Simple but effective rework that gives the track a whole other, big, dubstep, car-system feeling.
Jun 302009
Jun 302009
Road 2 Zion was a real fine mix between rap and reggae, with Nas laying down his best verse in years, further securing his place as rap’s John Coltrane. Let us hope that this new album they are working on brings out the same level of lyricism, and that Damian makes sure that the end result will sound a lot less corny than the music in the end of the clip above.
Damian Marley ft. 2pac, Nas, Scarface – Welcome 2 My Block (Clinton Sparks Blend)
Jun 242009
Let us start with the beat. Before Dr. Dre invented g-funk, he had the last say on that superhard, James Brown-based b-boy boom bap that New York producers like Marley Marl, Kurtis Mantronik, Paul C and The 45 King had defined earlier. This was what the world first knew Dr. Dre for. He took that style to a new level. When you listen to the groundbreaking, funk-as-punk masterpiece Straight Outta Compton, the snares hit your cranium harder, the bass slaps heavier in your chest, and the loops come out cleaner, funkier. As RZA once put it in an interview: nobody fills up your whole car like Dr. Dre. The title track might be the hardest beat ever cooked up (even if the doctor made serious attempts to top himself with Deep Cover, Pump Pump, Natural Born Killaz – imagine if he gave something in that weight class to Tupac Shakur), and the man responsible for it is better known for introducing laidback orchestrations and Nate Dogg’s smooth crooning to the game, or helping with the musical backdrop for The Eminem Show, than for the production that brought N.W.A. to the attention of the F.B.I.
“I rep the streets, ’til I rest in peace! If you wanna bring your west and heat, my projects be the last place you ever see!“
Raised in the crack wars of New York, just out of jail (where he had been the boxing champ), Mega Montana was now set against friends turned foes and a record industry most eager to fuck him over. Before he recorded Tha Realness – one of the most heartfelt and powerful albums ever recorded – Cormega was spitting with a whole other kind of ferocity. If you compare his early freestyles with the Cormega from The True Meaning and Legal Hustle you can see that his delivery is rawer, straight aggression, as if he had beef with every person in the room. The animal, reptile, killer instinct is in every bar. It was only right for him to make Straight Outta QB.
Some recordings from this era displays a certain sloppiness, a syllable out of place here and there. This is typical for rappers not so comfortable in the studio. After all, Cormega had spent his last years administrating drug wars and going through the prison system, more busy with surviving than with perfecting his flow. However, that nervousness cannot be found on this track. His mic presence is magnetic, the delivery impeccable, the flow without weaknesses. Every syllable is in its exact place, laid down hard like the bricks that make a prison wall. Brute force. Raw power, stomping your enemies into the ground. Adrenaline. Aggression. I will kill you. I will survive.
It is easy to criticize violent music. At the same time, the critic has probably never “felt the power of invisibility, clutching a gun like, fuck it – it’s him or me“. The rapper did not choose the concrete jungle, crack, hand cannons; he was born there. If from a nicer area, other, more socially well adjusted topics would have been dealt with. To his favor, Cormega only relates things that he has experienced, that he has seen up close in the flesh (“I possess the ghetto essence of that which I portray“), and does it with a passion for his craft, never giving in to gimmicks, poses, trends, empty bragging, always choosing his words carefully, as a means to paint pictures, passing on life lessons, and trying to uplift his listeners. Still, we sure miss the incomparable anger and energy that we hear in his old freestyles.
“My tounge’ll leave a razor sliced on mics…“
Jun 172009
I dedicate this song to Mariana. The discussion is over now, I assume.
Bring me a Jorge Ben song that rivals the naked heart and soul of Eu Amo Voce, and we can talk about it.
You can’t find one? Is that so? Really? And why?
Because a song like that doesn’t exist. Sim gatinha, Jorge Ben is mad talented… but please, he doesn’t even reach the shoulders of Mr. Tim Maia. The man towers over his competitors. He is the best of Brazil, ever.
And this is the end of that.
“Que beleza é sentir a natureza
Ter certeza pr’onde vai
E de onde vem
Que beleza é vir da pureza
E sem medo distinguir
O Maia e o Ben“
Jun 162009
Force Tracks releases the ideal meditative urban music. While ambient, drone, noise is the typical soundtrack for sinking into the void of contemplative nothingness, the dubbed-out tech-house and digital disco that Force Tracks has specialized in means meditation in movement, it means contemplating when moving through squares, stores, parks, crowds in streets, it means the increased perception of the urban landscape when riding buses and trains with headphones. House music, generally bouncing along at around 120 bpm (which equals the heart rate of an excited human body), becomes the city’s pulse.
This is not the same landscape as in the futuristic, industrial decay of Detroit, nor the deep bunker dubs of Basic Channel. This is not the wastelands. It is more affirmative than critical in relation to the modern urban landscape. That comes from a technological paradigm, from the fact that we are listening to laptop-techno, dance music that puts the best elements from IDM and glitch upon a finely mechanized funk; the analog assassins have grown up. The Birth Of New Life has become adult. Some days that feels like a good thing.
