MASHUP MASTERS: MAX TANNONE

We just recently found out about Jaydiohead, a mashup album made by NYC based producer Max Tannone that you can download for free.

To get an idea: Max has taken the sounds of some of his hometown heroes and crafted them into a number of unique remix albums. He began in 2009 to combine the sounds of rap king Jay-Z and British rockers Radiohead. He even got praise from Jay-Z himself about Jaydiohead!

Time to ask this mashup master about all his work that already catched the ears of vinyl bootleggers, hundreds of blogs, and music news sites like MTV and NME.

You seem to be a big fan of Hip Hop. Why Jay-Z vs a rock band like Radiohead?

"Hip-hop was the first music I really got into, and I've been listening to Jay-Z for a long time and am really familiar with his catalog. Within the past few years, I started to get into more types of music and Radiohead was one of the first rock groups I began listening to. One day I was listening to the Radiohead song "I Might Be Wrong" from their Amnesiac album, and I just thought it would sound awesome in a hip-hop context. If you are familiar with the song, its got this great guitar loop.

"Anyway, I cut the track up, rearranged it and put a beat over it, then dropped in Jay-Z's vocals from his song "Pray". This was the first track for the Jaydiohead project, called "Wrong Prayer." I had fun doing it, and decided to go through more of Radiohead's catalog to see what I could sample. Turns out, a lot, as they have a lot of different rock and electronic elements. They are an incredible band."

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