Until the Train Stops

like when dick whitman stole that other dude's identity

2010-10-07T01:28:00.001-06:00

...you get a fresh start! I've moved to Tumblr and now you can follow me at DIVING OFF DOCKS. Do it.

a winter mixtape

2010-02-08T21:46:00.007-07:00

Aaron and Jeff over at Passion of the Weiss put together a really dope winter mixtape titled, appropriately, A Winter Mixtape, and it was released today. I contributed two songs to the mix, Röyksopp's "Remind Me" and Doves' "Black and White Town," two songs that for me evoke emotions connected to the Long Season (as we call it here in Edmonton) for different reasons and to different effects. Do yourself a favour and download the mixtape here. Here are my two blurbs:

röyksopp
"REMIND ME"
(2001)

There's a deep-rooted melancholia suffusing "Remind Me," which makes it perfect for bone-cold winter days when spring is but a fading memory, slipping through your fingers as you try to grasp it. Erlend Øye's vocals are distant and broken; they barely rise above a whisper, allowing you to zone out and let his wistful melodies wash over you, like muted light refracting off of snow—it doesn't warm your soul, but it makes you feel better somehow.

doves
"BLACK AND WHITE TOWN"
(2005)

Doves' third album, Some Cities, is a quintessential winter album to me (the first four songs are still "impregnable," as Sam Ubl correctly described them in his Pitchfork review of the disc). The album is suffocated by the season, but is also a stand against it. The winter of "Black and White Town" is not one of desolate landscapes or endless taiga, but an urgent, urban one where the risk of cabin fever is just as great as it is in some abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. Built on one of the most memorable piano loops in a 00s rock song, the song pushes forward with all its being; it wards winter off and at the same time draws from it for what is one of the most charged, blustery tunes to soundtrack a snowstorm—a song that can make winter almost life-affirming, if not bearable.

pazz and jop 09

2010-01-19T22:46:00.008-07:00

Here is the ballot I submitted to the latest Pazz and Jop poll, hosted as always by the Village Voice. It's likely a good indication of what the lists I'm going to post here will look, if only smaller in scope. 2010 looks like it's going to be one helluva year, folks.

albums:
01. dj quik and kurupt, BLAQKOUT
02. junior boys, BEGONE DULL CARE
03. ryan leslie, RYAN LESLIE
04. the-dream, LOVE VS. MONEY
05. islands, VAPOURS
06. faltydl, LOVE IS A LIABILITY
07. animal collective, MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION
08. dizzee rascal, TONGUE 'N' CHEEK
09. fever ray, FEVER RAY
10. röyksopp, JUNIOR

singles (although very few, if any, of the songs I voted for were actual "singles"):
01. destroyer, "BAY OF PIGS"
02. dizzee rascal, "CHILLIN' WIV DA MAN DEM"
03. starkey, "GUTTER MUSIC (feat DURRTY GOODZ)"
04. animal collective, "MY GIRLS"
05. morrissey, "IT'S NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY ANYMORE"
06. the streets, "TRUST ME"
07. gucci mane, "LEMONADE"
08. the arctic monkeys, "CORNERSTONE"
09. donkeyboy, "SOMETIMES"
10. drake, "HOUSTATLANTAVEGAS"

2010-01-12T23:38:00.002-07:00

I haven't forgotten about this blog, trust me. My favourite albums and songs of 2009 forthcoming, to be followed by my favourite albums and songs of the 00s. Really doe.

2009-09-18T00:00:00.002-06:00

Big things poppin'. It's still kind of surreal, but I now can say that I've been published in The Edmonton Journal. This is a big deal for me. I remember reading CD reviews in the Journal when I was like 14 and thinking, "Hey, I can do that!" which more or less sparked my desire to write about music. Plus, writing about one of my favorite rappers for a major Canadian newspaper is pretty mind-blowing, something I would've never imagined happening a few years ago. The strides I've made over the last few months have been exciting and humbling, and I'm just excited to be doing this shit, still. The fact I sometimes get paid to rant about music—still really weird and cool. Anyways, you can read my review of The Blueprint 3 here.

Pitchfork, holla at me.

2009-08-08T17:20:00.014-06:00

Three song reviews I did at the Jukebox over the last week for you guys. Bashy's an British rapper who just released his debut album, Catch Me If You Can, and had a pretty big—and controversial—hit across the pond last summer with "Black Boys." He sounds a lot like fellow UK emcee Kano, especially in his phrasing and enunciation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as your at least as good as Kano is, which I'm not convinced that Bashy is. "Your Wish Is My Command" is his latest single, complete with a chorus from Estelle's little sister.

I thought you had to be Akon to get an artist to take a hike on their own song to this extent.
[4]

"Down," from Jay Sean (who?), is a song so lame that it makes a phoned-in Weezy guest spot sound better than it really is.

If the sky was falling, I'm pretty sure you'd be worrying about something other than whether some girl is going to put out. Just sayin'.
[3]

Although it might sometimes feel like it, I don't only write about rap, and my review of Vitalic's latest track, "Your Disco Song," is evidence of that. Although "Down" isn't really a rap song at all either, even if it has rapping on it. "Your Disco Song" is pretty clumsy and brutish and way too obvious, but kinda awesome nonetheless.

The title almost carries a condescending tone, as if Arbez is saying, "This is what you asked for," and then washing his hands clean of the result. Justice took this sound to its logical (and maximalist) conclusion, and Arbez seems kind of stuck now. Turn things up even louder and he risks entering fuzz-disco (electro-static?) territory, which might not be such a bad idea at all. He can't go minimal all of the sudden; subtlety is not one of the clubs in his bag. So he does what he knows best, and admittedly this is still pretty engaging—I could definitely see myself being pretty amped if this came on at a club, but I wouldn't lose my shit over it.
[6]

2009-08-07T00:30:00.010-06:00

Here are the two blurbs I wrote for the Passion of the Weiss Top 50 Rap Albums of 00s feature that's currently running over there. I was assigned T.I.'s King (still his best album to date) and Deltron 3030, a record that sometimes gets unfairly maligned as backpacker-only material, which is like saying Blade Runner is only for nerds. No, Blade Runner is only for people who like good movies. Anyways, I think my blurbs turned out alright. The funny thing about lists like this is that my own personal list has changed pretty drastically over the last few months, as I rediscover certain albums and simply remember others. And that remembering process never ends.

50. deltron
DELTRON 3030
(2000)

Del the Funky Homosapien has the rare ability not only to rap about nerdy things without sounding like a nerd, but to make these nerdy things sound positively badass. This is due largely to his prodigious talent as an emcee, which includes his singular voice—a buoyant thing that's always in motion, never stretching syllables too long but never rushing through them either, taking joy in carving the shapes of words as they leave his lips. Deltron 3030 finds Del at his nerdiest, which means at the top of his game. Over the best beats he's ever rapped over, produced by Del's Gorillaz collaborator Dan the Automator and with scratches from Kid Koala, Del concocts a futuristic allegory for the kind of turn-of-the-century uncertainty that society was going through in 2000, when the album was released; 3030 is pre-Obama cynicism packaged as a space-rap opera.
Rapping as an ex-mech soldier-turned-freelance rhyme mercenary gives Del an excuse to work in words like "hyperwarp" and "parsecs" and "nanoseconds" and "psychotropics" into his verses—all words that sound great in a rap song. Hearing him rhyme "digital," "citadel," "critical," and "pivotal" in the same bar ("Things You Can Do") is one of rap's purest highs. And crucially, Del doesn't sound like one of those rappers that try to cram fifty-two polysyllabic words in one line, as if using as many Big Words as you can makes you a good rapper. He's just being Del, the nerdy (but not a nerd!) badass rapper who fights aliens in intergalactic rap battles while sounding cool as fuck.

43. t.i.
KING
(2006)
It's tempting to say that if it weren't for "What You Know" T.I.'s career wouldn't have shot into the stratosphere, but the rest of King proves that Clifford Harris was already well on his way to appearing in Ridley Scott movies and topping the Billboard charts, even if his Roberta Flack-interpolating behemoth never existed. Revisiting King, "What You Know" still shines as brightly, but what's most striking about T.I.'s fourth full-length is how well it synthesizes the styles T.I. had been working on since I'm Serious, and how on subsequent albums, he would return to the templates perfected and erected on King, albeit unable to recapture the dirt-under-the-nails scowl and snot-nosed unrespectability that infused songs like "I'm Straight," where he sounds almost repulsed by the prospect of being a pop star: "You can keep the game and the fame, the haters and the lames/ Just gimme some cocaine and somewhere I can slang."

