The Classic Material ‘bonus’ mixes fill the gaps in the original Classic Material Hip Hop History mixtape series, exploring specific sub genres or spin off genres not covered in the main series. #7 delves into a sub genre which is not entirely easy to describe. In their day these tracks were mostly just referred to as ‘Breakbeats’, but that’s not a useful definition because that had a different meaning years before and has been used (rightly or wrongly) to describe various other styles since. Loops of big Hip Hop records arranged into club-friendly instrumentals, they were definitely Club records first and foremost so ‘Hip Hop Club Breaks’ it is. Armand Van Helden’s ‘AV8’ is the label most commonly associated with the sound, although Nervous Records & its ‘Strapped’ sub label probably release nearly as many. A few other smaller labels like Slammin’ and Kingsize also played their part. A lot of DJs principally associated with House music or who produced both House and Hi Hop dabbled in these records, often under aliases – Armand Van Helden of course, but also Todd Terry, Kenny Dope, DJ Spinna and others. Others were known for making this style of Hip Hop almost exclusively – Crooklyn Clan, Davey Dex, Bobby J. As with previous volumes the artwork reworks a popular sleeve of the era, in this case the AV8 generic label and hype sticker variations. The caricature on the sticker is an illustration by Graffiti artist Temper taken from a flyer for a club night which was active around the time these records came out. Now, listen to the mix below...