Steve Reidell (STV SLV) makes no claims that the music he creates with his partner Aaron Brink (ABX) under the moniker The Hood Internet is anything new. “In the cosmopolitan world the mash-up is long since over,” Reidell stated candidly.

I couldn’t help by nod in agreement, thinking back to the hundreds of mash-ups sent my way last year by eager kids with a sound editing program and a desire to penetrate the music blogosphere, perhaps along the way finding some of the same success as Reidell and Brink. But what Reidell humbly will never admit, is that while the mash-up may be a tired trend, the Hood Internet, through a well-honed formula of indie rock meets hip-hop pairings, an eye for detail and a willingness to never take themselves too seriously, offer redemption.

The Hood Internet – Solid Gold From New York (AZ x The Golden Filter)

In 2007, Reidell and Brink were playing together in the Chicago-based indie rock band, May Or May Not. They had no dreams of a future as touring DJs nor did they expect the blog they created at the time as a home for their mash-up experiments to blow up and garner press. “We started making these tracks on the side because we thought it would be fun and a sweet blog for our friends to look at. It really just spiraled outwards,” explained Reidell. When the duo quickly began to exceed the bandwidth limits on their site, Reidell experienced a reality check, “People were listening to this and it was really encouraging. So we started making more stuff and three years later we’ve done 300 tracks, made a bunch of mixtapes and are now DJs.”

The mash-up is by nature an erratic music format and the Hood Internet owe much of their success to their finely tuned and never deviated from formula of mixing indie rock hits with hip-hop cuts. Posted last Thursday, Hood Internet’s “Crazy Hold Out” mashes up Nicky Minaj with Washed Out. And further back, “The XX Gon’ Give It To Ya” combines DMX with The xx. Every aspect of each new post is, in itself, a mash-up. The Hood Internet’s track titles are combinations of the original track names and artist names. Each track is accompanied by its own sometimes flawless, sometimes hilariously awkward photographic mash-up and they’re reason enough to keep coming back to the site. Reidell laughed at my obsession with the Hood Internet’s visual mash-ups offering, “There’s definitely some comments that say the photoshop is better than the track itself and there’s times when that’s completely true.”

The Hood Internet – The XX Gon’ Give It To Ya (DMX x The XX)

Consistency is more than a stylistic template, it’s a shared mindset that has allowed Reidell and Brink to continue the project, despite shifts in workflow. Brink now resides in North Carolina, with Reidell still based in Chicago. They work on tracks separately, communicating over email and hitting each other up for advice. They reconvene in closer collaboration to work on DJ edits, mixtapes and play shows together. For a project that has gained the majority of its traction thanks to the internet, it seems only a natural fit that Reidell and Brink would incorporate the internet into their workflow.

It’s now three years later in the history of a project that was never supposed to take off. “When people started watching we tried to give them more of what we could do. We had no plan. No ‘this is how we’re gonna make it’,” says Reidell. But they did make it, along the way acquiring a fanbase that reflects their consistency. Reidell added, “We play around Chicago and it’s fun and we’ll get a good crowd. But the cool thing about it is, we have the same draw in almost every other city. There’s an equal distribution of people that like us all over.”

Reidell and Brink have already begun what will be their biggest undertaking to date and a new chapter in their musical storybook. At long last, there will be a Hood Internet album. The duo have been gathering bits of music from established musicians that they’ve met and building off those pieces to make an entirely new product. They have plans to involve vocalists and MCs, but Reidell was quick to state, “It’s still in the very early stages so it’s hard to say what it will be.”

When I asked Reidell what the future held for their heavily trafficked blog, he paused a moment then thoughtfully stated, “Hopefully the website will just be a home for the projects we work on in the coming years. It might not always be new mash-ups all the time. Especially as we get into more production. The mash-ups are still fun to put together and if that’s what people are coming to the blog for, that’s cool too. But at some point we’ve got to run out of ideas…right?”

The Hood Internet – Feel It On The South Side (Birdman x Washed Out)

For the first time all night I didn’t agree with Reidell. The Hood Internet have imbued a musical format often thought of as a throwaway joke with genuine sincerity and skill. I don’t believe this duo are ever going to run out of creative ideas that challenge the public’s perception of the mash-up.