Hey all, sorry I'm behind schedule again. I went to Monday Night Raw last night. By the way, if you've never been, go.
It's amazing.
OK, for no particular reason, I'm going to dedicate this edition of Old Shit Monday to Latino Rapper of the 1990s.
1) Mellow Man Ace - "Mentirosa" (1990)
This isn't super well-known, but Mellow Man Ace is the brother of Cypress Hill's Sen Dog, and was originally in an early incarnation of Cypress. In '88, Mellow went solo, and when he had huge chart success with "Mentirosa" in 1990, it seemed like he made the right decision.
Perhaps looking back now, Mellow wishes he had stayed in the group.
None the less, "Mentirosa" was the first Top-40 hip-hop song to feature Spanish lyrics, making Mellow Man Ace a bit of a trailblazer.
This video has a little bit of everything: hot dancing girls; a courtroom scene; weird Catholic imagery; sheepskin coats; hats. They need to make more videos like this one.
2) The Beatnuts - "Reign of the Tec" (1993)
I'm not 100% sure what pre-Giuliani New York looked like, but I have a feeling it was probably not unlike this video; a lot of heavily armed sociopaths running around and selling dope.
The Beatnuts are definitely on my list for the greatest rap group of all-time, and are probably number one on my list when it comes to most underrated. This song comes off their debut, Intoxicated Demons, and is interesting because it features The Nuts old three-man line-up, featuring Al-Tariq, then known as Kool Fashion, who found Allah and quit the group in 1995.
Another interesting thing about "Reign of the Tec" is that it would be literally impossible to make this song today. It features a sample from both Brand Nubian and Black Sabbath. There are songs on Demons that sample from five different songs. There is no way a modern rapper could afford the clearance on that many samples, which is sad, because Demons is a super bad-ass album.
3) Lighter Shade of Brown - "Hey DJ" (1994)
OK, first off, you could play that World's Famous Supreme Team sample and attach it to anything, and I'd love it.
Also, the women in this video are stellar. They really could teach a thing or two to the gross, plastic, video hos of today.
And finally, did anyone else notice that this clip is directed by X-Men 2's Brett Ratner? Weird.
I tend to forget how much I like Fat Joe. He's a technically above-average MC, with what I would call a classic, battle-influenced New York flow, heavy with wordplay, metaphors, and punchlines, and when he wants to, he can make some bloodcurdlingly credible threats.
The reason I forget how much I love Joe is that while he's a great MC, he makes a lot of shit. His biggest commercial hit of all-time is still the absolutely terrible "What's Luv?", a duet with that breathy-voiced waste of skin Ashanti and the shirtless wonder, Ja Rule. Every time he makes some incredible, awesome piece of Goodfellas-on-wax type of gangster shit, he seems to have this inexplicable need to balance it out with a rap-ballad or an inane party jam.
"Hey Joe" features Señor Cartagena at his absolute best, and flips a Jimi Hendrix sample to make the chorus. The song has been making the rounds on the web for a couple months, but the video just came out this week.
Oh, and by the way, if MuchMusic showed videos like this one, I would still watch it as religiously as I did when I was 13. Just saying.
OK, while "The Message" is sort of a novelty tune, it does prove my point that "bassline house" and "UK funky house," are basically just re-warmed two-step garage.
It's also a lot of fun.
For those of you who don't quite get what's going on here, UK-based producer/MC Smasher has gathered together some of the better known names of the old UK garage/two-step scene and put them together on one massive reunion track.
(I'm sure he didn't have too hard a time. I can't imagine these guys are very busy these days.)
Is it a collection of old two-step clichés? Yes. Is the video unbelievably budget? Yes.
Do I really like it? Is it, is it wicked? Yes. In fact, I would go so far as to say I'm lovin' it, lovin' it, lovin' it, lovin' it like this.
People tend to think of me as a hip-hop guy, with touches of electro thrown in for balance. While I can't say I'm surprised, anyone who knows me really well knows that this is a little inaccurate. In fact, my rock-fan cred is pretty deep.