King has the best versions of every kind of T.I. song: the Mannie Fresh Trunk-Rattler ("Top Back"), the Bankhead Anthem ("Bankhead," duh), the Produced By An East Coast Producer Doing A "Southern" Beat song (the pair of Just Blaze tracks "King Back" and "I'm Talking to You"), the Unexpected Left-Field Collaboration ("Goodlife," with Common). Hell, even the songs for the ladies are charming. King is the sound of a monarch assuming his throne and donning his crown—or in T.I.'s case, his almost-falling-off fitted cap.

2009-07-16T16:42:00.002-06:00

Liked "Dance Wiv Me." Thought "Bonkers" didn't live up to its title. I very much like "Holiday," even if the chorus is the weakest thing on the song. Tongue 'n Cheek should be interesting, to say the least. Alex Ostroff made a good point at the Jukebox in his blurb about the song—Dizzee is better at lighthearted club tracks than serious tracks these days, and a full album of jams for the dancefloor is just fine with me.

This time around the synths are more kinetic and Harris switches things up more often, even inserting little G-funk flourishes amongst the track's more traditional house elements, like throbbing bass and a sense of propulsion that threatens to careen off the track at any moment. Harris suits Dizzee much better than Armand Van Helden, and Dizzee's performance here is confirmation—he sounds more comfortable, catching the beat in a more natural way, never once in danger of losing control. Every syllable is expertly placed, every deviation in his cadence refreshing, every oddball sentiment genuine ("And I'll never let your belly get empty/ Even when your belly full you're still sexy"). Dizzee is playing the I'm A Rich Rapper And I'll Fly You To Insert Clichéd Holiday Destination Here card, but it never sounds desperate (in that being rich and famous is the only reason he's getting girls) or sleazy, which has always been a huge strength of Dizzee as a rapper.
[7]

2009-07-15T14:34:00.006-06:00

BlaQKout is my favourite rap album so far this year. "9Xs Outta 10" is the album's lone face-scrunching, Holy Shit! moment amongst the rest of the album's equally impressive, only with smoother edges, material. Some people have been commenting that Kurupt sort of falls into the background and that BlaQKout feels more like a DJ Quik solo album than a Kurupt/Quik disc, but these people are wrong. It's not that Kurupt disappoints—he kills every track he's on—so much as the rest of his verses being less show-offy (but still as technically precise) than the Best Performance On A Rap Song-worthy "9xs Outta Ten," and that Quik, who has been underrated as a rapper for his entire career, is finally starting to be recognized as a pretty great one. I wouldn't have said no to another solo Kurupt track or three, but the important thing is that BlaQKout doesn't suffer from lack of them. Jukebox certified:

How great is Kurupt here? At 1:27, when it appears that Quik is going to drop a verse, he only manages to get in a line and a half before Kurupt yells "Stop!" only to resume decapitation of Quik's irradiated husk of a beat. Kurupt sounds so reluctant to relinquish control of the microphone it's as if Quik, once he began rapping, looked over at Kurupt and realized he best leave the booth. Right then.
[9]

2009-06-22T14:28:00.005-06:00

I contributed a summer mix CD (er, .rar file) to my man Jeff Weiss' annual Summer Jamz series, and he posted it this morning over at his blog Passion of the Weiss. You can download and read a little blurb about my entry here. As you might notice from the title of the mix, it's only the first volume of 2009. This year I'm doing two volumes for the first time, the second one being put together as we speak. Look for it sometime in early July, right here. With more rap on it, too. Maybe. Hopefully.

2009-06-20T14:58:00.014-06:00

starkey
"GUTTER MUSIC (feat DURRTY GOODZ)"
from gutter music 12" (keysound recordings, 2009)

If this was 2003, this would be your favourite blogger's favourite song. Unfortunately, bloggers and critics deserted grime for dubstep, which features actual rapping a lot less, mostly because it's pretty damn hard to rap over the kind of off-kilter rhythms that separate dub from garage and grime. If anyone is going to be up to the task, it's a British emcee like Durrty Goodz, who sounds completely at home over the bubbling synthesizers and hyperkinetic dancehall lasers that ricochet and refract off all the shiny surfaces of Starkey's "Gutter Music."

Durrty is a rapper with loads of personality, and it shines through here. Sometimes rappers shrink on tracks intended to get people up and onto the dancefloor, but Durrty raps like he was born to do songs like "Gutter Music." His flow twists and turns through the track; this isn't a methodical, monstrous left-turn only Nascar flow, this is skilled Formula 1 maneuvering. His voice doesn't get lost in the mix either—his confidence spills off the edges of the track and his faux-Jamaican patois gives the track a real international vibe. He doesn't hit you with silly things like complex metaphors either, his Gatling gun flow and intensity is all he needs to get you hyped up. Even so, Durrty's got lot of great moments here, such as when he half-laughs as he delivers the line "Yuh luhk oofffffal brah!" in his peanut butter thick London accent, or how his repeated claims of things' gutterness turn into one of the year's most infectious chants.

Durrty's thesis here is that "All the best rappers came from the gutter/ best producers came from the gutter/ best beats, came from the gutter," which is both wrong and right at the same time; by "gutter" he doesn't necessarily mean inner city London or the Marcy projects, but anyone on the fringe, anyone with an I'ma Take Mines By Any Means Necessary attitude, that sort of unhinged rawness that can't be denied; an unrespectability that's not a crutch but a weapon. Jay-Z used to be gutter; now he just pays kids to clean out the ones on his house(s). After all, Starkey is an American producer—essentially a dubstep outsider—and Durrty—who's British, and that automatically makes him an outsider in an important way too—is one of those British rappers with the sort of anxious, fidgety energy that works so well on the kind the claustrophobic tracks that still dominate grime today. It's kind of ironic that he calls this track "gutter," because it's made for raves more than it is the streets, but that only further proves Durrty's point. The fact he's making sunny club bangers over dubstep beats with American producers—that's gutter.

2009-06-16T17:00:00.002-06:00

clipse
"I'M GOOD (feat PHARRELL)"
from till the casket drops (columbia, 2009)

Your enjoyment of "I'm Good" depends on a few things: your fondness for Neptunes beats that sound like a cross between the T.I. and Common collaboration "Good Life" and a bunch of the beats that Chad and Pharrell did for Slim Thug a few years ago, your tolerance of sung Pharrell hooks and Clipse songs that hew closer to the aesthetic of Lord Willin' than Hell Hath No Fury. Because I'm a sucker for all three things, I enjoy "I'm Good." I just think it works a lot better as a deep album cut than the first official single (was "Kinda Like a Big Deal" kinda just the street single?) from the forthcoming Till the Casket Drops, which is slated for a tentative September release. As always, Malice and Pusha T sound like gold over a Neptunes beat, even if it's one of their tracks that straddles the line between their glittery synthetic schmaltz and their springy, spacey funk that they rarely do these days. What's more important is that "I'm Good" sounds like a genuine Neptunes track, and not just a Pharrell- or Chad-produced track. From the persistent pop of the drums and the hiss of the claps to the way the keyboards melody compliments the cotton candy synths higher up in the mix, which shine brightly and spiral deep into the track's spacious cushion, this is the sort of beat that supports rather than hogs the limelight, the kind that the Neptunes were so great at effortlessly churning out until about 2003.

As for the actual rapping, it's less We Got It 4 Cheap hunger as much as it is earned haughtiness, more autopilot than autotune. Pusha T cackles as he compares himself to Shamu and references the Ice Cube classic "It Was a Good Day" while Malice drops two memorable lines, one about the sound his engine makes (purr) and the second likening the colour of his diamonds to that of Minute Maid juice through a very Gucci Mane-esque simile. This is the kind of rapping that gets mistaken for complacency; rather, this is simply the warm-up, the pre-game stretch. Yeah, the Thornton brothers got out-rapped on "Kinda Like a Big Deal," but Kanye's been on fire lately, even with his C+ verse on that Keri Hilson song, and Pusha and Malice are even more laidback here. If this is the track most approaching a single on Till the Casket Drops, then maybe there's reason to loosen those collars and feel a little worried. But if this is the introduction, the one before the smash, then we'll allow Clipse their first-at-bat ground single. They all can't be grand slams, right?

2009-06-11T13:12:00.002-06:00

I'm not feeling the new Mos Def album as much as a lot of people are, so I think I'll review the thing in the next few days. Here's what I had to say about "Casa Bey," the third official single from The Ecstatic.

