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.
So, I wanted to do a weekly new music post, but I felt a little awkward just walking around jacking other music blogs for material.
Then I realized that that's how 90 per cent of music blogs operate, and I decided that if it's good enough for The Guardian Online, it's good enough for me. So, with no further ado, I present the inaugural edition of Get Fresh Tuesday.
I've only really started to "get" techno in the last three or four years. Before that, it was the electronic genre that I had the most trouble wrapping my head around. When I first got into electronic music in my late teens, techno just wasn't didn't have the same kick-your-ass visceral rush as drum n' bass, my genre of choice.
Now that I'm a little older, I can appreciate techno's less aggressive, less muscular vibe and get behind it's robot-funk.
"Huesca" is the newest output from Juan Atkins, one of techno's founding fathers. It's all sharp kicks, moody keys and squelching basslines. It's honestly got me so jacked that I can't breathe.
So, I found out about a band from Hamilton, Ontario, about 90 minutes from my house, via a blog from the UK. I don't know how I feel about this.
On one hand, it's always good to find out about fresh Canadian talent. On the other hand, I feel like sort of a chump that I found out abouty Dark Mean from them, and not the other way around.
Dark Mean play the sort of danceable indie rock that gets hipster kids dancing, but it's less The Rapture and more Joy Division. Like the almighty Division, Dark Mean manage to successfully parlay dancey, ass-shaking high hats, swirling guitars, and an overarching feeling of loneliness. Good stuff.
3) "Comme à la Télévision" - Omnikrom, from YouTube
This is the only one I didn't jack from another blog. Exclaim gave me a review copy of Comme à la Télévision, and not only was it the first unabashedly positive review I've written for them, it was one of the best albums I've heard in a long-ass time.
Omnikrom are in kind of weird spot right now. As far as I can tell, they're verging on mainstream popularity in Quebec, but don't even show up on the radar in the rest of North America. That's not entirely surprising, being as they only rhyme in French, but if English-speaking audience can manage to get behind Spanish-language reggaeton tracks, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to get into Omnikrom. If and when they tour English Canada, everybody needs to go see them.
