Freddy Fresh/Various

One of the goals that Freddy Fresh set for himself when gathering his massive old school hip-hop collection together for a 70-minute marathon was to make the mix sound as bumping as it did when these obscurities were first dropped. This mission is accomplished in fine style, as the Minnesota DJ tears through his vinyl and creates a track list that will easily shake a modern dance floor that has heard hip-hop transform at an extremely rapid pace. From classic funk breaks to electro grooves, B-Boy Stance is not only a superb mix but also a history lesson in hip-hop, exposing the listener to all the forms the genre has taken from 1979 to 1988. With Freddy Fresh pushing 40, and with a couple of decades of hip-hop knowledge under his belt, it’s no wonder that this mix is top-notch, with each track, regardless of its style, blending with such ease and finesse. The aging b-boy flips the classics, such as JVC Force’s "Strong Island” and Big Daddy Kane’s "Ain’t No Half Steppin’,” but mainly fills the mix with tracks you’ve not heard in years and, probably in most cases, tracks you’ve never heard in your life. Just like Ego Trip’s compiling of classic hip-hop, The Big Playback, some might see this as an elitist’s approach to the old school. But just like The Big Playback, B-Boy Stance is simply a solid blast of classic hip-hop that needs to be heard.