Summer's winding down here in New York, that specific stretch in late August where the heat's still around but everyone can feel it changing. It's the kind of week that has us reaching back into the crate, and this one kept coming up.
In 1991, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith made "Summertime," a record so good it hit number one on the R&B charts, cracked the Hot 100 top five, and won a Grammy, then just never left rotation. Nearly two decades later, Jeff and Mick decided one song wasn't enough anymore, and built an entire mixtape series around the feeling of it instead. Ten-plus volumes later, running every summer since 2010, it's still going.
The full piece covers how the series started, what kept it alive for over a decade when almost nothing else from that era survived, and where to stream the whole run.
From the Crate
"What kept it alive over ten-plus volumes wasn't reinvention, it was reliability."
Mick, on why Summertime has outlasted almost everything else from the mixtape era.
One More Thing
Mick sat down with us for a full Collector Spotlight interview, on Dillagence, building concept tapes instead of chasing exclusives, and why he dropped "DJ" and "Boogie" from his own name. Coming soon.
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— Diony C.