HANDMADE MOBY DJ TAPE AND EARLY EMINEM RARITIES HEAD TO AUCTION
Wax Poetics presents Rare Tapes & Records, an seven-lot auction led by a handmade Moby DJ demo cassette and early Eminem releases, alongside Detroit mixtapes. Before Moby became a recording artist known globally, he was handing out homemade cassettes in Manhattan clubs, hoping someone would give him a chance behind the turntables. One of those tapes, given to musician and actor Dylan Hundley at a Tuesday-night party in Tribeca and kept for nearly four decades, is a highlight of the collection. Bidding opened September 17th and runs through October 8th.
Ten years after Moby revisited his formative New York years in his memoir Porcelain, the cassette offers a tangible connection to those beginnings, when a homemade mix passed to the right person could open the door to a DJ booking.
Dating to circa 1987–88, the cassette features a J-card drawn by hand in blue and red, with turntables, a mixer, and small surrounding drawings. It also carries a specific instruction: “THIS SIDE” and “NOT THIS SIDE.”
“I was a kid myself, so I wasn’t hiring for DJs,” Hundley recalls. “But I was really charmed. He was super sweet. And nobody had ever given me a cassette before.”
For Hundley, the side marked “NOT THIS SIDE” proved to be the discovery. It contains a DJ mix moving between R&B, early house, new wave, and spoken-word samples. She identifies Adonis, the Specials, Syndicate Sound Labs, and New Order among its sources.
“It’s him DJing,” she says. “It’s a series of mashups and remixes and samples from a wide range of artists, from R&B to early house to new wave and odd samples.”
Hundley, who fronts Lulu Lewis and Darling Black and appeared in the iconic New York film Metropolitan, kept the cassette through decades of moves. A handmade object rather than a manufactured release, it offers a personal record of Moby’s efforts to find his place in New York’s club scene.
Offered ahead of Infinite’s 30th anniversary this November, an original 1996 vinyl LP pressing of Eminem’s debut album anchors the auction’s early Eminem selection. Released on Jeff and Mark Bass’s F.B.T. Productions imprint in a small independent run, the record was sold from the trunk of his car and through a handful of Detroit shops. Its poor reception and comparisons to Nas and AZ helped spur the development of the Slim Shady persona that would transform his career.
The auction copy carries the original F.B.T. Productions catalog number WEB714V and still bears its $15.95 retail price–a reminder that this was once a local record on a shop wall. Produced by Denaun Porter and co-produced by “Slim,” Infinite captures Eminem still finding his voice, before the recordings that made him a household name.
The early material begins with Soul Intent’s 1995 cassette single “F#@!in’ Backstabber” backed with “Biterphobia,” released on Detroit’s Mashin’ Duck Records while Eminem was performing as “M&M”. The tape features a guest appearance by future D12 member Proof, whose writing also appears on the insert, alongside artwork credited to M&M himself. Recorded at Bassment Sounds, the Ferndale studio that would soon record Infinite, it documents the collaborators and local scene behind Eminem’s earliest releases. The auction copy remains sealed and unopened, graded 9 by Audio Media Grading, with a signed Statement of Archival accompanying the lot.
Alongside Infinite is the 1998 Stretch Armstrong Slim Shady LP Snippet Tape, a promotional cassette distributed to radio, press, and shops ahead of Eminem’s major-label debut. Blending song excerpts with skits, it offered an early taste of The Slim Shady LP, with a J-card announcing “Eminem debut album out 2/23.” The auction copy is sealed and AMG graded 7.
A run of DJ Babe’s The 7 Mile Album mixtapes, consigned as cassette volumes one through nine, documents the hand-to-hand distribution networks that carried Detroit rap beyond the city. Mixed and produced by DJ Babe for Illegal Entertainment, the series brought exclusive and pre-release material from Eminem, 50 Cent, and Royce da 5’9” together with tracks and freestyles from Detroit artists including Obie Trice, Proof, and Street Lordz. With artwork by Detroit’s Skinny Boys Graphix, the tapes preserve a scene connecting local talent with a national audience from independent shops to the streets.
The collection also includes sealed first pressings of the two albums that made Eminem a household name. Together, the seven lots capture artists finding their audiences through independent records, promotional cassettes, and tapes passed hand-to-hand.
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