About CRATE NOTES
Some records are made to be heard. Others are made to be found.
CRATE NOTES is a blog about the second kind — the overlooked soul cuts, the buried funk grooves, the jazz
records pressed in small numbers and forgotten in the stacks. The records that producers heard differently.
The ones that became something else entirely in the hands of someone who knew what they were listening for.
Each post on this site takes one sample source and one hip-hop flip and puts them in conversation. Not as a
history lesson, but as a listening exercise. If you understand why a producer chose a particular record —
what they heard in it, what they pulled from it, what they left behind — you start to hear both songs
differently. That’s the point.
The writing comes from JANOME BEATS, a producer and dedicated crate digger. Every article is accompanied by
an original beat built from the same source material covered in that post. Two listeners, one record, two
completely different outcomes. That’s what crate digging does.
Start anywhere. But listen closely.