I was a full-blown punk rocker for much of high school. I almost peed myself when I went to see Iron Maiden live. I count The Smiths among my favourite bands. I've rediscovered The Stranglers lately. I own a Discharge album, for fuck sake. I have Youth of Today on vinyl.
I just don't like much new rock. There's some stuff in the last decade or so that's caught my attention. I like pretty much anything that could be dubbed dance-rock or disco-punk -- think DFA Records, The Faint, CSS. I enjoy a lot of the blues-inspired stuff, like Soledad Brothers and The Black Keys. I really like all that British angular stuff, like Art Brut and Bloc Party. I think Fucked Up may be the greatest thing to come out of Toronto in years.
I just think that nine-tenths of modern indie-rock sounds like it was made by pussies, for pussies. I don't care if it makes me a bad white, Torontonian 20-something, Broken Social Scene make me throw up in my mouth. Honestly, it's all so soft. It's fine if you're a weepy, anemic bitch, but that's about it.
God, make something that sounds painful, or intimidating, or something. Just don't make music that sounds like it was made by a bunch of weepy, anemic art students.
If you're not sure where to start, listen to this song by The Raveonettes. It's about being in love with a heroin addict, and it sounds like old Jesus and Mary Chain.
OK, I'm re-starting this bitch... updates are now Thursday and Monday.
So, I was at a rather excellent party last night, hosted by my fam, The FAM, and there was a DJ who was playing a lot of shit with analog synths, which I really enjoyed. So, to show my love for analog synths, and to show my appreciation to The FAM, here's the best of early rave, as presented by Dart on the Bus.
1) The Prodigy - "Charly" (1991)
What happens when you combine four wasted lads from Essex, an absolutely terrifying PSA aimed at children, and 120 beats per minute? You get "Charly," The Prodigy's first British hit. For those of you who are innocent, or thick, Charly refers to cocaine. It's also the name of the manic, wild-eyed cat from the ads.
I have no proof of this, but it's probably no coincidence that the song is about blow, and the cat looks pretty high.
This is one of those songs that makes me dance to my iPod on the streetcar. I blame this song for making me look like an idiot on many occasions.
2) The Shamen - "Move Any Mountain" (1991)
When "Move Any Mountain" came out, I wasn't old enough to go out, get pilled up and dance all night. I was ten, and I was in day camp.
One day during lunch, all the counselors started freaking out to a song that someone had on a mixtape. Most of my fellow campers were either indifferent to it, or thought it was crap, due to it's total failure to sound anything like either New Kids on the Block or Warrant. I was transfixed. I made them play it again. And again. And again. Then, the weekend, I made my dad drive me to the mall so I could buy the cassette single.
That song, as you've figured out by now, was "Move Any Mountain." I heard it for the first time in YEARS a few weeks ago. It's funny, because ten years ago, this song would have sounded super dated, but since "Nu Rave" has put analog synths back in fashion, it actually sounds pretty fresh.
3) Moby - "Go" (1991)
Before Moby was a weird, bald, famous, Vegan electronic music producer, he was a weird, unknown, Vegan electronic music producer with hair.
This is my absolute favourite Moby track ever. That's it.
1) "Awesome" - The Bloody Beetroots feat. The Cool Kids, from OK in Art
The Bloody Beetroots are awesome. They have a name that sounds like it belongs to either some arty indie band or some sort of early '80s comedy-punk outfit, but they're actually an Italian house duo. They wear Venom masks when they perform, and they're doing work with The Cool Kids, who, as everyone knows, can do very little wrong by me.
"Awesome" is a great mix of creepy horror movie distortions, glammy glittering synths and laid back rhymes. I feel like a cooler person for having heard this song.
2) "Don't Trust Me" - 3Oh!3 (Acid Girls Erotic Braille Dub), from Discodust
There was a time not too long ago where I actively shunned all things Top 40. I was that guy, where if a band that I already like suddenly "had a hit," I would stop listening to them.
Thankfully, I've mellowed with age, and every so often, I let a little stupid, Kiss FM-type pop in my life. Right now, that stupid pop is taking the form of 3Oh!3, a charming but not-overly-talented synthpop outfit from Denver. You've probably heard their moderately misogynistic hit "Don't Trust Me" coming playing over the loud speakers at Urban Behaviour. I can't help but like this song. It's really catchy.
