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.
Full confession, I'm starting this edition of "Get Fresh Tuesday" a little early, because my work schedule is going to be a little fucked up this week, so I don't know how much writing I'm going to be able to do on Tuesday.
1) Big Face Mike - "N da Hood wit It," from MySpace
I didn't go looking for this one, it came searching for me.
Big Face Mike, or his PR team, inexplicably sent an e-mail promoting his new single to my work inbox. I'm not sure why they thought it would be of interest to me, being as I work at a sports station and have had one rapper -- one-hit wonder Pittsburgh Slim -- on any of my shows in my two year tenure as a producer there.
Luckily for both me and Mike, I clicked on the link and dug what I heard, in spite of myself.
Memphis-based Big Face Mike is dedicated to proving that, to paraphrase The Exploited, crunk's not dead. He's out to serve all those people who loved the skittering drums and tales of brutal violence that were so popular in the first half of this decade, who now find themselves adrift in a hip-hop universe filled with skinny-jean wearing blipsters and adolescent half-wits like Soulja Boy.
If you're a big Crime Mob fan, and I am, Big Face Mike will pretty much make you pee your pants with joy.
I'd also like to congratulate Big Face for the best use of a Nextel/Boost/Telus-style push-to-talk sample since Maceo's 2005 hit "Nextel Chirp."
2) New Boyz - "You're a Jerk" (DJ Webstar Remix), from First Up!
Speaking of skinny jean wearing blipsters...
As a fashion icons -- which they aren't yet, but by God I bet they will be -- the New Boyz take that Cool Kids/Lupe Fiasco skatewear-meets-urban look, feed it a good sheet of acid and let it walk around the city tripping. It's as if someone took this LATFH classic and made a band about it.(The original caption on this said "Wait. Shit. Who's co-opting whom?")
All jokes aside, "You're a Jerk" may be most stupidly enjoyable song I've heard all summer. It's the nice weather party anthem we've been waiting for. It also acknowledges that one of the great things about having sex with a girl you're not emotionally attached to is that you can be a dick knowing that there's not a whole lot she can do about it.
(I only know this from what I've been told. I treat all my female partners, the few that I've had, with nothing but the utmost respect. Come to think of it, maybe the whole "respect" thing is reason I haven't been with too many women. I'm rambling. Never mind.)
The DJ Webstar remix takes the original and takes two notches higher on the danceability scale. (Yes, this is the same DJ Webstar who was responsible for "Chicken Noodle Soup" a few years back.)
Afrikan Boy is the stage name of Nigeria-born, UK-raised grime MC Olushola Ajose. If you're not familiar with AB, here's some background. He first started to get some press-burn in England about two years ago when he appeared on a remix MIA's "Paper Planes" along with the now-rapidly-blowing-up American wunderkind Rye Rye.
Since then, he's been toured with MIA, played a lot of medium-sized venues in the UK -- I understand he's a hot draw on the British Campus bar circuit -- and done the European festival loop a couple times. He has a few mixtapes under his belt, but no official, label-sanctioned releases. (Then again, I'm having a harder and harder time telling mixtapes from albums. Why was that new Cool Kids album considered a mixtape? Because there was a DJ yelling between songs? Because there was some rudimentary mixing? It sounded like an album to me.)
Somewhat surprisingly, AB is still at the stage where he fits his music in around his school schedule. He's currently an undergrad at Brunel University, majoring in sociology and psychology.
Unfortunately for AB, and more unfortunately for me, there's almost no chance of him becoming popular in North America. If cats like Dizzee Rascal and Kano can only manage cult followings on these shores, I can't imagine Afrikan Boy's version of grime, which has an even thicker accent and blends in a lot of afrobeat elements, making much sense to Americans.
"Lidl" is a song about shoplifting, and like Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing," it's so much fun that raiding your local mall starts to sound like a really good idea after repeated listenings. (Lidl is the name of a German Wal-Mart equivalent.)
