August 23rd, 2009
While all bets are off as to whether Damien Marley and Nas’ forthcoming collaboration album will somehow redeem Nas’ career (perhaps by sampling Redemption Song) or finalize his descent into We-are-the-world fuckery, it’s always fun to look back at a time when Hip-Hop/Dancehall collabos were devoid of pretension and as natural as PB&J. Case in point: Shabba and Blastmasta Kris’ The Jam which splits the difference between Ced G horn stabs,
Casio MT-40 bass and a strong riddim just waiting to be recycled by some enterprising revivalist. As for Shabba and KRS they do what they do best: talk slack to dem gyals and condescendingly diss sucka emcees just for living. That they do so in a video featuring enough spandex-covered-azz for a whole jazzercise tape is a nice touch.
Youtube version is an alternate mix, the superior original is here in MP3 form for your listening pleasure. And if anyone has the instrumental (or full 12” rip) and can send a link our way via the comments, I’ll be your new friend.
Download
Mp3: Shabba Ranks ft. KRS-ONE - the Jam
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August 21st, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Forget the lackluster back end, My Ghetto Report Card is all about the high energy first half that brought 40 Water back to MTV and put the Bay back in the National spotlight for a minute. While Hyphy always worked better as an adjective than as an awkward name-tag for Bay Area Hip-Hop, 40 and producer Lil Jon somehow make the reductive “West Coast Crunk” description the genre got stuck with work.
“Tell Me When To Go” is the big hit, an incredibly sparse post-Grindin stomper that reworks RUN DMC’s “Dumb Girl” into a dancefloor call-to-arms. But the album’s real strength lies in Bay Area legend Rick Rock’s contribution: “Go Hard or Go home” is an anthemic stadium sized banger, while opening salvo “Yay Area” features a Digable Planet flip and lyrics so dope that even the East couldn’t ignore it.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: E-40-”Go Hard or Go Home”
MP3: E-40-”Yay Area”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 2 Comments »
August 17th, 2009
I don’t usually take time out of my day to repost unofficial Wu-Tang remix-tapes but Cuban Revolution deserves a little more shine than the 24-hour Mp3 blog cycle can afford. Intricately blending post-Cuban Linx vocals to surprisingly banging production reminiscent of Muggs’ work on Grandmasters, the little known Memory Man has compiled a compulsively listenable retrospective of Rae’s wilderness years. You’ll recognize some of the stuff used but unless you’re the type to pontificate on obscure U-God and Cappa verses, there’s also some nice surprises culled from The Wu’s mid period where the lyricism was on point but the production occasionally faltered. The real kicker though? Dude went and found some classic audio for the skits to make it sound like an official release. Now THAT’s dedication. I’ll go to my grave yelling that Immobilarity was underrated but I don’t mind hearing this stuff over classic style production either. Hats off to Memory Man, someone give Gza this guy’s number.
Download: (Via Nahright)
ZIP: Memory Man Presents: Raekwon - Cuban Revolution
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August 16th, 2009
I love 60’s pop as much as the next man and remain a steadfast supporter of hemp based clothing and combustibles, but there’s something truly grating about the weekly doses of hippie nostalgia the mainstream media has forced on us this year. Yes, it’s the 40th anniversary of pretty much everything that mattered to a bunch of people who eventually elected Reagan but do we really need to dust off a bunch of has-beens every week to pontificate on the significance of John Lennon taking a shit? Just get to the Altamont already.
Frank Zappa knew the time. While it’s hard to condone the man’s more neurotic tendencies you gotta give him props for seeing through the peace-n-love facade of his contemporaries and ripping the Sunset Strip’s Johnny-come-lately crowd a new one with We’re only in it for the money. Like the best satire, “Flower Punk” is equal part tribute and slag, a speedy cartoonish homage to Hendrix’s version of Hey Joe that just so happens to disrespect the original song’s entire target demographic. Makes me wonder what would have happened if the man had ever run into early De La Soul.