At least he sounds like he gives half a shit on this one, although he continues to lapse into his recent habit of simply rattling off adjectives describing his dopeness, a standard fallback for rappers who have forgotten how to rap. Otherwise it's syllable stockpiling, feel-good metaphysics and lukewarm braggadocio. And to be fair to the guy, the samba jam session he raps over has a lot of abrupt direction changes and detours to deal with, and Mos is probably one of the few rappers who could ride this beat without being bucked off within seconds. But it's telling that my favourite part is when the Final Fantasy pianos emerge from the din and dance like sunbeams on the ocean as the track fades out.
[5]

2009-06-10T16:44:00.001-06:00

I never did write too much about 808s and Heartbreak, but it wasn't for a lack of (positive) things to say about it. I proclaimed it my second favourite album of last year, behind only Afterparty Babies, and months later my feelings toward Kanye's coping-mechanism-on-wax haven't budged much. The Jukebox reviewed the album's latest singles—in Europe, "Welcome to Heartbreak," and on this side of the pond, "Amazing"—the other week, and this gave me a chance to finally say something about the album. "Welcome to Heartbreak" seems an odd choice for a single, especially when deep album cuts like "Coldest Winter" and the lighthearted "Robocop" remain, but as long as "Paranoid" gets a proper push as a single, and this seems to be the case, with the B-movie video starring Rihanna and all, I'll be content. By far my favourite song off of the album, could "Paranoid" be the summer jam of 2009? I like the video mix of the song too; more Mass Effect synths from 'Ye are always welcome in my world.

"Welcome to Heartbreak (feat Kid Cudi)":

I don't know who (finally) taught Kanye how to ensure his drums slap you across the face, but 808s & Heartbreak is the kind of album that producers are going to be sampling from well into the next decade for their breaks. Here the low-end is storm-like, brewing and sinister, the drums spongy but still devastating. The lyrics are kind of ham-fisted, but crucially, Kanye absolutely nails their delivery; there are few other figures in hip-hop that could make the lines "My friend showed me pictures of his kids/ And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs" sound like the saddest thing ever. Kid Cudi's vocals float around in the background, sounding like they're caught in a vortex, flitting in an out of this dimension, displaying his excellent ear for melody. The bottom line: the melodies on 808s are so affecting, so viscerally primal, that "Welcome to Heartbreak" only scores a 7 because the rest of the album is that good.
[7]

"Amazing":

"Amazing" finds Kanye attempting to remove as much as he can from his music while retaining maximum pathos. The use of space on this is astounding; the track isn't minimal so much as bereft of all hope. The insistent, tribal lurch anchors Kanye's repetitions of amazingness; it's clear from this battering of his head against the wall that Kanye is spewing what is expected of Mr. Ego himself but inhabiting none of it. Jeezy sounds worn-out as he staggers through his verse, searching desperately for his footing amidst the all that wide-open space. He sounds even more larger-than-life than usual, but in the kind of way that perturbs rather than triggers. Yeah, his president is black and his Lambo might be blue, but none of that matters out here. Not quite amazing, but as close as mortals can get.
[8]

Also, look for much more frequent posting here and a shitload more of actual writing from me from now on. If Pitchfork is going to hire me, I've got to give them reasons why I should be hired—and I'm going to give them a lot of reasons.

2009-06-09T14:08:00.006-06:00

Here are two things I did on The Field's new disc; first is a blurb over at the Jukebox aboutYesterday and Today track "The More I Do"...

What I like about this is that Willner gives it enough room to really stretch out and unfurl, that the track's eight minutes don't feel indulgent or unnecessary. Its length is vital here; a protracted duration would have rendered its build-ups and releases null. Instead they feel earned on their own terms and all the more rewarding because of it. The more Willner does, the less different his music sounds that one might imagine, but that's because he's developed a sound rather than simply a style.
[8]

...and here's a review of the album itself, which was published in last Thursday's issue of SEE Magazine:

Yesterday and Today picks up where electronic artist Axel Willner's 2007 breakout From Here We Go Sublime left off: clipped samples, looped rhythms that burrow into your head and refuse to let go, vocal fragments that float in and out of the tracks like wisps of clouds carried away by the wind. Although the album's title suggests that this is an album unconcerned with looking ahead, Willner suggests otherwise on tracks like "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime," a loping, luxurious track that features actual vocals, unaltered. Then there's the title track, where Battles drummer John Stanier adds forward propulsion and weightier percussion, a nice change from Willner's usual stock drum patterns. "Sequenced," the sixth and final track, gives us a glimpse into where Willner might venture in the future; claustrophobic and insistent, the song reveals Willner's darker, proggier side. It's not quite a Knife track, but it cuts through a set of speakers all the same. Whether "Sequenced" is a step in a new direction or merely a scenic detour is up for debate, but The Field is well aware that while the past is something that hovers in our subconscious, we can't forget that the future is looming just ahead.

All in all, the new album is very good but probably doesn't reach the Everest heights that From Here We Go Sublime does, and that's just fine. Where Willner goes tomorrow is perhaps the most exciting thing to consider about Yesterday and Today.

2009-06-08T13:00:00.001-06:00

I heard the Deadmau5 and Kaskade track "Move for Me" on the radio for a good two or three months before I knew either the song's title or who made it. This is the kind of house music that Deadmau5 makes—it's not that he's without style, it's just that his style is of the unassuming kind that could, well, be mistaken for anyone else's. But those little synthesizer riffs that he loops over and over in his songs—usually just toying with volume levels throughout songs rather than actually writing different parts—are pretty damn hypnotic, and Haley Gibby, the vocalist who appears on both "Move for Me" and "I Remember," writes these killer melodies that communicate this very pervasive sense of longing (which could also be hurt, or regret, or possibly all these things) with her barely there vocals. But neither of Gibby's performances acknowledge or even hint that she's aware of how pretty these things are; it's like she's totally innocent as to how devastating these two songs could potentially be. But as the case seems with Deadmau5, "I Remember" is the type of song you can't imagine not existing while it's pounding on the dancefloor, and the kind you'd be hard-pressed to remember ten seconds after it finishes. I'm actually kind of surprised this was so well-reviewed at the Jukebox.

There’s no forward progression here, only déjà-vu. This works when the synths connect; when the loop permeates your soul; when the beat propels. These things happen on “I Remember.” The flipside is that when these things don’t happen, about forty-five seconds is all you need to hear everything on a Deadmau5 track. “I Remember” suffers from this too; it’s just lucky that those forty-five seconds are more than adequate. I probably shouldn’t like this as much as I do, but Deadmau5 and Kaskade favour subtlety over brute force, which is my biggest issue with a lot of this kind of dance music.
[7]

2009-04-29T23:17:00.010-06:00

New Basement Jaxx is always sometime to get excited about. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe are back with with their fifth full-length album, Scars, due sometime this summer. It's probably the record I'm most looking forward to over the next few months. "Raindrops," the album's first single, is really good:

There's a lot going on, but all the individual parts work together toward a unified goal, rather than duke it out amongst each other. The song still feels huge, just not the kind of huge that's bursting at the seams, but the kind that emerges when a great melody's given proper room to breathe, something Basement Jaxx, when they're on their game, do better than anyone else. Sure, the lyrics are essentially a vehicle for the Buxton's deliciously dramatic man-diva vocals and that massive chorus, but that's the entire point. "Raindrops" hits in four minutes the sort of emotional sweetspot that most dance acts require (at minimum) eight to find, and that's always been the Jaxx's greatest strength.
[8]

2009-04-18T18:03:00.009-06:00

This is unacceptable, Marshall. We will not tolerate this any longer.

At the beginning of "We Made You," Eminem asks "Can he come back as nasty as he can?" The only thing nasty about this is the fact this 37-year-old is still making fart noises on record. "Damn girl, I'm beginning to sprout an alfalfa" is the type of wordplay that my 15-year-old brother stopped finding funny three years ago. Dr. Dre's production lurches instead of bounces, with his signifiers (clunky pianos, farty horns) doing nothing but serving as evidence that Dre's best days just might be behind him; Marshall Mathers' certainly are.
[2]

2009-04-14T00:52:00.006-06:00

I like Dizzee Rascal a lot. I even usually like his attempts at crossover tracks ("Stand Up Tall," his collaboration with Basement Jaxx "Lucky Star," more recent cuts like "Flex" and "Da' Feelin'"). "Bonkers," though, is simply not very good. "Wearing My Rolex" this is not. Here's what I had to say about "Bonkers" over at the Jukebox:

Dizzee Rascal is one of those rappers who is a joy to listen to no matter what. The way his consonants smack you across the face; how he does that very British thing of stretching his vowels in such a way that makes you believe all meaning is contained within them; the fact his pinball flow and voice reminds you simultaneously of your friend's kid brother (PAY! ATTENTION! TO! ME!) and your high-strung friend who thinks the Illuminati killed his goldfish and got him fired from his job at the Gap. Unfortunately, Dizzee's delivery does all the work here, as he doesn't even bother to drop more than eight bars, all of which are easy to sing along with, seeing are they're nothing but uninspired clichés (example: "All I care about is sex and violence/ A heavy bassline is my kind of silence"). The thing is, Armand Van Helden's bassline is but a whisp amongst synths that sound like a bad approximation of Daft Punk by way of Digitalism; it's the kind of thing that even Tiësto would be embarrassed of. At 1:49 the clouds open up and glimmers of something really great—playful, and dare I say almost soulful—shine through for a few brief seconds, until all hope is snatched from us and the shitty dance track that is "Bonkers" resumes. This is not a good look for either dudes.
[4]

bonus

2009-04-09T01:06:00.002-06:00

Didn't get this one in one time over at resurrected Jukebox so I figured I'd throw it up here. It's for the Bat for Lashes track "Daniel." Spoiler: I kind of like it.

