Producer K-Murdock, of the popular hip-hop radio show Subsoniq and the  group Panacea recently released DECADEnse, a look back at his production work from 2000 to 2010.

“DECADEnse was ten years in the making, but it wasn’t necessarily planned that way," Murdock says. "I try to conceptualize my projects, and now that I'm at a point where I've been doing music ten plus years, I wanted to have a theme, a concept, not just, 'Hey, I recorded a bunch of songs, threw a title on it, and here you go.'"

Murdock says it was "fun and a bit overwhelming" selecting just ten tracks from the 200 he's done over the last ten years. He chose a cross-section of music from 2001 through 2009. "You really get to hear the growth," he says. "If you listen to the first track [recorded in 2001] and then the last remix [done last year], you'll say, 'That’s the same dude?' Which is good—I don’t want y’all listening to 2009 like, 'This sounds like 2000.'"

The Silver Spring native says that DECADEnse will be his only 2000-2010 compilation. "That was it," he says. "I'm going to amass another decade of material and holler at you guys in 2020."

Murdock shared some stories about tracks on DECADEnse, including some early Raheem DeVaughn material, and a remix he did for Nicolay of Foreign Exchange.

1) "Zap Mama", 2000: "Back in 2000, I was a rising senior in college—I’m from here and went to Howard. A lot of people go away for the summer, but for me it was just a 15-minute trek up Georgia Avenue to get from D.C. back to Silver Spring. Two of my friends who also did hip-hop were back in the area, and I started working on music with them, and we informally made this record over the summer. We were having fun, and didn't take titling songs seriously, so people listen and say, 'Why did you call this Zap Mama?' It's because the repeating, synthesized sample is a Zap Mama sample.

2) "Lingo," 2001:  "It was fall, I just graduated earlier that spring, and was working at XM Radio. Pretty much all of the recordings from 2001 to 2008 were all pretty much done at XM. I was working there as an audio production manager, and had access to the studio anytime I wanted, so once I was off the clock at 8, the studio turned into a recording place for everybody I knew in area, including, at the time, a rising star by the name of Raheem DeVaughn." Murdock says "Lingo," featuring DeVaughn and Wes Felton was one of 60 songs the trio collaborated on together from 2001-2003.

3) "Love With U," 2002: "This is featuring an artist from the Bay Area, Malcolm Marshall. He’s like a star child spacey peace brother, but not gimmicky. For me, that song was different. I like hip-hop, so to do this song, a love, sexual song, was a different vibe, but it worked out."

4) "Makin' Me, 2003": Like I said, Wes Felton and I recorded a lot of music together. That song, when I think about it, puts me in that era [of 2003]— living not too far from the U Street scene, hanging with [Wes] and Raheem, going to Bar Nun and State of the Union when it was open."

5) "Campaign '04," 2004: "Kerry/Bush, was in full effect, and Wes Felton was part of a collective, I guess they're still active, the Ill Poets. The Ill Poets wanted to do an album, and he threw my name out. That was one of my first big paying situations, the first situation with a contract, where I really made money, and I also made good friends that I still talk to. That song in particular features poets but they're rhyming, so it has a bit of a harder edge."

6) "Between the Lines," 2005: "I was in Seattle when I did this, I was picked as one of 60 participants in the Red Bull Music Academy. Usually the academy is in a different country, so the year I apply and get in, I'm excited, because they’ve done Brazil, Italy, Japan...but the year I do it, it’s in Seattle. I was like, 'C'mon!' But I had never been to Seattle, and was thankful nonetheless. Red Bull paid for a flight, set us up in this place, set up meetings with artists from around the world, and gave us access to equipment. They get you all filled up on Red Bull so you can stay up recording songs for like two weeks, I think I still have some in my system from five years ago."

While in Seattle, I linked up with an African MC named Mista Maliq from the hood of Capetown. He was a  young dude, but when he played me some of his music, I still equate it with a South African version of Nas’ Illmatic.

7) "Starlite Remix," 2006: "One of the highlights of 2005 was getting a record deal, through Rawkus Records, for the group I'm in, Panacea. The label wanted me to do a remix, they wanted everyone from Big Daddy Kane to a few other artist on it—obviously that didn't pan out. The sample is from Brenda Russell's "Piano in the Dark," one of her older, less pop records. I took the loop, slowed it, and made it into a chill, lounge-y vibe. The whistling is Raheem, he was checking his phone and whistling into the mic. I didn't credit him because, they way it's processed, I don't know if anyone can even tell it's a human voice."

8) "Playing My Role," 2007: "The MC is from Portland, Braille, he's a really cool cat, and is most known for coming from the Christian hip-hop scene, but he now calls himself a progressive hip-hop artist. He happened to be in town, came through XM, recorded a song, and, yeah, kinda the rest is history."

9) "The Beatdown, "2008: "This features a brother named Random from Philly, who is really cool. He's a teacher by day, and raps at night. He submitted music to Subsoniq, and I became a fan of what he was doing, and we talked about collaborating. He was working on an EP at the time and said, 'Let's do a song.'"

10) As the Wheel Turns (Doc Reznor Remix), 2009: "This is a remix done for Nicolay, the extremely tall dutch fellow from Foreign Exchange. Nic did a remix for Panacea, and, to return the favor, I did this remix for his side project, with an artist named Kay. It's written from the perspective of driving home, having an epiphany, having gotten too tipsy at the bar...the whole idea is it's one of those moments where you're thankful for making it home safe and sound. With the remix, I decided to go in a really different direction, and called it the Doc Reznor remix, because it's like if Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails had experienced it."