Baltimore club producer Blaqstarr's legacy looms as the artist that pushed the boundaries of the sound outwards while introducing it to a larger audience. Before he was producing for M.I.A. and exploring the sound's decidedly trippier corners, Blaqstarr's earliest work relied on more traditional components: an insistent, marching band-like stomp, and sliced-and-looped vocals that lodge themselves in your brain the instant you hear them. "Hands Up Thumbs Down" is an example of this formula in optimal form; it's immediate, clobbering, and as relentlessly hypnotic as anything in Blaqstarr's catalog. The track dates back to 2003 and appears on The Blaq-Files EP, which collects four unreleased early tracks from Blaqstarr.