I'm not sure whether I should leave Natasha Khan the fuck alone or make tender love to her in the rain. "Daniel" sits somewhere between the dancefloor and the graveyard, the kind of monochromatic fireball that simmers rather than blinds. Eerie, spongy synths sound like they were pulled from another dimension, decorating the track with a morbidity that's intoxicating. Everything sounds like it was recorded at an arm's length through a dense fog, Khan's striking voice filling the empty spaces of the track with a sense of longing that its humid momentum amplifies. "Daniel" isn't melodramatic; it's epic.
[9]

juke like datsyuk

2009-04-02T16:05:00.015-06:00

When Stylus was still around, the Singles Jukebox was one of my favourite aspects of the website. A round-table where singles were reviewed, the variety of perspectives on each song discussed gave the Jukebox a communal feel that other publications which reviewed singles lacked. Think of it as a proto-blog or post-messageboard. I never got to write for Stylus, but the Jukebox has been resurrected and I've hopped on board, which is a huge treat for me as both a writer and fan of these guys. My first Jukebox contribution is a review of the Franz Ferdinand track "No You Girls," the second single from their junior effort, Tonight. I don't care how much Franz Ferdinand-by-numbers it is, no one does effortless dancefloor burners like Kapranos and boys.

Alex Kapranos translates one of Lil Wayne's recent go-to lyrical techniques to rock on "No You Girls": Instead of purposefully mispronouncing words so he can correct himself in the next line, he retracts entire phrases. Love you? Pfft. He'd love to get to know you. Sometimes he says the stupid things that he thinks? Er, he thinks the stupidest things. When Kapranos comes full circle, admitting that he and his sex are (at least) equally to blame for the mixed signals, misinterpretations and dick moves, the song shifts from sexist to clever in one of those a-ha! moments that feels gloriously triumphant. And somehow the band manages to stuff all their previous hits into a blender and end up with something that avoids sounding like any of them. I mean, too much like any of them.
[8]

workinonit

2009-02-11T00:40:00.010-07:00

Brandon over at No Trivia is hosting Dilla Donuts Month, which features some great work from a plethora of writers on Dilla's final opus. Here's my entry for "Workinonit," one of my favourite tracks from the disc:

Dilla isolates the first guitars heard on "The Worst Band in the World" (10cc, 1974) for "Workinonit," but as is typical of James Yancey, instead of zigging he zags, choosing another (and obvious) guitar lick for the foundation of the track. Not because this lick is sweeter or more memorable, but precisely because it is less so than the chords that open the 10cc song. Here Dilla gets right what 10cc got wrong—you don't show your hand before the last card is dealt. He holds off introducing the guitars until the last possible moment, and even when Dilla finally introduces them, he brings in the first of the two chords by itself, and we're forced to wait another ten seconds until he rewards us with the second chord and thus the complete sample. And just like that girl who doesn't put out on the first night, because Dilla makes us wait the payoff is all the more worth it—and in the process he transforms mere guitars into instruments able to part the fabric of the universe and let infinity rush in. Woosh.

rap critics poll 2008

2009-01-08T17:44:00.006-07:00

Last month, Henry Adaso (Rizoh to most of us) asked a bunch of journalists and bloggers (of which I consider myself at least one of) to submit their lists of favourite rap albums, songs and mixtapes from last year. The ballots, from writers like Jeff Weiss and Byron Crawford, have been counted and a standalone website erected Pazz and Jop-style to disseminate the results. Note that the ballot I submitted is different from the (definitive) lists I posted last week, and that's because I sent it in before I had finished fiddling with my lists. Check out the overall results here.

my favourite albums of 2008

2009-01-02T23:52:00.002-07:00

A few days into December I remarked to a friend: "I think 2008 was the worst year for music this decade." I was wrong.

20: lindstrøm
WHERE YOU GO I GO TOO
[small town supersound]

19: black milk
TRONIC
[fat beats]

18: women
WOMEN
[jagjaguwar]

17: atmosphere
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, YOU PAINT THAT SHIT GOLD
[rhymesayers]

16: lykke li
YOUTH NOVELS
[ll recordings/universal]

15: tv on the radio
DEAR SCIENCE
[4ad/interscope]

14: bon iver
FOR EMMA, FOREVER AGO
[jagjaguwar]

13: wolf parade
AT MOUNT ZOOMER
[sub pop]

12: fleet foxes
FLEET FOXES
[sub pop]

11: why?
ALOPECIA
[anticon]

10: cut copy
IN GHOST COLORS
[modular]

09: elliott brood
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS
[six shooter]

08: eamon mcgrath
WILD DOGS
[champion city]

07: vampire weekend
VAMPIRE WEEKEND
[xl]

06: kleerup
KLEERUP
[emi sweden]

05: lil wayne
THA CARTER III
[cash money/universal]

04: chad vangaalen
SOFT AIRPLANE
[flemish eye]

03: luomo
CONVIVAL
[huume]

02: kanye west
808s & HEARTBREAK
[roc-a-fella]

01: cadence weapon
AFTERPARTY BABIES
[epitaph/upper class]

my favourite songs of 2008 (#25-1)

2009-01-01T15:48:00.011-07:00

Fuck a Blogger for zapping the original post. I didn't save a hard copy of the list either, so this (re)post is in all likelihood not the same as the one it's trying to replicate. And I'm too busy (read: lazy) to upload all these songs again. It happens.

UPDATE: Thanks to Thomas, I was able to find an archived version of the original post, complete with links to all the mp3s.

25: annie
"I KNOW UR GIRLFRIEND HATES ME"
[island]

24: hercules and love affair
"YOU BELONG"
[dfa/mute]

23: wiz khalifa
"SAY YEAH"
[warner bros.]

22: morrissey
"ALL YOU NEED IS ME"
[decca]

21: usher (feat young jeezy)
"LOVE IN THIS CLUB"
[laface]

20: lykke li
"BREAKING IT UP"
[ll recordings/universal]

19: another electronic musician
"AMIDST"
[n5music/bmi]

18: estelle (feat kanye west)
"AMERICAN BOY"
[homeschool/atlantic]

17: natty
"COLD TOWN"
[warner uk]

16: bon iver
"BLINDSIDED"
[jagjaguwar]

15: kleerup
"ON MY OWN AGAIN"
[emi sweden]

14: of montreal
"ST. EXQUISITE'S CONFESSIONS"
[polyvinyl]

13: wiley
"WEARING MY ROLEX"
[asylum]

12: vampire weekend
"OXFORD COMMA"
[xl]

11: why?
"SIMEON'S DILEMMA"
[anticon]

10: cut copy
"LIGHTS AND MUSIC"
[modular]

09: cadence weapon
"REAL ESTATE"
[epitaph/upper class]

08: fleet foxes
"BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS"
[sub pop]

07: crystal castles vs health
"CRIMEWAVE"
[last gang]

06: luomo
"GETS ALONG FINE"
[huume]

05: the knux
"CAPPUCCINO REMIX"
[interscope]

04: eamon mcgrath
"BADLANDS"
[champion city]

03: lil wayne
"A MILLI"
[cash money/universal]

02: kanye west (feat mr hudson)
"PARANOID"
[roc-a-fella]

01: matias aguayo
"MINIMAL (DJ KOZE REMIX)"
[kompakt]

my favourite songs of 2008 (#50-26)

2008-12-31T12:27:00.002-07:00

Part two tomorrow.

