For Chicago DJ/production duo Flosstradamus summertime means, among other things, the transition from a grueling, globetrotting schedule of shows to a relatively relaxed itinerary of festival gigs, including a recent set at the massive Electric Daisy Carnival mega-rave in Las Vegas. "We're really just gone on the weekends," says Josh Young, one half of the pair. "It's a nice change of pace to be back in Chicago during the nice weather days. The few nice weather days we get a year."

The road to playing crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands was long, beginning in tiny Chicago dive bars where they got their start and taking a sharp turn a couple of years ago when Young and his partner Curt Cameruci began releasing their own original material, which found an audience in the EDM scene that was wildly receptive to their hybrid of hip-hop and arena rave. The pair has a bunch of gigs coming up, including appearances at a few of the Mad Decent Block Party fests happening across the U.S. and Canada.

During a bit of downtime Young put together a playlist for Esquire aimed at a much more intimate crowd: the summertime backyard barbecue. Listen below...

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"When we were at Ultra at WMC this year some of our friends, FKi from Atlanta, who we've made tracks with, were up there. They just know what's happening in Atlanta music, and they were like, 'Right now it's all Migos.' Drake is on their stuff now and they're going to blow up overnight."

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Missy Elliott - "Work It (R4 remix)"

"R4 is a group of four DJs. One of them is DJ Sliink, our homey from Jersey. When I first heard the drop on this it was one of those things that made me mad that I didn't make it. It's so perfect and also just right in front of us. We play it in our set every single night."

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"Alex Young is a young producer out of D.C. He's like 16. We've been working on some music and he sent this over and it feels like a summer love ballad. I feel like it's the Tumblr love generation anthem. I had to throw some romance in there."

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"For me right now this is the remix of the year. Cashmere Cat has been killing it and inventing his own style of like bedroom R&B and trap. He came out of nowhere but he has all of the swag. Like, all of it. His remixes are really big and orchestral but tasteful. Everything he puts out is fire."

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"He's from Hawaii, another up-and-coming producer. It seems like right now the sort of Dilla-esque production side of things, the real stoner backpack style is starting to come back, and he's at the forefront of it to me. We put 'Roller' in our sets and it's one of the songs that's us highlighting that we came from that hip-hop world."

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"Oh my god. The original 'Work' I listened to a thousand times. Then when the remix came out it renewed the lease on the song for me forever. I don't think I'll ever hear it in a club and not go crazy. It's just perfect. It has that street vibe but it also feels like a crossover song. My wife loves it, I love it, and everyone I play it for, whether they're into dance music or street rap or whatever, they're like, 'Oh man, this is good.' It hits that sweet spot."

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"We've worked on a few tracks with DJ Sliink and this one is hands down the biggest. After touring with each other for a month we decided to put out an EP on Fool's Gold called the Nomads EP. This very non-epilepsy-friendly video is a recap of some of our shows over the last six months."

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"That I put in because it's a song that for us is an old tune. With the Internet generation, songs have a shelf life of a couple weeks and kids are over it and onto the next banger. That song has been really special, obviously for our career. But people still hit us about it constantly and people are still discovering it. Every set we play we close with it or play it toward the end of our set, and when we play it it's a magical moment. I just wanted to pay homage to that song and what it's done for us and I think for electronic music where it is right now."

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