VA - Ultimate Breaks & Beats The Complete Collection [Remastered] (2006)

Street Beat offers all 174 tracks from the crucial Ultimate Breaks & Beats-- originally released in 25 volumes between 1986-91-- on two mp3 CDs, a collection that serves as a roadmap for the history and evolution of sample-era hip-hop.

1986 was rap's first truly explosive year, when the still-nascent genre began to expand and the previously unheard of became possible: Run-D.M.C. went triple-platinum, the Beastie Boys became rap's first white superstars, the Juice Crew/Boogie Down Productions "Bridge Wars" set the early gold standard for beef, Ice-T turned Schooly D's gangsta flair into a West Coast turning point with "6'N the Mornin'", and Public Enemy laid the groundwork for a new era when they signed to Def Jam.

That same year, the pairing of remixer Louis Flores and a limo driver and record collector in his early forties named Lenny Roberts set the rap world on its ear in an entirely different way. Street Beat catalogue number SBR-501, a six-song, 19 1/2-minute EP better known as Ultimate Breaks & Beats, was originally supposed to be a quick go-to for less-established and/or cratedigging-averse DJs, a collection of party-rocking tracks that were tweaked and remixed to facilitate easy mixing and beat-juggling. But as the 808 and its boom-clap beats waned in the face of affordable sampler technology, the Ultimate Breaks & Beats series-- 25 volumes in all, released between 1986-91-- quickly developed another function: a do-it-yourself production kit.

Coupled with that year's James Brown comp In the Jungle Groove (which reintroduced "Funky Drummer" and a ton of other Clyde Stubblefield breaks into the hip-hop production repertoire), the Ultimate Breaks & Beats series would prove to be a roadmap for the history and evolution of the sample-era hip-hop beat, even if hardcore wax-hoarders and MPC wizards considered the series' divulging of decades-old sources to be nothing short of snitching.