Even when I was wrong, I got my point across.

May
28

Son Raw is knocking another one off the to-do list.

So…hey. We never reviewed this, in my case because I wanted to take some time to figure out why it wasn’t clicking. Long story short, man is this OF Tape boring. The vast majority of the tracks are completely forgetable compared to their previous work and it makes you wonder who’s idea it was to turn the group into an anonymous battle-rap vehicle for Hodgy and Domo. Oldie is awesome because Earl is back. Analog 2 is great because Tyler continues to be one of the most interesting character actors in rap today and he benefits from the ironic restrain he demonstrates here. Snow White and White live and die off Frankie and Sam (is Dead) is what the whole tape SHOULD have sounded like. That’s all you need to know – I doubt anyone outside of the group’s now established cult fanbase will find much to enjoy in the other tracks.

May
25

BEeFF Rule the Fake World

Weed in wine glasses, Wonderlic references and squirt gun shootouts. Well played. The difference between BEeFF and their comic-minded peers is that the West LAians understand the difference between satire and irony. Maybe this is a college thing. Still, “Mute’ is the only banger this year that could inspire debates about fakeness and authenticity. Thankfully, no such thinkpieces exist, nor should they. More writers should heed the words of Jay: you are not deep. Nor are BEeFF, they’re just realer than faker than realer than fake fake. That means they’re really fake. Or something.

Download:
ZIP: BEeFF - Leaders of the FAKEWorld (Left-Click)

May
25

Long Distance L.O.V.E.: The Evolution of Onra

Jimmy Ness loves this song like a fine Cuban cigar.

Onra’s latest strand of funk makes you feel like a baby-faced Prince still elegantly rocking crotch-hugging leather pants and frilly silk shirts. “L.O.V.E” has an obvious post-disco 80s influence with cloudy funk vocals, nostalgic synth-work, and beep-bop you’d imagine little green men grooving to. It’s the perfect soundtrack to hot weather, pool parties and driving a ragged convertible around Florida. Yes, I just described Miami Vice.

The first leak from Onra’s forthcoming Fools Gold debut displays his evolution beyond the vintage boogie-funk of Onra’s 2010 album Long Distance with half-spoken vocal samples and summer vibes. But the Vietnamese-Parisian producer doesn’t just make music for dancefloor disciples. His Eastern inspired beat tapes Chinoiseries I & II contained unique Chinese vocal samples from the 50s and banged harder than a ninja assassin smoke grenade. The 30 year old has also drawn more than a few J Dilla comparisons by writers desperate to categorize his protean production.

May
25

Blu Kisses the Sky

Jonah Bromwich is zen.

Sometimes I think it’s amazing that I’m still paying so much attention to Blu. He’s the most singularly frustrating artist I’ve ever been a fan of. He released two albums this year that were drowned in fuzz, and when I say drowned, I don’t mean the kind of fuzz that Douglas Martin enjoys. I mean that Blu held these albums’ heads under fuzz, laughing spitefully while the poor LP’s sputtered for clean sound and thrashed their arms around desperately until they died/were completely unlistenable. That’s as literal as I can get while still being figurative. Blu has a ninth grader’s obsession with weird spacing and random capitalization. He’s unpredictable, enigmatic, apparently a real pain to try to get a hold of and altogether baffling as an artist.

With his talent, sometimes I’m amazed that Blu doesn’t get more attention. As hard as I stan for Kendrick, if we were to go back to December 2011, No York is my number one of the year. Any time the LA rapper clears his head, he unleashes Vesuvius-level fire, as nonchalant as can be. Take the brand new, clean-as-hell single “Kiss the Sky” which has a beat reminiscent of Below the Heavens but finds Blu chopping things up with his one-of-a-kind flow. The guy is just so agile—this kind of ordered, soulful beat doesn’t demand his best, but even a relaxed Blu feels dangerous, like he could side-swipe you at any time, or let off a stream of bars that’ll go straight over your head for the first ten listens (listen to him go from shit-talk, to a mini-story about a crafty girl, to a joke). He’s also got a gift for ceding territory on his own songs to great effect—see his absence on “Annie Hall” or his willingness to give over prime territory here to Mela Machinko, whose vocals seem like a natural extension of the beat.

May
24

Guido Goes to Afrika

Guido’s vision of “Afrika” starts with the drums. Smacked Djembes incite the ritual around the 30 second mark, ceremonial thumps that set the stage for occult keys and synthesizers that sound like they were stolen from a lost Swizz Beatz vault. “Down Bottom” meets dubstep was once the mathematics in the orchestral lab.

But while the rest of the first wave of dubstep turns to house, juke, and whatever maximal mutation is in vogue, Guido’s operating at the opposite end of the spectrum. His songs feel more meticulous, too aggressive for IDM but not propulsive enough for the dance floor. Nor is their room for nostalgia. He seems to be after a meld of the futuristic and the ancient — blending post-space age synths with the hand drums and the eerie vocals that slither in at the 3:40 mark. This is taken from his new single “Flow/Afrika.” The B-Side wins again.

The video for “Flow” is below the jump. The beat is great, but adorned by raps from a British MC named Jay Wilcox. We’ll chalk it all up to cultural differences.

May
24

Not A Blogger Redux: Action Bronson & Riff Raff SODMG: Hot Shorts Part Deux

Doc Zeus has now written three consecutive posts of praise. The Mayans may still be right.

[Ed Note: My feature on Riff Raff appears today in LA Weekly. Rice included.]