50: mgmt
"ELECTRIC FEEL"
[columbia]

49: luomo
"LONELY MUSIC CO."
[huume]

48: kanye west
"LOVE LOCKDOWN"
[roc-a-fella]

47: women
"BLACK RICE"
[jagjaguwar]

46: beyoncé
"SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)"
[sony bmg]

45: kurupt
"YESSIR"
[universal]

44: the streets
"THE ESCAPIST"
[pure groove]

43: atmosphere
"DREAMER"
[rhymesayers]

42: royce da 5'9"
"SHAKE THIS"
[one records]

41: slaughterhouse
"ONSLAUGHT"
[no label]

40: chad vangaalen
"BONES OF MAN"
[flemish eye]

39: lil wayne
"LOLLIPOP"
[cash money/universal]

38: tv on the radio
"GOLDEN AGE"
[4ad/interscope]

37: friendly fires (feat au revoir simone)
"PARIS (AEROPLANE REMIX)"
[xl]

36: wale
"NIKE BOOTS"
[allido]

35: big boi (feat raekwon and andre 3000)
"ROYAL FLUSH"
[zomba]

34: justice
"DVNO (RADIO EDIT)"
[ed banger/because]

33: lil wayne
"LET THE BEAT BUILD"
[cash money/universal"]

32: grind mode
"SHE'S SO FLY (I'M SO HIGH)"
[universal republic]

31: jake one (feat elzhi and royce da 5'9")
"GLOW"
[rhymesayers]

30: elliott brood
"VALLEY TOWN"
[six shooter]

29: city and colour
"WHAT MAKES A MAN?"
[dine alone music]

28: q-tip
"GETTIN' UP"
[universal motown]

27: young jeezy (feat kanye west)
"PUT ON"
[def jam]

26: adele
"RIGHT AS RAIN"
[xl]

my favourite rap albums of 2008

2008-12-30T17:00:00.004-07:00

10: trim
SOULFOOD 3
[soulfood]

09: heltah skeltah
D.I.R.T.
[duck down]

08: q-tip
THE RENAISSANCE
[universal motown]

07: jake one
WHITE VAN MUSIC
[rhymesayers]

06: black milk
TRONIC
[fat beats]

05: dot rotten
R.I.P. YOUNG DOT
[gpp]

04: young jeezy
THE RECESSION
[def jam]

03: atmosphere
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, YOU PAINT THAT SHIT GOLD
[rhymesayers]

02: lil wayne
THA CARTER III
[cash money/universal]

01: cadence weapon
AFTERPARTY BABIES
[epitaph/upper class]

my favourite rap songs of 2008

2008-12-28T17:04:00.009-07:00

More or less.

30: the game
"MONEY"
[geffen]

The Top Twenty-Five Types of Money The Game Possesses, According to The Game on "Money"

25. Dead presidents
24. Big paper
23. Benjamins
22. Like the strippers get
21. That Baby and Slim cash money
20. That Pablo Escobar crack money
19. That Labron Nike first contract money
18. That make it rain on his niggas money
17. That Flavor of Love™ Deelishis sittin' on his lap money
16. That stack it to the ceiling then call it Shaq money
15. That walk into the club straight into the back money
14. That niggas get clapped money
13. That Air Force Ones don't bend when he traps money
12. The kind that niggas in California die for
11. The kind that bullets fly for
10. Dwight Howard money
9. Martha Stewart money
8. Enough so he can feed Asia
7. That Brink's truck money
6. That nigga Tony Parker money
5. That Staples Center money
4. That Frank Lucas mink money
3. Skyscraper money
2. A dollar
1. Not fifty cents (it ain't real)

29: snoop dogg
"PRESS PLAY"
[geffen/snoopadelic]

28: pastor troy
"MY BOX CHEVY"
[real talk entertainment]

27: bun b (feat lil wayne)
"DAMN, I'M COLD"
[rap-a-lot/asylum]

26: lil wayne
"SHOOT ME DOWN"
[cash money/universal]

25: emc (feat little brother)
"TRAFFIC"
[m3/traffic entertainment]

On first listen "Traffic" sounds like a 9th Wonder track, and I assumed it was (Little Brother even show up, after all) until I found out that it was actually Quincey Tones who was responsible for the slice of stretched soul that plays soundtrack to the sun-drenched bliss that the song evokes. And it's the small things that make this particular afternoon so special for Masta Ace and company: hollering at girls while driving around with your friends, kids playing outside the local deli, old folks sitting on porches reminiscing, impromptu block parties, loud music and chicken wings. This speaks to the greatest strengths of the rappers on the track—they sound like regular dudes who you'd love to kick it with that just happen to rap extraordinarily well.

24: t.i.
"WHAT UP, WHAT'S HAAPNIN'"
[atlantic]

23: young jeezy
"CIRCULATE"
[def jam]

22: nas
"QUEENS GET THE MONEY"
[def jam]

Jay Electronica is exactly the kind of producer Nas should be working with and "Queens Get the Money" is the exactly the kind of song Nas should be making at this juncture of his career. Dan Bejar-like self-references to past glories abound ("Needed time alone to zone/ The mack left his iPhone and his nine at home"), the slightly off-kilter pianos and look-Ma-no-drums! production from his spiritual apprentice bring out something instinctual from God's Son, something primal, both in the fierce precision of his single extended verse and the way it sounds like a one-take miracle. Nas has always been adept with religious imagery, and here he once again brands himself a messiah sent to banish "false prophets" from the rap landscape. "Queens Get the Money" is "N.Y. State of Mind" updated for the times—the only thing it's missing is its own Illmatic.

21: young dro
"HOUSE ON ME"
[no label]

20: gorilla zoe (feat lil wayne)
"LOST"
[bad boy]

"Lost" is exactly the type of song Gorilla Zoe should be making—he doesn't even rap on the track produced by Drumma Boy (who recently laced "Put On" for Young Jeezy) so much as half-raps/half-sings in this really harrowing lumber about the lack of direction in his life. He sounds absolutely depressed, and like old Geto Boys is able to capture the pathos of a paranoid rapper on the edge of sanity. Drumma Boy provides a haunted house of a beat, with twisted, spidery flutes and constantly mutating synths that curl into the empty spaces of the track. Zoe's thunderous voice is soaked in detached emotion, and with perhaps his best use of the vocoder yet, Lil Wayne sounds like what he's lost is his very soul. When Wayne croaks about "keeping his styrofoam with [him]," his reliance on sizzurp comes off not as a crutch, but the only thing keeping him out of a straightjacket.

19: dizzee rascal (feat calvin harris and chrome)
"DANCE WIV ME"
[xl/dirtee stank]

A one-off collaboration with singer-songwriter and producer Calvin Harris and RnB vocalist Chrome, the track continues where Maths + English left off—in the club. Dizzee is made for these kind of songs; his voice sticks to the fluorescent walls of the beat, where it becomes an instrument of its own. Chrome and Harris play the wingmen to Dizzee's boy-next-door lothario, and the three form a lethal trio of sincerity, theatrics, and playfulness. There's a nervous energy to the track courtesy of Harris; the rubbery synths feel like they might jump off the track at any moment, but Dizzee sounds at home over them, and they propel him toward his ultimate goal of "murder on the dance floor." Which equates to lots of sweaty gyrating, anif he's lucky, he'll get lucky by the end of the night. But our boy would probably be satisfied with digits scribbled on some toilet paper—when one of his pick-up lines is "I can tell by your face you don't wanna be alone," you can't mistake his intentions as anything but (mostly) honorable.

18: saigon (feat red 5ive)
"BELIEVE IT"
[no label]

17: sway (feat akon)
"SILVER AND GOLD"
[dcypha/konvict muzik]

16: kurupt
"YESSIR"
[universal]

15: the streets
"THE ESCAPIST"
[pure groove]

Why "The Escapist" works so well is that music doesn't exist within a vacuum, especially that of Mike Skinner's. Viewed in this light, "The Escapist" is spiritual catharsis for the guilt-ridden self-indulgence of The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living. And it's in relation to that album that it feels that much more triumphant. It's just Skinner, a beach (or just his mind, really) and a playground of contemplative strings and optimism. The solipsistic conceit never approaches pretension—Skinner is too committed to the concept for that to happen."The Escapist" recalls Original Pirate Material tracks such as "Turn the Page" and "Weak Become Heroes," which demonstrate Skinner's ability to mythologize the mundane, like nights spent at raves, or walks along beaches, into these transcendental epics that become larger than life.

14: atmosphere
"DREAMER"
[rhymesayers]

13: royce da 5'9"
"SHAKE THIS"
[one records]

12: slaughterhouse
"ONSLAUGHT"
[no label]

11: wale
"NIKE BOOTS"
[allido]

10: big boi (feat raekwon and andre 3000)
"ROYAL FLUSH"
[zomba]

09: lil wayne
"LET THE BEAT BUILD"
[cash money/universal]

At the beginning of "Let the Beat Build," Wayne says: "I see you big bro. I'ma kill these niggas, man." Who is he referring to? Kanye, who laced him with the soul-sampled track chopped into a whirling mass that sounds like it's being sucked into a vortex? Diesel, who handles the drums, gradually introducing new percussive elements, letting the beat build as the track's title suggests? Maybe Jay-Z, who Weezy clearly took as an artistic mentor sometime before the first Carter? This possibility makes sense as he's rhyming on a track that recalls Kanye's Blueprint-era production, except with a southern twist. But on "Let the Beat Build" Dwayne Carter takes what he's learned from Shawn Carter and takes it one step further: Jay-Z rapped over beats, Wayne raps with them. You can't separate Wayne from the beat on "Let the Beat Build"; that would be missing the entire point of the song.

