Steinski, working alongside studio engineer Double Dee, turned a 1983 remix-contest entry into "Lesson 1 (The Payoff Mix)," a dizzying collage of dozens of samples stitched into something wholly new, and effectively willed the sample-based mixtape into existence. The "Lessons" series circulated on bootleg cassettes for years, too rights-tangled to release commercially, yet it shaped how a generation of producers thought about cutting up recorded sound. Few records this obscure have cast so long a shadow.

the sound in question

1983

Lesson 1 (The Payoff Mix)Steinski