Buddy cop films and Judd Apatow have taught us that the metaphysical chemistry of two opposite bros forming an unlikely friendship is the most powerful thing in the universe. From a certain distance, I could not imagine a partnership more ripe for musical disaster than Riff Raff and Action Bronson. Riff Raff is the ex-contestant on a G-list reality show turned semi-competent novelty rapper, while the gruff Bronson is this year’s great (well…white) New York traditionalist rap messiah and contender for the rapper most likely to body slam cornball wannabes through the wreckage of a flaming table. Despite their differences, the union of Riff Raff and Action Bronson managed to create one of the year’s most enjoyable songs, “Bird On A Wire.”

“Hot Shots Part Deux” is the sequel to their unlikely triumph and is just as deeply weird and enjoyable as the first outing. Rhyming over a slow rolling beat with fellow white boy, Dana Coppafeel, the boys rap about decadent lifestyles of cars, women and weed in verse as outlandishly fly as possible. Riff and Bronson might be as stylistically different as children’s finger-painting and 16th Century Flemish realism, but their artistic DNA remains remarkably similar and thus entirely complimentary. Bronson’s all-in-the-details formalisms might stand on the complete opposite of Riff Raff’s blunt southern drawl and bizzaro fashion sense but both have a unique flair for the Rawsian absurd and lace their rhymes with a love for obscure pop culture .

May
24

MobbDeen: On 50 Cent’s “Lost Tapes”

Deen loves you like a overweight adolescent adores pastry.

For a guy that’s always seemed to “get it” – “it” being how to ransack the rap industry for all its worth, Fif doesn’t seem to get it anymore. The Lost Tape is YET ANOTHER collection of great 50 Cent songs that’ll probably get largely ignored by the folks (well, by “folks” I mean bitches) that help propel an artist’s momentum. Curtis forgets that while he’s at his best when he’s making that gully shit (which I sincerely appreciate – never change Fif), it’s the shit for clubs and ladies that gets you a release date on Interscope and decent record sales — always a consideration for a star of 50′s magnitude).

Simply put: Jimmy Iovine won’t let 50 cook this summer if he doesn’t put a hit out there. A solo hit. It isn’t the quality of the music at this point. 50 just shit-talked his way off your playlists. Y’all can obsess over Diddy’s shit talking all you want (and yes, Diddy is a truly gifted shit-talker), but deep down in your hearts you know that Ferrari is the Ric Flair of this rap shit. No one is more disrespectful. Shit, even Diddy was forced to fall the fuck back when 50 picked a fight with him over Mase. 50 won too many times and rubbed our faces in it with glee, so we collectively said “fuck it” and left him to rot in the most hilarious and strange way possible.

May
23

The Essential Nicolas Jaar

America lacks an institution on par with the BBC1 Essential Mix. Sometimes bands of bearders pop up on Morning Becomes Eclectic, but they usually only play a few songs to soundtrack 9 a.m. binges on craisin scones. We stick to the pastries, they create their own tradition in which every notable artist (and the Swedish House Mafia) drops gems on them. The concept was actually spawned in America, but in those primordial pre-Skrillex days, there was little national interest in electronic music other than those kids at your college who emerged from K binges to periodically proclaim that “Oakenfold was God.”

Nicolas Jaar is nominally American. He was born in New York but raised largely in Chile and his aesthetic is continental in the way that the world used to send star scholars to Europe for intellectual polish. He’s not doing so bad for himself, attending Brown and still just 22. When he’s not fusing downtempo trip-hop, Afro-jazz, avant-garde classical, and pop , he’s kicking it with the daughters of famous Hollywood celebs. Over the last year, he’s collaborated with Scout LaRue (daughter of Bruce and Demi) and Sasha Spielberg (daughter of that Senor Spielbergo fellow). Inevitably, he gets court-side seats to Laker games, excused from parking tickets, and invented the “Slow Down” dance. He’s good.

May
23

Son Raw: Wiley – It’s All Fun and Games till…

Son Raw was doing this when you were in a diaper-per.

When it comes to Wiley, who the hell knows? It’s fitting for a genre as weird and self-destructive as Grime that its Godfather and head cheerleader come off as a cross between Nas, Lil Wayne, Lee Perry and The Neptunes and Wiley’s evasiveness and refusal to follow any sort of music industry plan guarantees that even those artists might get exasperated with his ways. Unless you’re in East London collecting tape packs, you’ve probably all but given up following the man’s unpredictable release schedule – major media outlets focus on his Ninja Tune albums while readily admitting they’re nowhere near as accomplished as his wildly unpredictable mixtapes.

May
23

MobbDeen: Singles Going Steady: Big K.R.I.T., Curren$y, & Galatic and Mystikal

Yeah, that’s Deen.

I’ve always been mildly obsessed with the idea of the “single.” It really started after Jigga and 50 made sales/first week sales accomplishments to taunt their rivals with and something for the more shallow (yeah) rap fan to hang their internet commenting hat on. As in: “yeah, the shit was dope but it didn’t sell as much as Nelly.” Well genius, NOTHING sells as much as Nelly – Nellyville was the aural equivalent of condoms. Was it ideal? No. But sales have been part of the conversation for a minute, even after the industry took a huge dump on itself. I promise, that wasn’t a veiled joke about Adele’s weight.

Given the importance we’ve placed on album sales, in a genre probably better suited for singles & EPs, it follows that singles ought to be obsessed about by someone other than managers, labels and A&Rs. That’s where I come in. I just love obsessing about “street” singles, “promo” singles, “single/radio/club” singles and “failed Rick Rawse” singles – probably because I think I have a great ear for these things and I can often predict (fairly accurately I might add) how successful a single is going to be outchea upon the first listen. The only “miss” I’ve had in years is Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli.” I still don’t get how that song blew up the way it did, but let’s not talk about it anymore. Okay, I also kind of whiffed on J.Cole’s “Workout” as well, but I think that one’s mitigated by that silly shit being a glorified Paula Abdul song. Yeah that. And payola. I still can’t believe that stupid shit went platinum.