Listen to:
Jun 152009
Released last year, Maximum Strength sounds much better than what an artist’s 21st album should have the chance of doing.
But if you feel hiphop with reggae is played out (I don’t), maybe you should pass on these.
Jun 122009
Watching Flow TV’s special on Big Pun got me listening to his classics again.
Big Pun was mad charismatic, made better battle raps than anybody, managed to pull of some OK club songs, penned introspective and relationship songs without making a fool of himself, narrated great storytelling tracks, and even dropped powerful political comments. And he was the illest lyrcially, ever. He seperated himself from other technical monsters, such as Canibus, by always keeping the multisyllable madness, the scientific, hyper futuristic lingo deep within the pain and struggles of his everyday life. It is there for a reason, not for just for showing off.
Let us look at often quoted rhyme from his first album. Being in need of money, Fat Joe and Big Pun have agreed to do a quick job for the mob. Everything seemed to go be going well, but soon they will discover something about the people they left “dead in the middle of Little Italy”:
“Little did we know we riddled two middle men who didn’t know diddily”.
With that language-stretching syllable-fest he establishes the scene, introduces two minor characters, tells us what happened to them, and what went wrong. I’m not saying he was the greatest ever. But had he been able to carry his weight and record a catalouge as deep as those of Scarface, Cormega, Ice-T, KRS-ONE, Tupac Shakur, Kool G Rap or Rakim, he might have been just that.
At times Big Pun preferred to spit that undilluted street venom so very few artists are capable of producing these days. Besides being the most technical, he was also one of the most hardcore rappers ever. Proof below; Pun at his rawest, ugliest, at his most obnoxious and ignorant.
Jun 122009
I watched Alex Jones’ The Obama Deception yesterday (well, most of it anyway).
While it surely is wise to pay special attention to what kind of people the new president puts in his government (as we saw in the documentary mostly bank people, members of the Bilderbergs and The Trilateral Commision, leftovers from the Bush administration, even Henry Kissinger (of all people) as an advisor), Jones’ extreme emphasis on certain people and secret organizations does the whole thing a disservice. Conspiracy theory does not make you feel like the world is in our hands (which it really is), but in the hands of a few very powerful men. His dada-like gusto and ability to dig up interesting factoids should be acknowledged, but his analytical tools need to be sharpened.
What I gained from watching this was mainly a deeper respect for KRS-ONE (who stops by to give his two cents on the new administration). He is one of the few rappers who has had the balls and the intelligence to critize the first black president. His message: “Don’t get caught up in the emotionalism of Obama!“
Kris is still completely on top of his game, spiritually profound and verbally razor-sharp, having stayed relevant for more than 20 years, releasing more than 20 albums (Pick It Up form the youtube-clip sounds pretty dope, Maximum Strenght needs to be looked into), and succeeding with seemingly impossible tasks, such as incorporating dancehall and vegetarianism into the boom and the bap and still keeping it one hundred percent hardcore. Twenty-two years after Criminal Minded, he still smacks you over the head verbally. If it is one artist I would like to see live, it would be the Blastmaster.
Now what Alex Jones really should do is record an album with the God, supplying the anti-governmental motivation speeches and creepy electronics backdrops that we are used to from his movies to The Teacher’s most politically explicit verses.
KRS-ONE f. Truck Turner – Bring It To The Cypher (prod. by DJ Premier)
Saul Williams f. KRS-ONE – Ocean Within
“go and tell ya momma i took a bite outta ya bum…“
Jun 032009
Hard techno is for dancing rather than for listening alone. But some unmerciful tracks of that late industrial funk music do have that repetitive, meditative quality that makes them work just as well in your headphones as on the dance floor. They win in both situations because, as I see it, the track itself emulates the slow and subtle shifts of the uncompromising techno DJ.
Monotonous music opens your head. This concept goes back to Erik Satie.
“Vexations is a noted musical work by Erik Satie. It consists of a short chordal passage and a bass line which is repeated twice in each repetition of the piece. Satie recommends on the score that ‘To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.’ While the 840 repetitions aren’t obligatory, many artists have followed the enigmatic suggestion and played the piece with many repetitions.”
“The work was first played in public the requisite 840 times, by a team of pianists: John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer, who coincidentally was asked to play in the course of the event) and Joshua Rifkin, with two reserves, on September 9, 1963, from 6 p.m. to 12:40 p.m. the following day.”
If you loop something it changes. The sounds grow. Repetition is difference. “You can’t step into the same river twice“, as Heraclitus put it, to which Chuck D responded, “You Can’t Stop The Bum Rush“. What a brother know?
Jun 012009
Wu always had the best posse cuts, naturally. This is the best one I have heard in a while.