So here's one I missed... which is odd, since it involves one of my favorite bands going, the mighty, mighty Dub machine known as Fat Freddy's Drop. Apparently, Ninja Tune operative and confirmed Russian DJ Vadim did this whole remix EP without informing me. Which just goes to prove that Russians are dicks. Actually "remix" doesn't even quite describe what he does to these songs, as he's also added vocals from a female singer and a rapper. Interesting...
If you like this one, all 6 tracks are available for DL. And you can hear the Drop's amazing singer, Joe Dukie, in this week's radio show...
I've always been somewhat hesitant to do a Old School Hip-Hop mix because A) There are sooooooooooo many of them out there already and what can I really say with this mix that hasn't already been said?... and B) I don't scratch and what's a Hip-Hop mix without scratching? But then I got stoned and said fuck it. Because 4THOFJULY'MERICAFUCKYEAH! Listen, Download, Enjoy...
Check it out, I'm about to drop a SXSW act on you. Hip as fuck, yo!
But don't worry, it's not another shoegaze act with either no vowels or a "V" where a "U" should be in their names. In fact, it's something I didn't even know existed... an Australian rapper!
Whaaaaa?
No, really. So I turned on the Fuse network last night and there was a live show from SXSW on, an old school Hip-Hop showcase featuring Doug E. Fresh, PE, Ice Cube and LL Cool J (who lick-smacked and dick-grabbed his way through an impressive set with Z-Trip on the decks, no less!). Which was all well and good... but the dude that grabbed me was this guy Seth Sentry, an Aussie who won this little 3-way "up-and-comer" rap battle and apparently will now be opening on LL Cool J's summer tour, entertaining legions of NCIS LA fans across the country. But tell ya what, mate, this guy is good. He obliterated the rather pathetic competition with some very clever/funny rhymes and beats that weren't the typically trendy slow-and-slower thing that's been charting big while simultaneously killing Hip-Hop lately. Worst trend since Ugg Boots. Fuck off with it already. But yeah, if Macklemore & Ryan Lewis can blow up, I don't see why this guy can't...
Here's another example of this dude's funny but kinda brilliant lyrical style, via the YouTubes...
He's like The Streets of Sydney! Even though he's from Melbourne. I could have just said The Streets of Melbourne... but I like alliteration, so fuck off...
So it's taken me a bit longer than I would have liked to get it going here in the new year, mostly because right before New Years I was involved in a pretty gnarly car crash. Amazingly walked away from it. That kind of thing can make you think. That kind of thing can make you change your perspective. That kind of thing can make you look at your life, feel lucky to have it and make positive changes. And sometimes it's helpful to turn to music to guide you through this tough time... lyrics that help you find that new path forward. Here's The Dave Matthews Band, with "Crash Into Me".
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Just kidding. I said that kind of thing can make you think... I didn't say it can turn you into a weeping Hippie pussy...
But seriously, that shit was no joke. Gotta love how about 15 seconds of rain can turn the LA freeways into black fucking ice. Spun out at about 60 and did a header right into the concrete median. I do not recommend that you try this at home. Throw in the fact that right after that the better half and I decided to move... because what's smarter to do when you're in a constantly shifting assortment of physical pain than lift a lot of heavy shit... and yeah, not a lot of time for blogging lately. I spend my spare time these days whimpering in back/rib/sternum pain like a little girl. So here, for real, is Method Man...
As you know, I inflict an original tune upon the world once in a while... but you may not know that I've always wanted to do Hip-Hop, but never had an MC to spit over my mad beats. BUT NO MORE! I ended up meeting Mr. Jarvis Miller... and if you can see his picture there, it's obvious that we are in fact twins separated at birth. Even I have a hard time telling us apart. IT'S FREAKIN' UNCANNY! Anyhoo, I made a beat, he made a rap and the results are pure Hip-Hop fucking magic if I do say so myself... okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration but I think it turned out pretty good for a first shot. THE FIRST OF MANY! TAKOVER IN PROGRESS! RULIN' THE RAP GAME IN THE 1-3, YO! DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT! HERE COMES THE MAD FLAVA IN YOUR EAR! SMACK IT UP, FLIP IT, RUB IT DOWN, OH NO!
Ummm... okay. I'll work on my Hip-Hop lingo between now and the next one... and be sure to check out the rest of Jarvis' tracks. They, unlike this blog, are no joke, son...
Busy, busy, busy Tone = another one post week. But its a good one, from an early '90s classic that's kind of slept on these days...
Masta Ace was a member of the legendary Juice Crew, a crew so legendary that you can't legally refer to it without using the word legendary. So that's legendary as fuck. After going out on his own for a while, he rounded up his own posse, which he called Masta Ace Incorporated. Honestly, I would have gone for Masta Ace, LLC for tax reasons, but hey... it's not my posse, so I guess I'll just shut up. Great beats on this record. Little Louie Vega even did a couple. But not this one. So I guess I'll just shut up again...
