"Views From The Styx" is the Drake/Styx Mashup Album Rap and Classic Rock Need
By JORDAN DARVILLE
In recent times, the mash-up genre has been stretched past the realm of Girl Talk's party-starting. Total Freedom gave it an air of punk unpredictability, and as the past week's string of Smash Mouth remixes has shown, Tumblr has steered them to the anarchic origins of John Oswald's plunderphonics.
Last year, Toronto comedian Duncan Lincs created Views From The Styx, a mashup of songs by Drizzy and the band behind “Mr. Roboto.” By taking a pun on the name of Drake's upcoming album to such a conclusion, he aligns himself with sonic absurdists like Neil Cicierega, whose work exists to amuse, beguile and frustrate as much as genuinely entertain.
A huge fan of both artists, Lincs sought to craft something listeners of both would appreciate and revisit. We got into the project over email.
How was this project conceived?
I started from the pun, but I am generally a fan of people that fully commit to a dumb joke. In early 2015, I started making beats for a project I was originally going to call Views From The Stickswhich was going to be made from country music samples and Drake vocals. The track "Roaming Charges" is actually a holdover from this first idea. It's about bad cell reception and contains a sample of the Stompin' Tom Connors' song "Rubberhead."
At some point last year, I scrapped my first idea and started focusing just on Drake and Styx. My original idea was too open. That’s why clear limitation for a project like this is actually good, because instead of pulling from any record ever, I was pulling from two catalogues.
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