Throwback Sessions

Exactly eight years ago today, I uploaded the first mix of my Throwback Sessions—a series I started at 19 which would take me from playing music in my bedroom to playing at events all over the city.

In this series, I’ll be revisiting each mix to write about the music, people, and personal stories surrounding each one. Some of my favourite gigs only happened because someone found the Throwback Sessions on SoundCloud then reached out to ask if I could play at their event.

But beyond just doing a deep dive on the mixes themselves, I want to revisit the entire era of music I drew from to make the Throwback Sessions: early-2000s hip-hop, rap, and R&B.

I started the Throwback Sessions as a sort of love letter to a very specific era of not only music, but Internet culture: the era of LimeWire, MSN, imeem, and early YouTube.

Calling it a throwback series, I could’ve included anything from as early as the 80s or 90s. Some of my favourite songs came out in those decades, but I wasn’t old enough to have the same attachments as I do today to songs from the early 2000s. I started the Throwback Sessions as a sort of love letter to a very specific era of not only music, but Internet culture: the era of LimeWire, MSN, imeem, and early YouTube.

To me—and to the audience I had in mind when recording Mix 1—this was the era where every other song on our iPod had “(feat. Lil Wayne)” in the title. If it wasn’t T-Pain singing on a hook, it was Akon. Scott Storch, Lil Jon, The Neptunes, and Timbaland were at peaks in their careers and were ubiquitous on production. We watched Honey, You Got Served, and Step Up on repeat and tuned into every episode of ABDC to see if the Jabbawockeez were moving onto the next round.

With rose-tinted glasses, I’ll be revisiting it all in this 6-part written series celebrating the music, artists, and history behind the Throwback Sessions.

Read Throwback Sessions Mix 1: Somewhere in Wiscansin now.

All of my mixes can be streamed for free on SoundCloud: