Category Archives: hip-hop

hip-hop

Murs: Put Something Down On It

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While I contemplate whether I’m going to compile year-end favorite albums/songs lists, I can guarantee that Murs’ Murray’s Revenge would be on there. I’ve been lobbying for this album to anyone who will listen. No emcee sacrifices street bravado for honest and vulnerable writing like Murs.

Lucky for us, Murs has made a previously unreleased track, Put Something Down On It, available via his MySpace. Add your e-mail address and, poof!, like magic, it appears in your inbox. Or, you know, you can grab it right here. Considering Murray’s Revenge was a concise 10 tracks, I’m surprised this song didn’t make the cut. It carries the same themes of the struggles of and dedication to his craft.

Murs | Put Something Down On It

hip-hop, i used to love h.e.r.

I Used to Love H.E.R.: SupremeEx

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The seventh installment of I Used to Love H.E.R. comes from Philadelphia producer SupremeEx, whose latest project was a collaboration with Hieroglpyhics/Souls of Mischief emcee Tajai on Nuntype (available on Rumble Pack Records). Instead of an album, SupremeEx gives his due to a groundbreaking hip-hop track from an unlikely source.

Grandmaster Flash
“The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
on the Wheels of Steel”
(K-Tel Breakdance cassette)

“I guess arguably the most influential hiphop album of all time for me is this K-Tel cassette I got waaaay back in the day simply entitled, Breakdance. It was the first hiphop tape I ever bought. It came with a huge fold-out poster with breakdancing moves on it. But a defining moment for me on that tape was Grandmaster Flash’s The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel. That track alone changed my life, and certainly planted the creative seeds for my desire to tell stories through production and instrumental beats. And although I credit Herbie Hancock’s Rockit as the first hiphop song I ever heard, it was the Breakdance tape from K-Tel that set me up for the rest of my life as a hip-hopper. PS – I still have the tape.”

Grandmaster Flash | The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel

Related:
K-Tel breakdance commercial (via YouTube).
Tajai and SupremeEx: Nuntype
Nuntype: Instrumentals (free download)

Previously on I Used to Love H.E.R.:
Devastations (Ultramagnetic MCs – Funk Your Head Up) || The Gray Kid (Black Moon – Enta Da Stage) || Sarah Daly of Scanners (Run-DMC – Tougher Than Leather) || Pigeon John (De La Soul – De La Soul is Dead) || Joel Hatstat of Cinemechanica (Digital Underground – Sex Packets) || G. Love (Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full) || An introduction

hip-hop, remix

Blackalicious: “Rhythm Sticks” (remix)

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This year in hip-hop is making 2005 look like even more of a dud than I imagined. The one exception was Blackalicious’ The Craft (available at eMusic). But then, I never really expect anything less than the best from Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel.Browsing their MySpace, I found the duo is offering a remix of Rhythm Sticks, a hot track off The Craft that flaunts Gab’s metered and breathless delivery. The remix (with no production credit) is a jazzier take on the original – pianos, horns and wah-wah guitars fill the holes where a persistent beat holds down the original.

Regardless, it’s worth the cost of admission on either version when Gab spits a verse by spelling out “Blackalicious” by starting each sentence with every letter in the word. Alphabet aerobics is Gab’s specialty.

Blackalicious | Rhythm Sticks (original)
Blackalicious | Rhythm Sticks (remix)
(Beware: 96 kbps bitrate on remix; from their MySpace)

Also, at AOL’s Spinner, you can watch Blackalicious’ new DVD, 4/20 Live in Seattle, in its entirety. It includes a full concert from the Showbox Theatre in Seattle with Fatlip, Pigeon John and Lifesavas.

contests, hip-hop

Lyrics Born’s “Callin’ Out” karaoke contest

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We’ve seen hip-hop labels/artists hold remix contests, but this idea has the potential to be really cool – and possibly funny as hell.

Lyrics Born, one-half of the Solesides/Quannum duo Latyrx, is holding a karaoke contest for his single Callin’ Out from his LP Later That Day … (2003). The contest also serves to promote his new live album, Overnite Encore: Lyrics Born Live.

LB is providing the instrumental and the lyrics; you’re providing the raps. The winner gets two tickets to any Lyrics Born show, autographed CD, T-shirt, poster and, more important, their version posted on his Web site and MySpace.

Check out his karaoke contest page for more information. LB will be selecting the winner himself. Oh, how I’d love to hear those submissions.

Lyrics Born | Callin’ Out (original)
Lyrics Born | Callin’ Out (instrumental)

Also:
Lyrics Born | Lady Don’t Tek No (live)
(From Overnight Encore, available at eMusic)

hip-hop

New Myka Nyne: “Viles”

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From Freestyle Fellowship to Haiku D’Etat to his solo work, Myka Nyne has been an integral part of a vibrant, if not criminally overlooked, underground hip-hop movement in Los Angeles.

The guys in Freestyle Fellowship (Myka Nyne, Aceyalone, Self Jupiter, P.E.A.C.E.) were (and still are) champions of avant-garde hip-hop, taking influences as much from jazz as hip-hop. They met/formed at a regular open-mic night in Los Angeles in the ’90s, so it’s easy to draw the parallels of freestyle hip-hop and improvisational jazz.

Myka Nyne’s latest LP, Citrus Cessions Vol. I (buy at eMusic), continues in that same vein, with Myka deftly maneuvering around unorthodox time signatures and live instrumentation, strengthening that bond with between hip-hop and jazz.

Myka Nyne (feat. P.E.A.C.E.) | Viles

Also, from his MySpace:
Myke Nyne | Determination
THANKS to Ben for filling in for me yesterday with that excellent post. I wasn’t as drunk as he’d have you believe … well, OK, maybe. We went with some friends on a little three-day booze cruise from LA to Ensenada, Mexico. So what if our exploration of Ensenada only involved this place? … It was a fun trip, and I gotta tell ya: Duty- and tax-free liquor is the way to roll. Two large bottles of Absolut for $21.

hip-hop

Madlib: “The Beat Konducta”

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It probably wasn’t designed to do so, but Madlib’s The Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes has been one of the more challenging records I’ve listened to this year.

Designed as a soundtrack to an “imaginary movie,” Beat Konducta comprises 35 tracks, which looks daunting until you realize none of them are more than three minutes in length. The arrangement had me a little baffled: Do I listen/digest as 35 separate tracks or absorb it as a sum of its parts? A friend told me to think of it as 35 snippets that would be incredible songs each if expanded upon, which sorta begs the question: Why not expand upon them?

Regardless, it’s an interesting concept, and the samples are knee-deep in soul and funk. I can’t imagine the pain of sequencing this album; that is, if there was any logical reasoning behind the order of the tracks. In fact, deciding which tracks to post is a little difficult if only because the longer you listen to Beat Konducta the more it shapes itself like a mixtape, with no real beginning or end to each of the songs but a continuous mix, as abstract as it is cohesive.

So listen to a couple individual tracks. Or go to eMusic and check the whole thing.

(As an aside, Madlib’s brother, Oh No, has put out one of my favorite albums this year. For real.)

Madlib | Stax (Strings)
Madlib | Eternal Broadcaster (Authentic)

hip-hop, i used to love h.e.r.

I Used to Love H.E.R.: Devastations

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The sixth installment of I Used to Love H.E.R. is a perfect example of why I love doing this feature. Conrad Standish of Devastations comes out of nowhere and surprised the hell out of me with his selection: Funk Your Head Up by Ultramagnetic MC’s, who are best known for their classic debut Critical Beatdown. Kool Keith’s influence knows no bounds.

The Devastations’ new album, Coal, was released on Brassland on Oct. 24. Available from Amazon, eMusic and iTunes.

[mp3] Devastations | Sex & Mayhem

The band is wrapping up a US tour w/The Drones.
November 2006:
11/10: Vancouver, CANADA – Media Club; 11/11: Seattle, WA – Crocodile Club; 11/12: Portland, OR – Doug Fir; 11/14: San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill; 11/15: Los Angeles, CA – Club NME @ Spaceland; 11/17: San Diego, CA – Casbah.

December 2006:
12/10: London, UNITED KINGDOM – Luminaire (w/ Damien Jurado); 12/12: Brussels, BELGIUM – Botanique; 12/13: Gronigen, NETHERLANDS – Vera; 12/14: Tilburg, NETHERLANDS – Cul De Sac; 12/15: Den Haag, NETHERLANDS – State X New Forms Festival; 12/17: Munich, GERMANY – Atomic Cafe; 12/18: Cologne, GERMANY – Prime Club; 12/19: Hamburg, GERMANY – Moltow; 12/20: Berlin, GERMANY – Magnet; 12/21: Dresden, GERMANY – Star Club.

Ultramagnetic MC’s
Funk Your Head Up (Polygram Records, 1992)

“Rappers know I’m cool, rappers know I’m Keith, like Charlie Brown – good grief” – Kool Keith, on Pluckin’ Cards

“Thus, I was hooked onto Ultramagnetic MC’s second, and completely overlooked, album, Funk Your Head Up.

“At the time I was a 15-year-old bonghead, avoiding high school as often as possible, taking acid a little too often for a growing mind and staring into MC Escher prints for far too long. No, MC Escher is not an MC.

“Kool Keith is like the MC Escher of rappers. The guys’ complexity and sci-fi-deranged stream-of-consciousness raps were something I hadn’t really encountered before. I had always been a big hip-hop follower (you know, being pubescent, white and middle class). BDP, Schooly D, EPMD, Public Enemy were mainstays, but upon hearing Keith start kickin’ it, they all seemed like rank amateurs. Songs like Pluckin’ Cards, Funk Radio, Message From The Boss and Bust The Facts blew my mind six ways to Sunday. The production was so fucking funky, the rapping was totally off the hook, and better yet, they seemed to eschew the whole guns’n’bitches mentality of many of the other rappers of the time, which even I was getting a little bored by at that point. I think this was around 1992 or so.

