DJ Shadow
"Endtroducing ..." CD (Mo Wax/ffrr/PolyGram)
This is hip hop for people who are, for the most part, sick of what hip hop has become. It's just beats and turntable wizardry; however, this doesn't mean that it is merely these things. Rather, beats and samples are its components and DJ Shadow crafts a world from them, making them more than the sum of their parts. It's fascinating if only because it's a reminder of the promise hip hop holds - namely, allowing people to transform their world into something which is more aesthetically pleasing to them, using the means of transmission (turntables, natch) to do so.