“As with Danny, House Shoes was my introduction to Quelle. In the same Barham apartment where he introduced me to Danny, Shoes let me hold two CD-R’s over Christmas 2007. The two jewel cases had drawn-on paper sleeves, one of them read Blue Mondays and the other was personalized to Shoes. I was floored. This guy sounded like nobody else. He could do straightforward rappity-rap, introspective and emotional joints and apparently made beats too.

Life kept moving and one day I got word Quelle had moved to Oakland, about two hours away from where I lived at the time. I reached out and it was like reconnecting with an old friend from high school. We did hoodrat things together on both sides of the Bay Bridge and once in a while he’d play me some rap music.

I knew I wanted Quelle to be involved with this project and it didn’t take much convincing to get him on board but it did take a minute to settle on the right song. Initially I was going with a lo-fi joint called “Sugar Honey Iced Tea,” which to date it’s still one of my favorite pieces of music Quelle has ever produced. Unfortunately Quelle had an accident in Chicago, where he lived when he cut the track, which lead to the loss of much music, including the track I was hoping to secure.

We were about to abandon the idea just as Quelle discovered Knxwledge and Dibia$e and began to cut records with them. some of those songs would end up on the first volume of 2Dirt4TV but that was just an aperitif, Quelle actually finished the better part of an LP helmed pretty much entirely by Knx and Dibi. Unfortunately, a series of derailments and delays has kept that album from seeing the light of day but I managed to get Dibia$e and Quelle’s consent to use “Quantize” for this project. I’m very happy I waited because I consider it to be one of the best tracks Quelle’s recorded.”

– sweeney

Buy: http://classicdrugreferences.bandcamp.com/album/classic-drug-references-vol-1