I'm not a huge fan of going to Mexico ever, but sometimes it's not so bad I guess...
So, a few years back, the members of LA Hip-Hop group Giant Panda (quite good) and producer Thes One of People Under The Stairs (quite even gooder) took a road trip to Mexico. According to Wikipedia, "During their stay...the group camped on the beach facing the Sea of Cortez where they fished for their meals, visited local taco stands, purchased produce from local farmers, and attended local baseball." FASCINATING! What would we do without Wikipedia? Anyhoo, they also knocked out this, the Bloquera EP (really quite good indeed). Nothing particularly Mexican sounding, mind you... just good Hip-Hop...
Why don't British rappers get more play in the US? I mean, they speak better English than the American rappers do. Discuss...
Is it perhaps a bit cheeky to call your debut album Greatest Hits? Perhaps, but I'd worry less about people thinking I'm cheeky and more about making sure that title didn't come true and everything I recorded from that point on didn't suck. "His first album was in fact his "Greatest Hits", because every other song he ever recorded was shit." Not good. And a situation that was nicely avoided by Nigerian/British Grime MC Skepta, who has built from this fine debut into becoming a regular visitor to the UK charts. Not the US charts though, because his music is actually good. Flo Rida is this guy's bitch...
So this popped up in the shuffle this morning and I have no problem with that...
... because seriously, who doesn't love Snoop? Well, Republicans probably don't, but they're a bunch of fucking assholes anyway. Too political? Too bad! I have freedoms! This is Amercia, dammit!
Hey all... just uploaded yet another classic Tonegents DJ mix to the Mixcloud. You should go check that out again for the first time. I'll wait...
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Meanwhile, at the five and dime...
Today, a 1996 joint from Native Tongues-affiliated outfit Da Bush Babees given the shiny new refit from DJ Pure P (So, you get the post title now, right?) from the G.A.M.M. label, one of my current favorites for all things funky. And the only other relevant thing I can tell you about this track is that it contains a very early appearance of a kid named Mos Def who's done pretty well for himself since. Dig it...
Speaking to the news of the day, as I am often wont to do, I must say that Tupac hologram at Coachella was pretty impressive... but not entirely accurate. There should have been a bunch of holes in it... What? Too soon?
Handsome Boy Modeling School was a two-album team up between international men of mystery Nathaniel Merriweather and Chest Rockwell, who also went by the names Dan The Automator and Prince Paul. So yeah, two of the best Hip-Hop producers, oh... ever. And if you disagree with that, I will fight you. Plus you have to love any act that gets it's name from a Chris Elliot bit. YOU HAVE TO! The project, like so many, came to an end because of bitching over money, but they left us some great tunes. Here's one now...
Who they are: Beck Motley & Bon Voyage, a pair of rappers from that new Hip-Hop hotbed (and I don't even mean that sarcastically), Toronto...
What they sound like: Just good indie Hip-Hop with some nice, original production... so of course, I'll just give you the tune where they rap over a decade-old Radiohead joint...
Today, the best comic-turned-rapper since Eddie Murphy put the boogie (and other assorted items) in your butt. But first...
Grouplove's Indie Pop gets no love because I can't stand the guy singer.
Zed's Dead actually produced a Brostep remix of "Knights In White Satin"... you heard me. And they get rewarded with a gig at Coachella. I cannot sigh heavily or derisively enough to express my exasperation with this...
And The Vaccines sound like they listen to a lot of The Smiths, but that's really about the only thing I can say about them other than "meh"...
Who he is: Well maybe we can find one of those tomorrow. Because CG is the rapping alter ego of actor/comedian Donald Glover, one funny motherfucker...
What he sounds like: ... but this record is far from a joke. (See what I did there?) It's funny, sure, but this is not comedy rap. It's a real album. A pretty decent one. It is NOT Chunky A...
THE PUBLIC HAS SPOKEN! Okay, it was a very, very small percentage of the public, but still... they want some Blog-achella and who am I to deny them? Of course, my statement of how I was so very likely to actually go to Coachella this year was shot down in approximately four hours (the time it took both weekends to sell out, holy shitballs), but as they say in my business, THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
(You know, actually I've been in "show business" for almost COUGH years now and I've never actually heard anyone say that. Myth busted!)
But anyhoo, We start at the bottom of Friday's lineup, as we always do... it's a tradition unlike any other. SUCK ON THAT, THE MASTERS!
And this year it all starts off with L.A. Riots, who are some Fidget House guys. As the first act of the year, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt... if not for the atrocity they committed in remixing The Ting Ting's "That's Not My Name". You'd think it would be pretty hard to fuck up that song but they managed to pull it off. Go listen to it on their Myspace (hehe... I said "Myspace") if you don't believe me. It's dreadful. So they get NOTHING BUT SCORN!
The Sheepdogs are a Canadian band that, while inoffensive, kinda sound a little bit like Classic Rock Karaoke. There ain't a riff you haven't heard before. Meh...
