DJ Aphlatoon, quite an interesting name, no? I think this is an Urdu word, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, this is the first time I am hearing the name and the music. The CD cover and the inlay weren't really impressive in terms of quality, so I wasn't expecting much when I popped the CD into my player. Well, you know the saying, never judge a book by its cover? Well, that saying hit me like a ton of books.

The title of the CD "Amychophobic," referring to the fear of being scratched, really caught me as being creative and original. Well, DJ Aphlatoon took that same level of creativity and put it into his CD. All I can say is, well done old chap!

With Eighteen tracks, ranging from Hip Hop to Arab to Latin, I was thoroughly entertained. The CD starts with a typical intro, but includes Sir Aah, interestingly known here as Paki MC. We get into track 3, known as Flute Rush. This is a really cool dance/trance song, I can't stop listening to it!

And on we go, with Latin, Arab and the best of World music. You can tell the range of the music here with tracks like Suga Suga featuring Jay Z. You've got Sean Paul and a compilation of a lot of today's popular artists and songs. One of my favorite tracks is Aiwa Aiwa, which is an Arab song, and well, you'll understand why I liked it so much.

You also have tracks like Punjabi Jatt Anthem + NYC Mix and the now classic Jugni, which tie in the Desi flavor. The CD takes on a political twist as well, with a track called "Pakistan Ka Matlab Kya," which means What is the meaning of Pakistan? A very good question and with some soundbites and easy going background music, you get to explore this.

The Desiness doesn't end there, as another one of my favorite tracks, Eastern Soundz is included on track 12. Its got various cool sounds that we're all familiar with from classical Indian to present day pop and Bollywood. There is a good amount of sampling of Rock and Pop on the CD, very nice to hear mixed with the East West ConXion (#13).

In the end, we learn that DJ Aphlatoon really has no reason to be Amychophobic, because he's got the definition of a DJ down packed. Putting together a variety of great music and unleashing it in a creative manner.

Learn more about DJ Aphlatoon at www.djaphlatoon.com.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Feel free to send Khalid an e-mail @ Khalid Ilahi.