Download:
MP3: Frank Zappa - Flower Punk
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August 13th, 2009
A late arrival to the Queensbridge canon of classics, Cormega’s The Realness strikes a middle ground between Illmatic’s wistful nostalgia and Mobb Deep’s ice-cold aggression. Mostly produced by a cast of little known QB beat-smiths with choice contributions from Godfather Don, Havoc and Alchemist, The Realness is an exercise in good taste with Mega picking nothing but gems. Embroiled in a feud with former associate Nas at the time of recording, almost every track on the Realness features an underlying theme of betrayal and vengeance culminating on the orchestral “You Don’t Want it.” But it’s the more thoughtful moments such as the melancholic “Fallen Soldiers” and the sunny “Glory Days” that elevate the album into the top strata of Queensbridge Hip-Hop. Fun fact: the album sold over 150K on an indie, enough money to keep Cormega living large for the rest of the decade. Now THAT’s gangsta.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: Cormega-”Fallen Soldiers”
MP3: Cormega-”You Don’t Want It”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 2 Comments »
August 13th, 2009
Let’s get it out of the way: Prodigy never recovered from The Takeover. Ever since Jay put him up on that summer jam screen, P’s once agile flow has slowed down into Snoop Dogg territory. Worse yet, after Mobb Deep’s embarrassing G-Unit album, it seemed that the once feared duo was totally lost in the wilderness, unaware of what made them dope in the first place. Thankfully, Alchemist had the remedy: 14 soul beats, an album’s worth of paranoia and violence and absolutely no label interference. The result? Return of the Mac, Prodigy’s best record since Murda Music. Using his now gravelly voice to his advantage, Prodigy reinvents himself as a hardened veteran gangster, recovering the menace of his teenage years but cloaking it in a veil of bitterness and experience. Meanwhille ALC delivers the performance of a lifetime, a sampledelic blacksploitation ode to New York’s golden era. Gangster Music done right.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: Prodigy-”Stuck on You”
MP3: Prodigy-”Return of the Mac”
Posted in The Next Spot, Sach O | 2 Comments »
August 11th, 2009
Three jerks and an SP-1200 walk into the record bins at the Salvation Army…that’s not the beginning of a joke, it’s what Pimps don’t Pay Taxes sounds like. Capturing the last gasp of Gulliani era “Fuck you, asshole!” New York and spitting it back over lo-fi 1950’s movie loops, the album casts J-Zone and the Old Maid Billionaires as the ultimate rap shmucks. These guys couldn’t do anything right: hold their liquor, hold down a job, get the girl or even bust a damn nut without catching VD. Fuck swagger, these guys lacked basic social skills. I mean, Zone cons a platonic friend into sex by buying out Macy’s and then proceeds to drug her and return the gear! Who the hell does that? And why didn’t I think of it first? Don’t even get me started about the beats: if you never considered sampling an elderly Eastern European’s record collection to make an indie rap classic, this album will make you think again; it’s all wobbly violin loops, hollow drums and quotes from 1$ Matinee movies out in Time Square. Along with Quasimoto’s Unseen it’s one of the last great records molded by the sound of this ancient, finicky but brilliant sounding piece of equipment, a sound sorely missed for most of this decade.
It’s unsurprising that J-Zone went in new directions after this record: who wants to be the loveable loser when everyone else in your city is pushing a Bentley? But 10 years later, now that the Stock Brokers are working at McDonalds and the trust fund kids are running out of cash to pay for their Williamsburg lofts, this is a good reminder of what New York sounds like when you’re broke. –Sach O
Download:
MP3: J-Zone-”Live From Pimp Palace East”
MP3: J-Zone-”I’m Fucking Up for the Money”
Posted in Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | No Comments »
August 11th, 2009
In 2006, an unknown group out of Oakland dropped an album full of clubs, hoes and fly clothes. Built on blissed-out electronic rhythms inspired by the Bay Area’s Ecstasy culture, The Team composed of Clyde Carson, Kaz Kaizah and (then occasional member) Mayne Mannish seemed determined to bring the player back to national attention. Almost totally ignoring tough-talk in favor of boasting and celebrating, the album sounds like nothing else this decade: a club record that actually captures the feeling of chemically enhanced, neon colored summer weekend. What the Clipse did for Kool G Rap and Raekwon, The Team did for Oakland pimp Too $hort and post murda Ma$e, elevating Bapes, mamis and drugs into a fetish for their own sake. The result is arguably the least Hyphy album to be lumped in with the movement, a G-Funk throwback that predated everything positive about the late 00’s generation of rappers without any of their smug self-consciousness.
The production alone is the best thing you’ve never heard: the intro interpolates a Harry Potter/NFL them into a ¾ time locker room anthem, “Bottles Up”, “On One” and “Top of the World” somehow make MDMA rap sound like a good, nay GREAT idea and “Touch the Sky”, “Summertime in the Town” and the Too $hort tribute “Player” update the Cali anthem for the millennial generation. Even the high-energy “Just Go” and “Hyphy Juice” make sense in the right context: I dare you not to lose your shit to em’ on a good system.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Bonus Blurbs, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 7 Comments »
July 27th, 2009
If you’re an ex-Rocafella super-producer doomed to work exclusively with crazy emcees, you might as well find one that goes on Tibetan pilgrimages. I’m assuming that this is what Just Blaze was thinking when he decided to get involved with Jay Electronica. Who knows what this is or where it’ll end up, but hopefully it starts a trend of rappers going to the Indian subcontinent to find enlightenment.
[Via Nahright]
Posted in Sach O, Videos | No Comments »
July 26th, 2009
One day, Sach O’s gonna grow wings.
One of the advantages of living in a communal hippie pad (along with all-you-can-eat hummus) is that someone will inevitably play good music that you’d never be caught dead bumping for fear of losing cool-points. True, the Easy Star All-Star’s Radiodread, a Jamaican-style re-imagining of OK Computer, could’ve been a dorm-room nightmare come to life but thankfully it falls under the elusive “just crazy enough to work” category– along with Tom Waits beatboxing and anything affiliated with George Clinton.
With all respect due to Sugar Minott, Morgan Heritage and The Meditations, the disc’s MVP is undoubtedly Toots & The Maytals’ devastatingly beautiful cover of “Let Down.” With the lofty goal of transforming Thom Yorke’s crushing despair into soulful gospel (over a ska beat no less), Toots Hibbert twists the Kafka-inspired downer about the pointlessness of life into a redemption song about a brighter future using nothing but a few well chosen vocal inflections. When Yorke sings about growing wings and chemical reactions, it’s buggy; when Toots Hibbert unleashes his take, it’s angelic. The results have me wondering how many other Radiohead songs could benefit from more direct production and soulful vocals. Just don’t get Mark Ronson involved.
Download:
Mp3: The Easy Star All Stars - Toots & The Maytals - Let Down
Posted in Sach O | 2 Comments »
