Music

Your Mix Fix: Chronic Sound (Mad Shak)

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The word mixtape has plenty of different interpretations. It used to be that mixtapes were actually DJ sets recorded on cassette tapes, but with the coming of the digital music age, the name remained the same, but the definition expanded. Nowadays, people call mixtapes many different things, some of which are not necessarily mixed and most of which were never taped. Here we try to cover them all. In this column, Juan Data gives you a worthy one every week.

DJ: Chronic Sound (Mad Shak)
MIXTAPE: Spanish Shots

They say nobody has ever died of a ganja overdose and maybe that has something to do with the excessive length of this mixtape. Other musical genres have to be consumed in moderation, but with reggae, you can keep going and going riding that riddim forever. Reggae fans never seem to reach a saturation point and say, “OK, let’s take a break, or listen to something else now.”

Chronic Sound is a Madrid-based reggae sound system formed by three selectahs: Salva Ranks, Crezy Koce and Mad Shak who’s the one responsible for putting together this almost infinite mix.

The reggae/dancehall scene in Spain is huge and this 3-hour-long set (divided into two CDs) is living proof of that. There are one hundred and seventy eight songs total – yeah, you read that right – and all of them were released in 2013 by Spanish artists, some with old school pedigree (Mr. Rango, La Puta Opepé), lots of them new names I’ve never heard before.

You better have a large stash to burn if you plan to listen to the whole thing (also, tell your boss you won’t get anything done today).

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