From Canada all the way down to Mexico we go for Hello Seahorse!, who lose points for having a superfluous exclamation point in their name. The sound is kind of interesting... like Mexican version of some of your favorite Canadian Alt-Pop bands (New Pornographers and the like)...
From Mexico to just north of Mexico and honeyhoney who lose points for not having any capital letters in their name. MY RULES! The sound is a Southwest country vibe that once again is inoffensive but unexciting...
And The Dear Hunter = the sound of if Oingo Boingo sucked. The first truly dreadful act of the year...
Well... that's a lot hate to start this thing off with, but I didn't book this dog & pony show, did I? If I did, you'd see two words at the bottom of that Friday lineup. Wang and Chung. Just sayin'. But things being as they are, Blog-achella-geddon 2012! (this exclamation point is not superfluous, fyi) begins with...
Who he is: A rapper straight outta Compton, who has even come under the wing of Dr. Dre lately. Can't get more steez-ier than that...
What he sounds like: Not a heck of a lot like Dr. Dre or Snoop or the sound you normally associate with Compton. For me, most of the time Hip-Hop is about the beats and this guy has some groovy, melancholy production as is the style of the day (as you will see from upcoming posts by folks like Frank Ocean and The Weeknd) and I'm feelin' it...
What I think: I've found the first act worthy of inclusion in my iTunes of the year, which is one of the main reasons I do this. I'm always down for some good new Hip-Hop... it seems to be harder than ever to find these days. I can't seem to tune any in on my Victorola. Gotta get that thing fixed. And now we finish this post in the Blog-achella tradition, with a live clip. This one looks to be a little shouty with the hype men, but honestly I don't expect much else from Hip-Hop shows, The Roots being the supreme exception. Peep it...
Not bad. We'll see. Get the mixtapes though, for sure. It'll be interesting to see what comes from this dude's alliance with Dre. If nothing else, I imagine it'll give Dre yet another excuse to not release Detox. We shall see...
And with that, Blog-achella-geddon 2012! is underway... just when I got out, YOU PULLED ME BACK IN!
As I'm currently working on my first ever Hip-Hop record (you heard me), I've currently got an iPod full of nothing but the good-good in search of inspiration. Here's somewhere I've found some...
Blu & Exile are a couple of dudes who need to get their online shit together, for one. The only thing I can find for either of them are half-assed Myspace pages? FOR SHAME! Luckily they're better at music than they are at the Interwebz. Although this was a one-off project, it made several year-end "Best of..." lists in '07 and is considered bonafide new school underground classic. Check out a little bit o'why...
'Bout time I brought you some of the new-new, so here's one of my current absolute favorites today...
My growing man-crush on Dutch producer Nicolay has been well-documented around here of late, but his marquee project (so to speak) The Foreign Exchange would not be nearly as dope with out North Carolina MC/singer Phonte. I don't think there's another rapper in the world who can sing as well as this guy... dude's voice is like butta. And not some cheap-ass butta... some of that super organic butta from cows that had personal valets that you get at Whole Foods that costs like ten bucks a stick. We're talkin' seriously smooth, people. But more about that later. Phonte just released his very first solo record and it's got more rapping that singing... but lucky for us, he's pretty good at that, too. Dig it... oh, and that's not him on the hook, smart-ass. I didn't say he sounded like a girl...
The shuffle felt like revisiting our old pal DJ Shadow again. I got no issue with that...
So here's one from the super-duper rare 4-Track Era set of Shadow's very earliest work, a remix of the not-exactly legendary Poor Righteous Teachers. Now if you don't remember them, their members went by the handles Wise Intelligent and Culture Freedom. Any questions? Didn't think so. Now this really does sound like "early work"... it's not fantastically mastered, it's a bit scattered with perhaps a couple too many ideas... but that's what makes it neat. It's a look at the master's skills as they developed. Dig it...
Every now and then, you need a reminder of why we miss Mr. James Yancey in this music game...
This here record by Slum Village is widely regarded as one of the best Hip-Hop albums of the '00s and one of J Dilla's masterpieces. People don't even care that the rapping is only so-so, that's how hard Dilla killed it on this one. I'm not saying the rapping is bad... I mean, it's not, like, Lil' Jon level but it's nothing to write home about. But yeah, this one's all about the beats, peeps. To wit...
Slum Village - Eyes Up
(Something's happened that's made my page turn up as an attack site and it mentioned this post. So some asshole did something, somewhere. Had to remove the links... sorry.)
See what I mean? The spittin's nothin' special, but that jam is still hot. It's pretty sad that two of the three people involved in the recording you just heard are dead already. That's what's called ending on a downer...
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Well, shit, that's depressing... here's some kittens...
The music posted on this blog is for evaluation purposes only and will be removed after a short time... so if you like it... support the artists, dammit! Buy the records, go to the shows, give them a ride to the airport if they need it! Don't be a schmuck! If you are an artist or scary lawyer type and want something removed from here, just holla and it's gone! I'm easy like that!