08: jake one (feat elzhi and royce da 5'9")
"GLOW"
[rhymesayers]

Royce barely makes a dent on this one, but that's because he acknowledges that "Glow" contains perhaps Elzhi's best performance in a year of Great Elzhi Performances. And it's Jake One who is able to coax it out of him, because Jake gets Elzhi to do the one thing he's needed to do his entire career: work with the beat, not against it. Elzhi hasn't sounded this comfortable and relaxed over a beat since, well, early Slum Village records. And it pays dividends, his flow "cuts like the diamond shape" but with a softer, more humane edge, with more of a melodic rhythm than a pummeling of syllables. Elzhi doesn't glow on this one; he blinds.

07: q-tip
"GETTIN' UP"
[universal motown]

06: young jeezy (feat kanye west)
"PUT ON"
[def jam]

05: wiz khalifa
"SAY YEAH"
[warner bros.]

04: wiley
"WEARING MY ROLEX"
[asylum]

03: cadence weapon
"REAL ESTATE"
[epitaph/upper class]

02: the knux
"CAPPUCCINO REMIX"
[interscope]

01: lil wayne
"A MILLI"
[cash money/universal]

like we always do at this time

2008-12-18T14:54:00.004-07:00

And so List Season™ officially begins! Jeff at Passion of the Weiss has enlisted some really talented writers to help him recall the best songs hip-hop had to offer over the past year, and as usual it's a good read. I had the privilege of contributing four blurbs to the list, reflecting on songs by Nas ("Queens Get the Money"), the Knux ("Cappuccino" and its remix), Kurupt ("Yessir") and eMC ("Traffic"). Parts one and two here.

revisiting two zero zero seven

2008-12-15T00:52:00.017-07:00

Amidst compiling my year-end lists this year, I thought I'd revisit 2007 and find out which of the albums I loved at the end of last year are still in regular rotation. Having compiled lists like these for a few years now, I'm beginning to think that one should hold off on lists for a particular year for at least six months (preferably longer) because what you're still listening to six months or a year after the fact is a truer indication of what genuinely stuck. But since I never posted my list of favourite albums last year, you guys won't be able to compare how the revised one differs from the original. Let's just say the top six or seven are more or less identical—the only changes being that certain albums haved shifted somewhat in their placement—and what closes out the list are albums I really enjoyed but didn't appreciate at the time as I do now. You could call these albums growers.

My favourite albums of 2007:

01 OVERPOWERED, róisín murphy
02 SOUND OF SILVER, lcd soundsystem
03 GRADUATION, kanye west
04 UNTRUE, burial
05 IN RAINBOWS, radiohead
06 BOXER, the national
07 FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME, the field
08 †, justice
09 UNDERGROUND KINGZ, ugk
10 INTELLIGENT DESIGN, touch and nato

In the coming weeks: I try and remember what I loved in 2008.

outside inn

2008-12-01T17:25:00.009-07:00

Those who read this blog know I believe Edmonton is producing some of the most exciting rap around these days, which is to be unfair to its neighbour to the south. Calgary also has also been rocking the shit lately, and to prove it here is the video for "Outside Inn," from duo Dragon Fli Empire (emcee Teekay and producer DJ Cosm). On this cross-province collaboration, Teekay and Cadence Weapon trade verses over a rolling break and a dusty funk loop buoyed by a persisent cymbal which is the only element of the track that doesn't scream (er, whisper) "lazy Sunday afternoon rap." Weapon acquits himself nicely, dropping quotables like "I was like Voltron with no belt on/ A felt-tipped pen with no friends" and the self-deprecating "They tore off my tear-aways in the middle of middle school," which takes internal rhyming to new levels. By comparison, Teekay's Snugglepuss flow sinks into the beat until it becomes part of an organic whole, his voice hovering somewhere between Rakim on Valium and Gift of Gab if he slowed down his flow a few notches. The best part of the video comes at the 2:31 mark, when Weapon and Teekay playfully jostle in a nondescript, narrow hallway while simultaneously "dancing." Good shit.

a sage in the mix

2008-11-30T00:13:00.004-07:00

I don't want this to turn into a blog where I just post links to shit I write for other publications (I feel you, Breihan), but I also don't want to keep neglecting it. Earlier this month I interviewed Sage "Xual Zan" Francis in anticipation of his show here in town next week; here is the story. Keep a look out for a review of the Kanye soon. And that Sway I promised you, too.

sage francis
"KEEP MOVING"
from Human the Death Advance (Epitaph, 2007)

non-prophets
"THAT AIN'T RIGHT"
from Hope (Lex Records, 2003)

there's (a little) justice in this world

2008-10-05T15:36:00.008-06:00

sway
"SILVER AND GOLD (feat AKON)"
from The Signature LP (Konvict Muzik, 2008)

Fuck yeah. Full review coming soon.

you won't see him rapping by a pool with his girlfriend

2008-10-02T16:38:00.004-06:00

Here is the first official video from the second best (or the best, depending on my mood) rap album of the year, Afterparty Babies. Why "Real Estate" was picked to be the first song given video treatment makes a lot of sense, and Cadence Weapon appropriately hams it up during the four minute clip. If you haven't heard and loved Afterparty Babies yet, don't worry—I'm going to keep mentioning it on this blog until you're converted.

Also, on a totally different note: I'm really glad to see Caribou's Andorra win this year's Polaris Music Prize. Of the ten albums that were nominated, it was clearly the most deserving, although that is no dig to albums like the excellent In the Future (Black Mountain) or Holy Fuck's self-titled debut. To expound on something I said a few months ago, Canada really is running this music shit.

good recent rap songs

2008-08-27T01:29:00.037-06:00

dizzee rascal
"DANCE WIV ME (feat CALVIN HARRIS and CHROME)"
from Dance Wiv Me CDM (Dirtee Stank, 2008)

Dizzee Rascal is the kind of guy who gets girls not because he's great looking or has wads of cash, but because he's really genuine, as opposed to someone like Jay-Z, who wins them over through a combination of cockiness and charm, and not because, you know, he actually cares about them. There's this down-to-earth quality that Dizzee exudes on his songs for the testosterone-deprived crowd, and it rears its head once again on "Dance Wiv Me." A one-off collaboration with singer-songwriter and producer Calvin Harris and RnB vocalist Chrome, the track continues where a good chunk of Maths + English left off—in the club. Dizzee is made for these kind of songs; his voice sticks to the fluorescent walls of the beat, where it becomes an instrument of its own. Chrome and Harris play the wingmen to Dizzee's boy-next-door lothario, and the three form a lethal trio of sincerity, theatrics, and playfulness. There's a nervous energy to the track courtesy of Harris; the rubbery synths feel like they might jump off the track at any moment, but Dizzee sounds at home over them, and they propel him toward his ultimate goal of "murder on the dance floor." Which equates to lots of sweaty gyrating, and maybe, perhaps, if he's lucky, he'll get lucky by the end of the night. But our boy would probably be satisfied with digits scribbled on some toilet paper—when one of his pick-up lines is "I can tell by your face you don't wanna be alone," you can't mistake his intentions as anything but (mostly) honorable.

sway
"SATURDAY NIGHT HUSTLE"
from The Signature LP (Konvict Muzik, 2008)

Kardinal Offishall got the big single with a hook from Akon for the upcoming Not 4 Sale, and it has become Kardinal's first song to ever chart in the always fickle United States. Sway is about to release his first album as a member of Konvict Muzik, The Signature LP, but where is the Akon-assisted single that would thrust Sway into the spotlight here in North America? With The Signature LP scheduled to drop in two weeks, I don't think it's coming, which is a bloody shame. I don't know if Akon thinks Sway has less crossover potential in the States than Kardinal does, because Sway is a much more interesting artist that Kardi is—and as a fellow Canadian, I probably shouldn't be admitting that out in the open. But it's true; Kardinal is a talented rapper, there's no doubt, and he does reggae-influenced hip-hop better than most do, but Sway has something that Kardinal lacks: personality.

