Various Artists - Untinted: Sources for Madlib's Shades of Blue [Blue Note 72435 93163 2 1]

Madlib had an outstanding year in 2003. Various remix projects, releases under his several guises, and a collaboration with fellow hip-hop producer Jay Dee propelled Madlib from underground producer with a cult following to a bona fide powerhouse with a large commercial following. But the crown jewel in 2003's output was easily Shades of Blue, which featured Madlib receiving unfettered access to the massive Blue Note archive to reinterpret and remix several label classics and obscure hits. Untinted contains the source material for Madlib's ambitious project for those not willing to dig in the crates to find many of the releases that were never issued on CD, with some never being formally released at all. It's an ideal supplement for those who wish to compare/contrast the originals with Madlib's experiments, and a nice blueprint for those uninitiated in the brilliance of the vast Blue Note catalog.