DJ Design
Jetlag
Look Records

Keith “DJ Design” Griego’s Jetlag closes a circle first opened in the late 90s. Back then, as a player in Stones Throw’s formative San Francisco days, he produced tracks for that label (including rough rhymer Rasco’s Time Waits for No Man) and scored an instrumental debut in 2000, Gather Round. Nearly a decade later, Design finally issues a sequel on his own imprint, Look Records. He works with other rappers this time, though, gathering an unreleased track with his former group Foreign Legion, appearances from Guilty Simpson and Phat Kat, and two decent performances from the late Party Arty.

Producer-led compilations usually meander from head-banging highs to boorish lows, and Jetlag contains its share of mixed nuts. Design’s beats defy categorization, ranging from the street-rap yearning of “Deadly Deeds” (where he loops Morrissey’s “I Know Very Well How I Got My Name” for Ace Hustle’s bumbling thug rhymes) to the soaring “Wave of the Future” and Grip Grand’s working-class, true-school heroics. “Better Days,” an optimistic collaboration between Oh No and Dudley Perkins and a sample of Culture Club’s “Time (Clock of the Heart),” highlights this intriguing if slightly uneven sampler of Design’s beat styles.

Download: “Ohh!” (featuring Party Arty)

Download: “Wave of the Future” (featuring Grip Grand)