Heavy D and the Boyz - We Got Our Own Thang (1989)
Monie Love - I Can Do This (sampled The Whispers - The Beat Goes On) (1989)
JMT - Rock To Dis (bonus beats) (sampled Bobby Byrd - Hot Pants) (1989)

A very early mix I made, in my head it was early 1991 but could possibly be 1990 - I'd been experimenting with putting acapellas over instrumentals since 1989, although nobody called them mashups, and I don't think I even called them bootlegs, just mixes.

I had the Heavy D acapella on vinyl, and sampled/looped the instrumental parts of Monie Love - I Can Do This (most of which is The Whispers - And The Beat Goes On) using a Casio SK-5 keyboard.

Then I added the breaks from JMT's Rock To Dis (a very early alias for Maxi Jazz, it turns out!) which was a slightly treated version of the Bobby Byrd Hot Pants break.

My "mixer" was a Radio Shack/Tandy karaoke machine which had a couple of lines in and vari-speed (+/-1 or 2 I think!) tape deck.

I can't remember if I recorded the output from the sampler to tape first or just faded it up and down, but I was definitely recording Heavy D direct from vinyl. The turntable wasn't vari-speed and the tempos would occasionally drift, so if I needed to change the speed I'd have to put my finger on the centre of the label and nudge it forwards or slow it down slightly.

That's why at 4:10 you can hear the strings come in from the A-side. I flipped the record over, played it from the start and mixed in the very first section of the full track, then quickly flipped it back and tried to get it to the chorus at 4:59. You can hear where I don't quite line up the last chorus properly - I don't remember having any monitors on the turntable, it was just whatever came out of the speaker, so I just had to drop the needle in what I thought was the right place.

I may have done the whole thing the other way round, started with the Monie sample, then added Heavy D from vinyl, and the JMT break last. It's been nearly 35 years though...

And I wanted to add some different samples for the middle 8 but must've got bored. Perhaps I'll remake it one day.

I've disabled downloads but leaving it here as an example of how to make a rough mix 30 years ago.