When re-imagined by LA-based bloggers-turned-producers Acid Girls, though, "Don't Trust Me" mutates. It stops being cheery throwaway pop and turns into the bastard child of Giorgio Moroder and The Prodigy circa "Out of Space."
Forget summer picnics and beers on the beach, this version of the song makes me want to go somewhere dark and sweaty to take drugs and dance.
3) "Smart Niggas" - Big Twins feat. Krondon, from Nah Right
Sweet mother of shit this song is heavy.
Straight '90s-style New York shit, complete with beats by Alchemist. The main MC on this song sounds like he spent the day swallowing razor blades. I actually got a little nervous while listening to this.
If you wanted something that would make hip-hop a threat again, or something that would make M.O.P look like Soulja Boy, this is for you.
So, my pal and former partner in DJ-crime Vivian -- aka DJ Aunt Viv -- has been asking for song suggestions for an old-school hip-hop night she's doing in Busan, South Korea. (That's right, my homegirl's gone global.)
This inspired me to do a post of some of my favourite classic hip-hop tracks. Now, I realize that these songs aren't "old-school" hip-hop. In fact, they are part of hip-hop's "Golden Era," and were referred to as "new-school" hip-hop at the time. I'd also like to point out that if you're getting all uptight about the use of the term "old-school" to refer to hop-hop of the post Def Jam-era, you need to learn to relax.
1) "Spellbound" - K-Solo (1990)
K-Solo came to prominence as part of The Hit Squad, the crew of EPMD protegés that included Keith Murray, Das EFX, and most notably, Redman.
He had two moderate hit albums between 1990 and '92, then largely dropped off the face of the Earth for about six years. In 1998, DMX inadvertently forced him out of retirement.
At some point in the late '80s, the Darkman and K-Solo did time together. While in jail, they both battled each other and rhymed together. According to DMX, he gave K-Solo the idea of putting spelling into his rhymes while they were doing time together. Solo got out first, and recorded "Spellbound." Four years later, X released a song of the same title. In 1998, X had his first hit, "Get at Me Dog," where he told K-Solo to "suck [his] dick" for biting his idea. Solo responded with an mixtape track called "The Answer Back," DMX's big-label backing meant that Darkman effectively had the last word.
2) "Come Clean" - Jeru the Damaja (1994)
Jeru the Damaja is one of my favourite rappers of the Golden Era. His first two albums are sheer genius. If you haven't heard The Sun Rises in the East or Wrath of the Math, do yourself a favour and get a hold of both of those albums now.
Like K-Solo, Jeru came up by riding the coattails of an established hip-hop act, in this case Gang Starr. Gang Starr's DJ Premier did most of the production work on his first two albums, including "Come Clean," where Primo sampled the sound of a leaking faucet, then distorted it to make the sound you hear in the song.
At his best, Jeru managed to seamlessly blend anti-gangsta conscious-rap, Five Percenter theology -- although Jeru identifies himself not as a Five Percenter, but as a member of the Ausar Auset Society -- and straight stream of consciousness.
Later in his career, Jeru would part ways with Gang Starr, and the quality of his work would diminish as a result. (2003's Divine Design was straight-up mediocre.) But his first two albums have stood the test of time, and his performance at 2004's Toronto Hip-Hop Peace and Unity Festival was one of the best live hip-hop shows I've ever seen.
3) "Passin' Me By" - The Pharcyde (1992)
This song stands on its own. I'm just going to shut up.
So, I skipped Old Shit Sunday this week because I was in London -- the dull one, not the good one -- interacting with the in-laws. Sorry about that.
1) "Kiss of Life" - Friendly Fires, from Bigstereo
If I ever meet DJ A-Trak, I'll have to thank him for introducing me to half of the new music I've gotten into over the last six months. DiskJokke, who was in this blog last week, DJ Gant-Man and The Friendly Fires were all introduced to me through the two mix CDs A-Trak released earlier this year, Infinity + 1 and Fabriclive .45. If you haven't heard either mix, I suggest you make changing that a priority.
