Soul Boulders 2

After a long wait, and a good dose of elbow grease, 
we are proud to announce that Soul Boulders 2 is officially out today!


Matthew Africa & DJ B.Cause - Soul Boulders 2 Snippets by djbcause


To purchase the mix in digital mp3 format go here.


To purchase the mix in physical form, please send payment via Paypal to matthewafrica at hotmail dot com. The price including shipping is $10 in the U.S, $11 to Canada. and $14 to the rest of the world.


I was going to write something nice about the mix for the blog today.  However, after reading Matthew's articulate summary I have decided to post it here and forgo my awkward attempt at an eloquent description of such matters. Thanks to all who have supported this project!

"For those who aren't familiar with Soul Boulders, here's the story.

Back in 2005, B.Cause posted a mind-blowing 10-minute mini-mix on the

SoulStrut message board. The songs were exquisite but hard to

pigeonhole-- soulful and funky, but not purely funk or soul, slow,

psychedelic, moody, maybe a little haunted. In other words, exactly my

sound.

I sent him a message urging him either to finish the mix or to let me

hop on and collaborate with him on turning his ten minutes into

something CD length. I grabbed a dozen or so of my favorite records,

figured out their sequence and recorded my half at B.Cause's house one

rainy afternoon. Once B.Cause fleshed out his half and massaged the

whole thing a bit, we released it in the spring of 2006. It was my

first commercial mix CD.

The response to Soul Boulders was amazing. The Fader, The Wire, Wax

Poetics and Hip Hop Connection said nice things about it. Friends and

peers raved, telling us we soundtracked their summer, that it was

their favorite mix, etc. In a couple cases, I even had people tell me

that the mix changed their lives. Although it sold pretty modestly--

we only pressed 1,000 copies and gave many of them away-- it's easily

the most beloved thing I've ever had a hand in. Over the years, people

have consistently and insistently pressed me and Josh to give them

more. So we did.

For me, Soul Boulders was hard to follow up because I wanted to make

something that people would appreciate in the same way. The landscape

has changed a lot since we made the first mix. Compilations, blogs and

message boards have made a lot of formerly obscure music easily

accessible and consequently everyone seems pretty blasé. Also, I more

or less stopped seriously buying records in about 2005 and worried

that I might not have a good enough set of records to construct

another set; I didn't want to just present some tracks that didn't

make the original mix. Although rarity was never really the point of

Soul Boulders-- creating something unique and special was-- the mix

did feature a lot of music that was unknown to even hardcore soul

listeners and that did help create some excitement around it.

Soul Boulders 2 features 40 meticulously mixed songs. Some are from

common records, many are from rare ones, but all are (to us)

extraordinary soul songs that embody a unique feeling.  We labored

hard on the mix, cleaning up tracks, re-editing them to emphasize

parts we liked, obsessing over the sequencing and tiny details in the

transitions and generally polishing until we felt like we had made a

worthy sequel. I think we succeeded."