Launched in 2000, the weekly Mixtape Sessions provided some of the highlight moments at halcyon classic on Smith St. Conceived as a live webcast ‘radio show’ long before the era of the ubiquitous Podcast, Mixtape Sessions featured Adam Cruz, then known as The Almagest, playing alongside weekly guests whom he would interview in a casual style. Throughout the show’s successful four-year run, Cruz hosted a slew of independent artists from New York’s underground House music scene including legends like Tony Humphries, Louie Vega, and Frankie Feleciano, as well as then relative unknowns destined for greatness like Mr. V and Alix Alvarez.
Ten years later, Mixtape Sessions is alive and well as an internet radio show and a label which Cruz operates independently of his day job at West End Records. The Mixtape Sessions roster is comprised of a small crew of close family (literally, it includes Adam’s sister Flora, a fine soulful vocalist,) and longtime friends. Now, for the first time in the label’s already substantial history, Adam is stepping out of the shadows to explore his own musical voice, manifested in his debut album, Life and Times. No stranger to the studio, the project follows years of behind-the-scenes work producing and writing for a who’s-who of New York’s house royalty.
We turned the tables on Cruz making him the subject of an interview for a change. Below he chats with us about his days as go-to guy for Masters at Work and Blaze, about working with the late Mel Cheren, (the Godfather of Disco,) and why “music for the people” is his mantra.
(click on the image above to read the full review)
