Cosmo Baker Roots Picnic Mixtape cover art
Roots Picnic poster art by John Dessereau, graphics by Richard Chinchilla
UPDATE: Cosmo Baker's official Roots Picnic mixtape is now available as a download! Due to popular demand (True story. Our favorite tweet: "Like my man Cinque said: Give us FREE!"). Seems only right that a picnic mix should be free play any device you picnic with on Memorial Day and we fully expect that this shit will be the official soundtrack of all picnics that take place in summer 2013. But don't let that dissuade you from being there for the real thing--you now have 1 week to get these jams so deep in your soul that you can shout along to every hook and mosh out to every breakdown at Roots Picnic. Get tickets below! And don't say we never did nothing for you. See you in Philly.
>>>Buy Tickets For Roots Picnic 2013
Roots Picnic is almost here y'all! This year Philly's own Cosmo Baker--the least hatable DJ in the entire world?--has blessed Okayplayer with his prodigious talents and midas phonographic touch in assembling our Official Roots Picnic 2013 Mixtape, featuring picnic jams from all the artists on the bill including (duh) The Roots, Naughty By Nature, DJ Premier, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, How To Dress Well, Trinidad James, Solange Knowles and a grip more (scroll down for the full tracklisting).
Longtime Okayplayers know Cosmo's Philly roots run deep and this collaboration felt especially powerful coming in the same year as Fluid--the dancefloor of which both Cosmo and ?uestlove made into their DJ home over the years, so we asked him to speak on it, which he did most eloquently. You can read Cosmo's thoughts after the mix, which is what you came here for! So without further ado, Cosmo Baker & Okayplayer present: The Official Roots Picnic 2013 Mixtape:
"At the 11th Hour it seemed like a good idea to write some sort of introduction to this mix and I gave it some thought as to what I was going to touch upon, but understand this is harder than it may seem. It’s difficult enough to capture everything that this collection of artists is about in the futile medium that’s one single mixtape. In the same regard, much like their entire career it’s almost impossible to pin down what The Roots, and Okayplayer are all about with just words. And that right there just may be the point.I could take it back to 1992 or 93 when I first met these two dudes Ahmir and Tariq and this could be the story of “Philly dudes done well” or I could talk about the parallels of all or our respective career arcs and all that jazz. Or I could talk about how just some local musicans and DJs from South and West Philly have transformed into global music and cultural ambassadors.
But to me it comes down to one thing – love. The love that one has that makes one do what they do. It’s not for the money of the fame, but for the love of music that is the single reason why we’re in this game. That’s the greatest commonality that we all share, and one of the reasons why Okayplayer is what it is today in 2013. Perhaps it’s something in our mutual Philly history, and its collective cultural fiber; from being in that one time at that one place. I don’t know, but I do know one thing: I grew up with all this, and so when I was asked to contribute this mix, it was more than an honor. It felt like I was coming back home."
- Cosmo Baker, 2013
Cosmo Baker x Okayplayer Present The Official Roots Picnic Mixtape 2013 [Tracklist]
DJ Premier "Young Gifted & Black Intro"
Gang Starr "Full Clip"
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis "Thrift Shop"
The Roots "Dynamite"
How To Dress Well "Running Back"
Sonnymoon feat. Melo-X "Htlv (Houstatlantavegas) (Melo-X Remix)"
Naughty By Nature "Hip-Hop (DJ Scene 2013 Remix)
Trinidad James "All Gold Everything (Emynd NOLA Bounce Remix)
Robert Glasper "Black Radio feat. Yasin Bey (Pete Rock Remix)"
The Gaslamp Killer "Anything Worse"
The Roots "The Seed 2.0"
Solange "Losing You"
Jennah Bell "Monster Killer"
Solange "Sandcastle Disco"
The Roots "How I Got Over"
Duck Sauce "Grand Steppin"
Grimes "Circumambient"
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis "Can't Hold Us feat. Ray Dalton"
Grimes "Oblivion"
A-Trak "Tuna Melt feat. Tommy Trash (Grandtheft Remix)"
Jay-Z & Kanye "Niggas In Paris"
Trinidad James "Females Welcome"
AraabMuzik "The Prince Is Coming"
The Gaslamp Killer "Impulse feat. Daedelus"
Kendrick Lamar "Backseat Freestyle"
A$AP Rocky "Goldie"
Gang Starr "Above The Clouds feat. Inspectah Deck"
Robert Glasper "Twice feat. Solange (?uestlove's Twice Baked Remix)"
Gary Clark Jr. "The Life"
Joey Bada$$ "Waves"
Naughty By Nature "Jamboree feat. Zhane"
Smoke DZA "Gotham City feat. Joey Bada$$"
AraabMuzik "Hammer Dance"
The Roots "Act Too… The Love Of My Life feat. Common"
Shlohmo "Don't Say No feat. How To Dress Well"
Lushlife "Magnolia"
