When I received DJ Kemit’s “Soundtrack to Heaven” to review I was ecstatic. Once again I was blessed with the privilege to review a mixtape that I KNEW would be great. Here we had a DJ that I had never heard of, but it was a Stevie Wonder tribute. I mean, what could go wrong, right? It should not really be a difficult assignment to pick 15 or 20 really good tracks and put them together. All you’d really have to do is present it in a good enjoyable way that would do the artist honor.

And therein lies the rub.

Kemit just destroyed this tape. I mean, as previously stated this shoulda been a slam dunk. A no brainer. But the negatives on this tape so far outweigh the positives, that I’m just gonna go ahead and get the positives out of the way now (instead of the other way around, which would be typical).

The song selection was great. Classic Stevie and very few tracks from later years. There’s a track with John Legend on it, but for the most part it was young Stevie at work here. And it was bliss. When you could hear the song.

Now that the positives are out of the way, let me unleash my anger at Kemit for messing up what should have been a joyous experience for me. Let’s start with the most obvious. His mouth. It ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. Nonstop. And I don’t mean just the typical early 90’s mixtape DJ yelling over various parts of the track. He went on and on and on. I counted at times and there were maybe five or six seconds in between him yelling. Wonderful lines like “This is the Original people!!! This is the ORIGINAL PEOPLE!!!” After awhile this just really started to kill me.

And there was no mixing/scratching that I could discern. That’s never been an issue with me, as if the music is good, and the transitions are smooth, I don’t care if there’s scratching or whatever. True, this is a LIVE set, and you would think this is the opportunity to scratch and mix, but that’s not that big a problem. At least not to me.

Speaking of the live aspect to this, perhaps it was my stereo or something, but I couldn’t hear the audience. In fact until someone pointed it out to me, I had no idea this was a live tape at all. I was even angrier at first because I thought this was just another DJ yelling throughout a mixtape. Then when I realized it was live, that tempered the anger a bit. Not much, but a bit. The sound would drop out inexplicably (And I’m assuming this was intentional). This was especially annoying on “I Just Called To Say I Love You” at which time the sound would drop out on the words “I Love You”, and it was almost as if the DJ was dropping it so the audience could yell the words, which is cool and all, but….I couldn’t hear anything.

And if Kemit was annoying with the yelling, that was nothing compared to when DJ Ty Boogie (who got a shout out at the beginning of the tape) got on and took over for awhile and his voice was even worse. The only saving grace was that he would go a minute or so every now and then without talking so you could enjoy the music.

Ty Boogie had a great line when he got on where he said “The more you drink, the better I sound”. It was just a shame that I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy it, although by the end I was desperately in need of some serious drink. And I don’t drink.

The few times I could settle in and kinda dig the music – the point of a tribute – I was immediately yanked out by the yelling of Kemit and Ty.

“Soundtrack to Heaven” was supposed to be a tribute to Stevie Wonder, by someone who honestly seemed to respect and admire him. However Stevie was ultimately disrespected by a DJ who kept talking and dropping audio the entire time. I understand the idea behind the live session and wanting to entertain the crowd, but I can’t help but think that this was the absolutely wrong project for a live gig. We deserve better, but most of all, Stevie deserved better. (2/2/07)