One of those feel-good, celebratory songs, "Saturday Night Hustle" works because Sway is such a likeable rapper, so much so that he can turn what would normally be materialist braggadocio into a biting indictment of rappers hopping on fashion trends. When Sway boasts that clothing labels want to outfit him in their digs because he's a trendsetter, what does he do? Reveal his measurements ("L in a jacket, XL in a tee/ My Pumas size eleven, shoe size for free/ Thirty-six long, that's in the jean") just in case any other designers want to send him clothes, then flips it into testimony about his character ("My structure be strong, that's in my genes"), and concludes it by turning the whole sequence into a joke about him performing ("Cash in my dreams, cash in machines/ Catch me on stage, scratching my ... [silence]"). The production is handled by Shux, one of Sway's in-house producers who knows all of Sway's quirks as an emcee. He gives Sway a spacious beat that gives him room to stretch his legs, condensing Miami Vice pastels and a propulsive break into a polished sheen, and Sway jumps and leaps around the track, managing to always sound totally in control, something easier said than done. Not his breakthrough single, but Sway is sounding closer and closer with each track he records, and that's the most exciting part about "Saturday Night Hustle."

gorilla zoe
"LOST (feat LIL WAYNE)"
from Don't Feed the Animals (Bad Boy, 2008)

Did Gorilla Zoe just use the word "labyrinthine"? This one is completely out of left field. I never thought Gorilla Zoe had a "Lost" in him, but on this track he sounds more like a long-lost member of the Geto Boys than the dude from the Yung Joc tracks "Coffee Shop" and "Bottle Poppin.'" "Lost" is exactly the type of song Gorilla Zoe should be making—he doesn't even rap on the track produced by Drumma Boy (who recently laced "Put On" for Young Jeezy), but instead sort of half-raps and half-sings in this really harrowing lumber about the lack of direction in his life. He sounds absolutely depressed, and like old Geto Boys is able to capture the pathos of a paranoid rapper on the edge of sanity, questioning whether his friends want his spot and the wisdom (and futility) of his extravagant spending habits. Drumma Boy provides a haunted house of a beat, with twisted, spidery flutes and constantly mutating synths that curl into the empty space of the track. Zoe's thunderous voice is soaked in detached emotion like a cloud before storm, and with perhaps his best use of the vocoder yet, Lil Wayne sounds positively strung out, like what he's lost is his very soul. During his verse, Weezy's voice is manipulated heavily with the autotuner, chopped and screwed, and fed through a digital filter so that at points he's not even allowed to sputter simple words without having them cut out, distorted, or come out stuttered. When Wayne croaks about "keeping his styrofoam with [him]," his reliance on sizzurp comes off not as a crutch, but the only thing keeping him out of a straightjacket. I fucking love it.

cadence weapon
"UNSUCCESSFUL CLUB NIGHTS"
from Afterparty Babies (Upper Class, 2008)

His sophomore album is the second best rap album this year after Tha Carter III, and yet Afterparty Babies has been slept on like a futon in a frat house. At least by the traditionalist hip-hop audience, who don't seem to know what to do with Cadence Weapon. His music is hip-hop, but it's also dance music by way of El-P crossed with Daft Punk. It's why he has been labeled a hipster rapper, and though the term is a stupid one, it's probably more relevant when talking about Cadence Weapon than the Cool Kids or Kidz in the Hall (those guys are just fetishizing the old-school aesthetic, which is different). And I'm not calling Weapon a hipster himself, because his relationship with hip-hop seems honest, but he is surrounded by hipsters in his hometown of Edmonton, in a scene where irony is wielded like a lightsaber. I should know—I live there. A good portion of Afterparty Babies deals with this hipster culture, and Weapon is able to distance himself enough from it to make some trenchant insight into it, which is one of the record's greatest strengths.

"Unsuccessful Club Nights," on the other hand, is a more straightfoward track. On some meta shit, it's a rap song about DJing, and the difficulty of (successfully) getting people to shake their asses. Weapon outlines a typical set of his ("I play the bass shit because it simply booms") and cracks a bunch of jokes that only rap nerds would get, like when he reworks an infamous Diddy line ("I write rhymes, I don't write cheques"), and offers truths that certain rap nerds still won't accept ("I get played out, like underground rap"). The irony on this one: "Unsuccessful Club Nights" is sure to get any party started. The track itself is one of the most "hip-hop" on Afterparty Babies, built on spliced jazz samples, stiff drums and muted handclaps. Even so, it's chopped and sequenced in a way that's less made-in-the-basement rap than Basement Jaxx. But it rips and should be on every DJ's current setlist. Plus, it features some expert scratching by DJ Weezl, and that's something that more rap songs these days should have.

dancing off docks

2008-08-23T23:52:00.033-06:00

the streets
"THE ESCAPIST"
from Everything Is Borrowed (Warner, 2008)

I don't think many people got what Mike Skinner was trying to do with The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living (2006). At surface level, it's quite easy to dismiss the third Streets album as your typical being-famous-and-having-all-this-money-actually-really-sucks album, and it certainly is, but it's also much more complicated than that. The disc examines how Skinner struggled with being thrust into "the fast life," as Kool G Rap would say, but at the same time Skinner admits there are some pretty cool things about being King Of A Big Deal, in the Will Ferrellian sense of the phrase. The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living is like the brother of Graduation in this sense, although Skinner is both at times more explicit and more subtle than Kanye in his examination of fame and what it entails. Skinner's disc is actually not fun to listen to at some points, and that's because it attempts to show us what a real celebrity douche sounds and acts like. The common ground between both releases is the conflicted relationship that both artists have with their celebrity; these aren't just two guys whining about how the paparazzi won't leave them alone. The arsenal used by each artist is what distinguishes the two albums—Skinner prefers parody and satire, and while Kanye uses the same weapon on "Drunk and Hot Girls" (if anyone isn't convinced that entire song is a joke, they should listen to Mos Def's melodramatically self-aware bridge again), he largely relies on occasional, well-placed missiles where his hyper-sincerity turns tracks into soul-baring confessionals ("Can't Tell Me Nothing"), and other tracks, like "Good Life," that are seemingly about the opulent lifestyle of the rich and famous, when they really are nothing of the sort.

I think the backlash after The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living really got to Mike Skinner; "The Escapist," and from the sounds of it, the rest of the forthcoming Everything Is Borrowed, is his response to said backlash. His MO during the recording of the album that hits stores on September 8th: not to make any references to modern life, which runs counter-intuitive (or should, at least) to the reason for Skinner's success in the first place—his references to modern life. Why "The Escapist" works so well is that music doesn't exist within a vacuum, especially that of Mike Skinner's. Viewed in this light, "The Escapist" is spiritual catharsis for the guilt-ridden self-indulgence of The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living. And it's in relation to that album that "The Escapist" feels that much more triumphant. Plus, it's just a damn good song.

Skinner has always been great at painting moods; here, it's an impressionist walk through nature, time, and reality. As he intended, there are no direct references to anything modern. It's just Skinner, a beach (or just his mind, really, as he goes on to suggest that reality is only as his mind perceives it to be) and a playground of contemplative strings and optimism. The solipsistic conceit never approaches pretension—Skinner is too committed to the concept for that to happen. "The Escapist" is Skinner coming to grips with his mortality, and sounding content with its implications. It's (literally) an out-of-body experience, and also a resolution to an existential crisis, like one Skinner might have gone through after his third album was released. Skinner claims he's "not trapped in a box..." while comparing the possibility of infinity to "little, fleeting, momentary me" and being reminded "life lies in the blink of an eye."

"The Escapist" recalls Original Pirate Material tracks such as "Turn the Page" and "Weak Become Heroes" and Skinner's ability to mythologize the mundane, like nights spent at raves, or walks along beaches, into these transcendental epics that become larger than life. The individual words matter less than the sounds they make; and here they fit together like pieces to a puzzle that Skinner has been trying solve for years. There are two Mike Skinners: Witty Mike Skinner, and Serious Mike Skinner, which can be further expanded to Heartfelt Mike Skinner ("Never Went to Church," "Dry Your Eyes," "It's Too Late") and Epic Mike Skinner (as mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph). Both Heartfelt and Epic Mike Skinner appear on "The Escapist," and I'm sure there will be plenty of Witty Mike Skinner elsewhere on Everything Is Borrowed, which cannot come soon enough for this geezer.

shad, “THE OLD PRINCE STILL LIVES AT HOME” video

2008-08-21T15:45:00.034-06:00

Shad is from London (Ontario), and he's one of those self-deprecating, post-Kanye emcees like Cadence Weapon, Wale and Kid Cudi (who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?). He's also a very good rapper. I interviewed him a few months back for SEE, and now he's released his third video from his sophomore disc The Old Prince. This one is for "The Old Prince Still Lives at Home," and in the video he steps into the shoes, neon yellow t-shirt, and thick-brimmed, multi-coloured baseball cap of another (fresh, shall we say?) prince. Canada is running this rap shit.

