When Killer Mike and El-P set out to make Run the Jewels 2, they asked their fans to chip in. As you know by now, one of their tongue-in-cheek Kickstarter incentives was a promise to remix the entire album using cat sounds. They eventually followed through on that, which trigged a different promise that Just Blaze had made. In addition to his work on Meow the Jewels, the legendary producer is making available for (free) download many of the drum sounds he used in the first half of the 2000s. "Please note these are the raw, relatively unprocessed files straight out of my MPC," Just said, "in most cases, you’re not going to instantly press a pad and be like ‘OMG, IT’S THE SUCH AND SUCH SNARE!’ (though that will happen in a few cases). I used a lot of layering, compression, and EQ / Mix techniques to get these things to sound like the drums many of you knew and loved. Enjoy this starting point, and happy drumming!"

Of course, the first half of the 2000s feature some of Blaze's finest work, including beats on the first two installments of Jay Z's Blueprint trilogy, some of the iconic songs on The Black Album and hit singles by Cam'ron, Joe Budden, Usher, Fabolous and countless others. His first #1 Rap Chart hit was Cam and Juelz's "Oh Boy," from 2002's Come Home With Me--a beat that was long rumored to be earmarked for Jay Z.

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