As another funky year comes to a close here at Flea Market Funk, I wanted to reflect back on all of the great stuff 2013 brought us. 2013 was the year of Freqnik and WDRE. The LI boys brought some boom bap back into the game with Jazz influenced mixes as well as their remixes and strong 7″ releases. We had some Reel Talk with Emil Carter from Mickey & The Soul Generation as well as Alan Zweig, director of the personal documentary Vinyl. 2013 was also the year of Afro-Beat and Jungle Fire, who got remixed lovely by Grant Phabao and Paris DJs. Afro-Beat bands like Polyrhythmics were bringing the African sound to new audiences. It was the year that labels like Colemine started to get noticed even more. We met Alpman, who released a banger of a 45 on Kept Records and introduced us to Modern Turkish Psychedelic Funk. Look out for more from him in the upcoming year.

It was also the year that Rob Perlman and his Funk For The People site got people wishing they had these records he posted and went scrambling to get them (if you could ever find them). ’13 brought Myron & E to the forefront of Modern Soul, and opened new audiences all over the world to The Soul Investigators as well. We finally joined forces with The Digger’s Union (Hevehitta and DJ Unexpected) to do a few specialty shows on their home station BBOX Radio in Brooklyn. And what about this: Who could have predicted that the Biz would rock the internet with his custom Technics?

This year we collaborated with Hot Peas & Butta and spun at the 2013 HP&B BBQ here in NYC, voted the top 50 parties to attend by Time Out NY. If you missed it, then you missed Break Beat Lou, Amir, J-Zone, Skeme Richards, Monk One and many other notables along side Flea Market Funk slinging 7″ goodness while Jarobi from A Tribe Called Quest manned the grill (the man can COOK!). The entire year, Mr. Richard Smith and Slice of Spice were killing it with their releases and pushed the bar higher for indie Hip Hop labels. Speaking of labels, Amir pushed his 180 Proof label higher as well, adding a stable of solid releases to his resume. We remembered Johnny’s Jazz Market in NJ, one of the only places you can go and get a Jazz education for free. Tucker and Bloom released the Rich Medina 45 bag, which changed the game as far as 7″ bags go. DJ Format and Phill Most Chill released one of the best Hip Hop records of the year. Lil’ dave and Personify’s Gotcha Covered mix was one of the strong contenders for mix of the year. A typhoon in the Phillipines couldn’t keep the legendary Keb Darge down. We grooved to NYC Trust radio, and I introduced my inaugural Top 10 45s list. There was some sad news as well. Unfortunately, we lost some players this year: Lou Wilson of Mandrill, Tim Dog (or did we?), Donald Byrd, George Duke, Yusef Lateef, Prince Jazzbo, Chico Hamilton, Junior Murvin, and a whole lot of other players and side men that made the music we love.

All in all, it was a very good year here at FMF, and our Big Ups series interviewed everyone from Break Beat Lou to Amir to Cool Chris from Groove Merchant, DJ Mr. Thing and more. Let’s not forget the collaboration with Dust & Grooves (and the book available April ’14), The Ace Hotel, A Thousand Words, Hot Peas & Butta, Sycamore Brooklyn, The YouTube Awards, and a lot of other good people who know who they are. I’d like to thank all of you who supported FMF through the site, live shows, and were patient when the site went down for almost a week. Without all of your support, we’d just be people playing records and reviewing them for ourselves. See you in 2014. Peace.

-DJ Prestige/ Flea Market Funk
December 30, 2013