DOPE JAMS "5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY"

Obviously, the surroundings have changed drastically since construction began in 2005. Bed-Stuy/Ft. Green, now known universally and nefariously as "Clinton Hill," has gone from borderline workers' ghetto to a respectable colony of Manhattan's petit-bourgeoisie to settle down and raise a family or spend $100 at the new "bistro" every night, drinking their miseries away. It's telling that with all this influx of money and traffic, Dope Jams has only become more of an alien where it once was at home with the freaks, weirdos, crazies and crack heads of just 5 years past. And yet, despite Brooklyn's existential deterioration, the shop still manages to attract the solitary NY rejectee, incapable of inserting themselves into the rackets of self-promotion that have become the norm in the new New York---culminating in the now monthly "LIFE" parties, debauched and intoxicated affairs hosted in a transformed store space full with club-calibre sound-system.

“Dope Jams - Harness The Magic : 5 Year Anniversary” is the second annual anniversary mix tape showcase, offering a glimpse into the backstreets traversed and chronicled at Brooklyn's headquarters of underground dance music over the past 5 years. Vintage tape vocal house, floating synth-laced rave, demolishing Howitzer techno, dream-spawned electronic psychedelia---all driving head on into one another with the unwavering fanaticism of a suicide bomber. Miniature theses sown throughout the mix open a window to the off mindset at the shop---perpetuated by years of absurdity and repetition---a glimmer of the very real unreality of the twilight zone that is Dope Jams. Released in conjunction with the 5 Year Anniversary party, October 15, 2011, Dope Jams is a big lugie in the face of the Green Goblin and all the other haters that have been rooting from day one for Dope Jams to fall by the waste-side. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the strange march of social rejects, abject lunatics and ball-busting, silver-tongued smart-asses, the shop is here to stay---propagating its beautiful and deranged aural agenda for as long as people are willing to stop thinking and start listening.

“I don’t understand that shit, how you can be off-key and it works!” - Mike Ononaiye