His use and abuse of Funk, Jazz & R&B was exceptional. The drum work on T.R.O.Y. is better than 99.999999999999999% of what comes out today. Still. That record came out nearly 20 years ago. By the way. Yes. You are now officially old. He made the horn riff a mainstay in hip-hop production and his chopping of samples, while not really as prominent on their debut developed and was mastered over the next few years. Also, when’s the last time an artists did all of their own remixes on a single. And speaking of remixes… He invented them! I mean after Puffy of course.
After the Main Ingredient, The Soul Brother #1 went on to do a lot of great work including the INI project, Soul Survivor and a slew of remix work. CL’s “American Me” was horribly disappointing. He’s still one of my favorite MC’s though. I’m putting up their Rare Tracks" release, which was stuff done between Mecca and Main Ingredient.
Enjoy. Pace.

01 - Searching (Remix)
02 - Take You There (Remix)
03 - Lots Of Lovin' (Remix)
04 - I Got A Love (Remix)
05 - It's Not A Game (Vocal)
06 - Mecca & The Soul Brother (Wig Out Mix)
07 - Creator (EP Mix - Vocal)
08 - Straighten It Out (Vocal Remix)
09 - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) (Vibes Mix)
10 - Get On The Mic (Remix)




"Pete" rhymes with "beat"