February 22nd, 2010
Sach O feels sorry for you bloggers.
The Stimulus Package comes in a fancy collectors edition with a money clip. It’s a collaboration between a guy who once worked with Jay-Z and a guy who was last seen working with MF DOOM. It’s also released on (OMFG!) Rhymesayers, an indie label best known for, ahem, white people Hip-Hop. None of this is remotely important unless you’re a music writer trying to position the album into a predetermined critical worldview. In fact, all of the above should be completely and utterly irrelevant to 99% of the listening population.
What IS important is that The Stimulus Package is a very good rap record regardless of the circumstances that birthed it. Freeway’s flow is more agile and interesting than nearly all of his contemporaries, growling and bouncing off the beat with fierceness reminiscent of the golden era. At a time where rappers either want to be dead serious or constantly goofy, Free is at his best when he’s so fired up his high pitched voice is as propulsive as the beat he’s spitting on.
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Posted in Freeway, Rhymesayers, Reviews, Sach O | 3 Comments »
September 17th, 2009
Sach O could out smoke this guy.
Kid CuDi is a hipster.
That’s not a diss: Midwestern kid feels alienated and misunderstood in Ohio, moves to New York, works shitty jobs in trendy stores, discovers electro, falls in with the right crowd and somehow lands a career making music for other tasteless, badly dressed wannabe artists. Is that not the subculture’s collective dream short of a trust fund and herpes? CuDi’s whole narrative (and he’s all about the narrative) can be told without even mentioning rap music, which is probably why there’s so little of it on Man on the Moon. G.O.O.D Music aren’t trying to sell you a rapper, they’re promoting a black, male, Lady Gaga with self-esteem issues.
That alone isn’t the problem. If anything, Kanye West already proved that this very concept could somehow work on 808’s and Heartbreak, which CuDi contributed to. The difference is that Kanye had three smash hits and years of experience under his belt before attempting a vanity project of this scale. CuDi has a mixtape with a sort-of-dope single whose house remix went viral. Yes folks, it seems we’ve traded in bloated, repetitive southern gangsta rap for even more bloated, pretentious crooning over synthesizers. I take back all previous enthusiasm for Hip-Hop’s future and will now assume the fetal position clutching my copy of Illmatic.
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September 9th, 2009
Sach O couldn’t buy Cuban Linx II from iTunes yesterday. Don’t make me go pick up a plastic disc Apple.
“Cold Outside”
24. They telegraph that “Cold Outside” is the sequel to “Rainy Dayz”.
25. Note to producers: less autotune, more off-key warbling from Suga Bang-Bang over what sounds like the finale of a Chambara flick. Who produced this? This sounds like the soundtrack to a nervous breakdown and might be the only beat that totally captures the utter weirdness of the original’s middle section (”Ice Water,” Glaciers of Ice.”) Can you imagine any other emcee thinking it’s a good idea to rap over something this abrasive in 2009?
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June 18th, 2009
Sach O doesn’t think you should be impressed by the use of the word marvelous.
The year is 1999: Cash Money has just knocked Master P out the box and Def Jam is ruling the airwaves with blockbuster releases by Ja Rule, Jay-Z and DMX. The underground rap scene is tentatively moving from the 12’’ single format to full on album releases while Stones Throw and Def Jux, labels that would revolutionize the indie scene during the next decade are dropping their first projects. Though the Hip-Hop landscape is increasingly fragmented, every set has its heroes and for the Rawkus/Okayplayer contingent no emcee shines brighter at the end of the millennium than the Mighty Mos Def. Dropping the acclaimed Black on Both Sides, Mos embodies the promise of the post-Tribe era combining Q-Tip’s vocal style and topical reach with a harder edged flow and an aggressive BK attitude. The album becomes one of Rawkus’ greatest successes, going gold and setting the stage for Mos to become one of the decade’s most prominent emcees.
Then things fall apart. (No Roots)
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June 10th, 2009
A former associate editor at Stylus, Derek Miller currently contributes to Resident Advisor. While he does reside in the northern country, he should not be confused with this febrile impostor.
You’re tired of reading about this one. I understand. Like many of you, I feel like I burned out on this before I’d really heard it. Maybe you were sick of all the web chatter and hysterics before its release date—May 26th, a day that’s hard to attach to how long we’ve been living with THE NEXT GRIZZLY BEAR RECORD. I had to put that 128 leak away; I began to feel like I was searching for errors in a third-rate Gauguin reproduction (later: there are fucking woodwinds on this record???). Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest—this most divisive of near-masterpieces or testaments to indie pretension. Perspective. Rarely are indie records received in such diametrical opposition. Do you know anyone who kind of likes Veckatimest? On the other hand, I’ve heard critics I know and trust use terms like ‘loathe’ privately. Loathe? This? Fuck. Have you heard the Dirty Projectors’ latest Afro-tinged opus? That’s a record I could understand feeling some negative passion toward—that glassbreak screech. Otherwise, let’s save the loathing for big-world things: the Freddie Mac boys and the Bernie Madoffs.
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