Despite my affinity for Nike’s, I think it’s Reebok that cemented my appreciation for sneakers.  I got a pair of the Blacktop Pumps right before third grade and I was on top on the world.  I don’t know how I convinced my mom to get those at JC Pennys, but she did.  About a week later I had to take them back because she saw on the news that several kids had been killed over them over where  I caught the bus for school everyday.  Because even though I didn’t live  in the hood per se, I lived close enough to “uzi alley” that I didn’t get a lot of the shoes I would’ve got until middle school & the area toned down a bit.  I really can’t blame her though looking back, seeing how I got in fights over something as trivial as an Archie comic book.

But enough going down memory lane.  This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Reebok Pump.  As much disdain I have for Reebok’s in general, they’ve produced a couple models I can proudly say I owned.  Taking a low key approach in celebrating The Pump, they’ve hooked up with several highly recognized boutiques across the country to collaborate on 20th anniversary editions of the shoe.

Packer Shoes in New Jersey was one of the stores selected to participate and they went a step above & beyond, by having 5th Platoon’s DJ Vinroc compile a mix to accompany their shoe., featuring clips of NBA announcers marveling over Dominique highlights spliced into the tracks.

Download — DJ Vinroc – “Human Highlight Film” Mix

Below, the Packers’ owner Mike speaks his piece on the shoe.

Swiped: Sneakers News x That’s That Shh…!

Words By DJ Sorce-1
Graphics By P.

Lately, I’ve been listening to nothing but pre new millennium music. With a few exceptions, if it came out post 2000, I haven’t been fucking with it. Call me bitter. Call me a hater. Call me whatever you want to, but I sorely needed a break. I needed to go back to a time where ringtone sales had no meaning and there were no mix tapes only featuring 50, Jigga, and Weezy.

Shit, I needed to go back to a time when the word “Weezy” meant nothing to me.

One thing that has been in constant rotation in my ride during this phase is Vinroc’s Recon-Struction mixtape. DJ Neil Armstrong, Vinroc’s crewmate, cites Recon-Struction as his favorite mix tape of all-time. Released in 1997, it’s a perfect mix of great early to mid-nineties hip-hop, flipped with a turntablist aesthetic. Vinroc’s presentation of this era is a unique one as each track represents a mix of a specific group. He crams in three to five minutes of dopeness from each group and then moves on to the next. Vin successfully rides the fine line of displaying his skills as a DJ without going over board throughout. He flexes enough cuts and juggles to make Recon-Struction unique while simultaneously letting songs play uninterrupted when appropriate. The result is one of the purest hip-hop mix tapes I’ve ever heard.

These days, Vinroc is known more for his production accolades than mixtapes. The world of music is a much different from the world in which Recon-Struction was created, yet Vinroc’s memories of the tapes genesis remain fresh. Take a walk down memory lane as TSS’s Sorce-1 revisits Vinroc’s mixtape masterpiece.

TSS: What tapes influenced you before making Recon-Struction?

Vinroc: Hmm. That’s a tough question. I used to just listen to local Jersey stuff during that time period. I always checked my homie Ed Swift and bought tapes by cats like Camillo and DJs from Queens. But I can’t really say that stuff influenced Recon-Struction. That was just hip hop shit I was into.

TSS: So was the turntablist and battling scene more influential than the mix tape scene?

Vinroc: Yeah, that scene influenced Recon-Struction. At that time, other than battling, I was straight hip hop with what I listened to. I was all about Mobb Deep, Raekwon, and neighborhood music. Recon-Struction was paying homage to the stuff that came out a little before that and up to that time. I can’t say it was really influenced by anything but my personal taste.

TSS: What did Recon-Struction mean to you and your career when it was released?

Vinroc: My manager at the time pushed me to put Recon-Struction out and I’m still selling it to this day. It first came out around 1997 and was originally on cassette tape, to put the time in perspective (Laughs). If I recall correctly, I also did the cover art for it. At that time, I was a heavy duty battle cat…a real turntablist type. It was always on my brain. I was young and the turntablist and battle scene was at its peak. The music I used on Recon-Struction was the music I grew up with. I wanted to create something like a team turntablist set with golden era hip hop samples that flowed together well.

One of the first times I owned any “real” studio equipment was during the creation of Recon-Struction. I had a Tascam 424 tape based 4 track, which everyone used back then. I had just moved to Cali and I’d bought my 4 track from Canal St. a few months earlier. I basically pooled all of my favorite artists and the joints that they made and put them together as I was hearing it in my head. A lot of the composition and mixing philosophies that I used on that tape were part of what the Triple Threat DJ’s eventually became. If you’ve ever seen some of our videos, there is a lot of Recon-Struction-style composition mixed with Skratch Piklz techniques.

TSS: Can you talk a little bit about how things have changed since Serato? Back in the day you had to have a physical copy of each record that you used on a mix tape, or at least borrow one from a friend. How was it different having to collect each and every piece of wax? Read the rest of this entry »