Though obviously rooted in the beat matching and live mixing of the disc jockey, the mash-up, as we know it today, is a distinctly 2000s phenomenon that revealed itself at the very beginning of the decade.
The modern blueprint for expertly splicing together two songs (often from sources so disparate that the novelty could launch the track way out of the park) comes from both Girl Talk and Danger Mouse.
The former has produced albums pulled directly from the internet's punishing deluge of the history of music all at once. Meanwhile, the latter has composed the mash-up's most conceptually consistent statement to date: The Grey Album, a pairing of Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles' self-titled double LP known to all as The White Album.
Similarly characterized by delicious novelty and supreme craftsmanship, Chicago production duo The Hood Internet falls somewhere between Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Take, for example, the pair's mash-du-jour -- a slick and smooth combination of Chromeo's synth-y "When The Night Falls" with the soaring and soulful vocals from the late Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know."
End result: The best Miami freestyle club banger that never actually existed. And that's the beauty of the mash-up.
The Hood Internet. Friday, March 2. Mansion Nightclub, 1235 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. The party starts at 11 p.m. and tickets cost $20 plus fees via wantickets.com. Call 305-695-8411 or visit mansion.com.
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