I was aware of The Fires before, but wrote them off as some sort of wanky hipster band without ever really listening to them. That was a huge mistake. It goes to show that you shouldn't pre-judge music, because you could wind up missing some really great stuff.
The Friendly Fires are like the dance-rock band that irony forgot, which is great. As much as I like all that DFA disco-punk stuff, it occasionally felt like some of the bands in that scene were too interested in being cool, rather than filling dance floors. The Fires, on the other hand, are all about getting on the floor and going hard. "Kiss of Life" is the first single on their as-of-yet unreleased second album,
2) "URgencia" - Manusa and Prince Abraham for CIAfrica, from Dutty Artz
CIAfrica is a new French-based label that specializes in urban music from Cote D'Ivoire. I don't know much about Manusa and Prince Abraham, but "URgencia" is a terrifying, anxiety-inducing chunk of Africanized post-grime. It's the sort of song that, as a some-time DJ, I'd love to play in a club, but at the same time, I'd be terrified to play it in front of a crowd of any size for fear people would start punching each other in the face.
Take Lethal B's famous 2004 fight-starting anthem "Pow," then feed it a metric tonne of meth. "URgencia" is that crazy.
2Horsemen are Brazilian, which is almost enough for me. I can't think of a Brazilian band that I don't like: CSS, Bonde do Role, Ratos de Porão, Black Alien and Speed, all excellent outfits. If Brazil is good at one thing, it's making music. That and soccer.
"Momen7um" is a tight electro-house number, with oddly Black-era APop EBM overtones. It's funky enough to pack dancefloors, but dark enough to keep things interesting. A guaranteed winner.
DiskJokke is the alter-ego of Norwegian producer Joachim Dyrdahl. To be totally honest, I don't know that much about him, except that he did an amazing remix of Metronomy's "Heartbreaker" last year, he makes songs with titles like "Cearadactylus," "Tungvekter" and "I Was Go to Morocco and I Don't See You," and he shares a country with Röyksopp, which almost counts as an endorsement in my books.
"Cearadactylus" is a good dance tune, but it's not a full-fledged freak-out stomper. Instead, it chugs along at a medium pace, with some nifty conga-type percussion thrown in for good measure. If I was DJing a party, this would definitely be something I'd play at the beginning of the evening to start lifting people's spirits.
If there's one thing that's remarkable about Kid Sister, it's how she's managed to be so successful with so little recorded material. It's that it's been almost three years since she first became indie-famous, two years since she released her first single, a year since she received mainstream recognition thanks to collaboration with Kanye on the single "Pro Nails," and she still has yet to release an album.
"Right Hand Hi" is the fourth single off her still-unreleased debut album Ultraviolet, which is now set to come out in October on Fool's Gold. If you expected Kid to come out with another song about drinking, fucking and destroying, you guessed right. While "Right Hand Hi" doesn't have the same level of lyricism as some of her other work, it makes up for it with an anthemic chorus, bouncy beats, and synth-riffs that get stuck in your head for days.
Guy J's trippy brand of electro-house has lead me to two conclusions.
One, I was born either ten years too early or ten years too late. Generation X had acid house, which I love. Even though I was entirely too young to be part of the dawn of the rave scene, "Move Any Mountain" is still one of my favourite songs ever. Generation Y, meanwhile, has all that Justice/Simian Mobile Disco blog house stuff, which I love, but I distinctly feel old any time I'm in a venue where they play it.
Two, Israelis are awesome. Far too many people only associate Israel with the country's ongoing political trouble, which is unfair. If I lived in a country that dispossessed hundreds of thousands of people of their land, denied them full citizenship rights, and stuck them in squalid, remote camps, I wouldn't want to be judged by my government's actions.
Wait, never mind.
But all political humour aside, pretty much every Israeli I've known has partied like it's their job, and only held a job to subsidize their party habit. These people know how to have a good time. They think nothing of not going out until 2 a.m., and not coming home until 7. On a Tuesday. I'm not saying the entire nation of Israel is like this, just that there's a significant contingent. It's no surprise, then, that when they make party music, it's well above average.