“I got into their first record, Critical Beatdown after this, which I still love, but for me the one is still Funk Your Head Up. It’s fucking impossible to get now. I only had it on a dubbed cassette. If I ever turn into one of those bored rock stars with a record label (fingers crossed!), this will be the first thing I re-issue.

“Good grief.

“Kool Conrad Standish/Devs x”

[mp3] Ultramagnetic MC’s | Pluckin’ Cards

Previously on I Used to Love H.E.R.:
The Gray Kid (Black Moon – Enta Da Stage) || Sarah Daly of Scanners (Run-DMC – Tougher Than Leather) || Pigeon John (De La Soul – De La Soul is Dead) || Joel Hatstat of Cinemechanica (Digital Underground – Sex Packets) || G. Love (Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full) || An introduction

hip-hop

New El-P: “Everything Must Go”

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El-Producto, proprietor of Definitive Jux records, former member of underground heroes Company Flow and producer of some of the illest, grittiest beats, has a new album (I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead) lined up for a potential March release.

Like everything El-P touches, the first single, Everything Must Go, boasts that hard-line, grim-faced production. We can be sure El-P never will make a soft beat.

Read his blog, which carries the same name as the album, and get all the deets on El-P’s life, including pictures of that mustache.

El-P | Everything Must Go

general, hip-hop, samples

Incredible Bongo Band: “Apache”

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I’ve been enthralled by the recent writing on the revival of the Incredible Bongo Band’s 1972 LP, Bongo Rock, which contains the cover track Apache, a heavily sampled song in hip-hop for its wicked bongo/percussion breakbeat.

The New York Times wrote a piece about the album, which is being properly reissued after decades of bootlegging. Soul Sides followed with a little more detail about Apache. (An aside: If you’re not reading Soul Sides, you’re really missing out.) As a fan of hip-hop, I’d probably heard Apache copped thousands of times with no idea about the rich, and somewhat sordid, history of the song.

The short version is that the legendary Kool Herc got his hands on a copy of Bongo Rock, which was all but forgotten, and introduced it to his weekly DJ night in New York. Extra copies of the same record “allowed him [Herc] to extend percussion-driven sections of songs indefinitely through hand manipulation of the turntables, creating hypnotic percussive loops” (Times story). That gave rise to the use of the breakbeat, an especially vital part of a track for the B-boys and B-girls (or breakdancers).

Another post by Soul Sides from last year gives you mp3s of the various versions of Apache and just a few of the hip-hop songs (The Roots’ Thought @ Work, Nas’ Made You Look) that sampled it. DJ Z-Trip blended the break in Apache with Madonna’s Like a Prayer on the never-cleared but popular Uneasy Listening Vol. I with DJ P. The-breaks.com gives a list of songs that use the sample, though I’m guessing it’s only partial.

Needless to say, I defer to Soul Sides, the New York Times article and music writer Michaelangelo Matos for historical context of Apache. It’s quite an amazing piece of hip-hop history. (Meanwhile, the reissue of Bongo Rock is available at eMusic, which includes the 7-plus-minute Grandmaster Flash remix.)

I’ll add to Oliver’s extensive post of mp3s with L.L. Cool J’s You Can’t Dance. From Matos: “I believe the first major rapper to utilize “Apache” is—and I’m happy to be proven wrong about this—L.L. Cool J, with “You Can’t Dance” from his 1985 debut, Radio.”

Listen for the bongo break right at the chorus after L.L. spits, “You can’t dance.” On the raw and beat-heavy Radio, it seems like a natural spot for Apache’s introduction to the sampling world.

L.L. Cool J | You Can’t Dance

IN A BIZARRE COINCIDENCE, I swung by Z-Trip’s Web site. He’s made Uneasy Listening available for download in four parts on a new downloads page. I strongly suggest you grab that; it was a mash-up before the term was ever popular.The album never got a proper release, likely because attempting to clear the hundreds of songs used would be a lawyer’s nightmare. I believe about 1,000 copies were pressed; I’ve seen numbered vinyl at Amoeba.(If you’re looking for the use of Apache/Like a Prayer, it comes early in the mix.)

hip-hop

2Mex and Life Rexall: “Are $martyr”

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I’m just gonna continue along this hip-hop singles flow. I really need to make a mixtape of the great tracks that have come out this year. So many good albums. Seriously, anyone want a homemade mixtape? I could be inspired to do this.

Today’s track is Green Grass, off 2Mex and Life Rexall’s album Are $martyr (available at eMusic), which came out earlier this year. I’d had it laying around and put off listening to it until recently. What was I thinking? 2Mex is from the Visionaries crew and Life Rexall is part of the Shape Shifters, all out of Los Angeles. I shoulda known it’d be good.

Apparently, Green Grass contains a sample of Green Grass-Shade Trees by the Stylistics, but I was unable to track down the original song (anyone?). Whatever the case, Life Rexall’s production holds onto the original soul of the sample, with the horns laying a prominent hook for the beat.

2Mex and Life Rexall | Green Grass

Related:
The Shape Shifters (8/2/2005)