100 posts and runnin’

2008-08-13T20:00:00.017-06:00

Just like the good doctor (not the other one), I've reached a milestone of my own in this blogging game. 100 posts on this blog. Took me long enough, I know, but it's quality over quantity, right? Thanks to everyone who has found something they thought worth reading on this blog, given me a chance to write at another publication, or just straight up told me I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, like ?uestlove (true story). I know I don't write enough, and I'm going to try my hardest to rectify that. Can't stop, won't stop, a wise man once said. And I hope you guys like the new design I've been fiddling around with over the last few days. Thanks to Aidan because I really just jacked his.

SEEING SOUNDS (n.e.r.d.) review

2008-07-25T16:59:00.076-06:00

Seeing Sounds is a mess. I know that's the point: after all, it's an album about the neurological phenomenon known as synaesthesia (in which the wrong organ responds to outside sensory input). But it's not a mess in a good way—like, say, Lil Wayne's recent Tha Carter III. The third N.E.R.D. album from Pharrell and Chad Hugo (aka The Neptunes) and that other guy (Shay Haley) shoots for the solar system but ends up in drowning in the drink. There are a handful of moments here that recreate the unique fusion of hip-hop and rock and pop (and even shoegaze, believe it or not) that made In Search Of... such a wonderful surprise six years ago. Take "Time for Some Action," for instance, which rides a thick-as-molasses bassline. Or "Yeah You," which finds Pharrell in full-on crooner mode, weaving in and out of a flamenco-tinged ballad with some sharp melodies. But for the first time, the best tracks on a N.E.R.D. album are the slow burners. And that just ain't right.

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SEE MAGAZINE)

n.e.r.d.
"LOVE BOMB"
from Seeing Sounds (Interscope, 2008)

n.e.r.d.
"YOU KNOW WHAT"
from Seeing Sounds (Interscope, 2008)

from one nine eight seven until two zero zero eight

2008-07-17T00:58:00.011-06:00

Everyone is doing it (although I seem to recall my parents telling me that's usually a warning sign) and I was bored at work today, so why not. Here are my favourite albums from each year that I've been alive. Which is not long. Also, my list would have looked different three weeks ago and it will look different in four days. That's life, as Killer Mike would say.

(1987) ACTUALLY, pet shop boys
(1988) FOLLOW THE LEADER, eric b. and rakim
(1989) ROAD TO THE RICHES, kool g rap and dj polo
(1990) AMERIKKKA'S MOST WANTED, ice cube
(1991) EFIL4ZAGGIN, n.w.a.
(1992) WHAT'S THE 411?, mary j. blige
(1993) MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH, blur
(1994) ILLMATIC, nas
(1995) THE INFAMOUS, mobb deep
(1996) ATLIENS, outkast
(1997) HOMEWORK, daft punk
(1998) MOMENT OF TRUTH, gang starr
(1999) REMEDY, basement jaxx
(2000) DELTRON 3030, deltron 3030
(2001) OH, INVERTED WORLD, the shins
(2002) ORIGINAL PIRATE MATERIAL, the streets
(2003) SIN-A-MATIC, louis logic
(2004) MADVILLAINY, madvillain
(2005) APOLOGIES TO THE QUEEN MARY, wolf parade
(2006) FUTURESEX/LOVESOUNDS, justin timberlake
(2007) GRADUATION, kanye west
(2008) ?

wyclef don’t preach

2008-07-14T00:29:00.027-06:00

Hip-hop and social commentary have been bedfellows since Grandmaster Flash's anti-drug song "White Lines (Don't Do It)" was released in 1984. More than 20 years later, artists are still addressing societal ills through "rebel music," as Wyclef Jean calls it. But while Jean's music, which incorporates a myriad of sounds—from American rap and the reggae stylings of his native Haiti to world music—is often political, music is not the only medium the singer/songwriter, rapper, and producer uses to spark social change.

Three years ago, Jean launched the Yéle Haiti foundation, a non-political organization that distributes food, builds schools, and provides scholarships to students in Haiti, with the goal of rebuilding the nation after decades of violence and poverty. And just last spring, Jean was made a roving ambassador of the country by Haitian president René Préval, charged with the task of improving the nation's image abroad.

"I'm trying to help paint a new, more positive image of Haiti," Jean says over the phone from Argentina, where he is filming the video for the next single from his latest album, Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant. "The light that you see it in is so negative. There's more to Haiti than just [capital city] Port-au-Prince. Just like when you go to Jamaica—there's Kingston, but there's also Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. I'm not saying there aren't problems, but these are some of the most beautiful places in the world. My goal is to get people to look at Haiti in a different light."

Jean thinks that his music can make just as much of an impact as his humanitarian efforts can. If just one person researches the food crisis in Africa or feels compelled to learn more about a foreign country he knows nothing about after listening to one of his songs, Jean considers his music successful. But getting kids to listen to music which addresses social issues is a balancing act.

"It's always challenging because it still has to stay cool and hip for the kids," Jean admits. "It can't feel preachy. I always feel that there's a way to make music that's real instead of preachy. People always ask, 'How can you make music that has substance to it which kids still think is cool?' and I tell them, 'Just try to be honest.'

"I don't ever try to paint myself as a saint, you know what I'm saying? I never paint myself as this super-good guy. I paint myself as a guy who worked at Burger King. You don't have to stand on that corner and sell drugs. Do you want to be a millionaire? You can still do it, the honest way. That's the kind of message I'm trying to promote to the kids."

To ensure that Carnival Vol. II connected with young audiences, Jean enlisted the aid of Atlanta rapper T.I. as co-executive producer. Jean had done some production on the rapper's 2007 disc T.I. vs T.I.P., and the two discovered they shared a chemistry in the recording booth. "I wanted a younger ear to listen to what I was coming with," Jean explains. "I wanted a fresh opinion and I didn't want it from someone my age necessarily. I wanted the perspective of a kid who was in his 20s. T.I. and I connected so strongly musically, so I was like, 'Take a listen to this and tell me what you think,' and when he heard it he was like, 'Yo, this swagger is so crazy, I've got to be a part of this!’”

And it appears T.I. was right. The disc's lead single "Sweetest Girl" has charted in 12 countries, reaching #18 on the Canadian Hot 100 charts. The song features Akon, Niia, and Lil Wayne, whose new album Tha Carter III has become the first rap album in more than three years to sell one million copies in its first week of release. Not since 50 Cent's The Massacre has an album managed to equal those opening-week numbers, an alarming falloff in sales for a genre that used to be one of the record industry's most reliable sellers.

"[Wayne] did it the old school way," Jean says. "He did it grassroots, and put out a thousand mixtapes, and did features for everybody. You can still push units; you just have to keep innovating. Rappers need to discover new ways to build demand for their music, just like Wayne did."

Carnival Vol. II only sold only 46,519 copies in its first week, but perhaps to Wyclef Jean that means his message has reached over 40,000 people.

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SEE MAGAZINE)

wyclef jean
"SLOW DOWN (feat T.I.)"
from Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant (Columbia, 2007)

wyclef jean
"FAST CAR REMIX (feat LUPE FIASCO)"
from Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant (Columbia, 2007)

kurupt, “YESSIR” review

2008-05-28T19:03:00.019-06:00

kurupt
"YESSIR" (PRODUCED BY PETE ROCK)
from G-Boy Status (Universal, 2008)

Cross coast collaborations in rap are usually a one way street. Maybe it's because west coast rappers (whom southern rappers can trace their lineage back to more than they can to New York rappers) use their voices as instruments more than east coast rappers historically have, so hooking up with producers who don't make beats for them doesn't make much sense. Whereas rappers from the left coast are more likely to explore every nook and cranny of their beats, east coast rappers have an uneasy relationship with theirs, almost as if they are scared of them. To say that west coast rappers are more musical than those from the east is reductive, for there are exceptions on both sides. The inversion of the common NY rapper/LA producer is less explored terrain, and if "Yessir" is any indication, the more fertile of the two landscapes.

The first taste of the forthcoming G-Boy Status finds Kurupt rhyming over a breezy Pete Rock track with sparkling keys and regal horns. At first the match-up seems unusual—the track doesn't immediately sound like one Kurupt would normally rap over—but in time it reveals itself to be the ideal playground for his verbal acrobatics. Both artists meet each other half way; the track both proves that Pete Rock isn't entirely irrelevant yet ("Yessir" is better than anything off his recent NY's Finest) and allows Kurupt to cram into it everything that makes him a great rapper: the most ridiculous internal rhyme schemes, that immaculate enunciation and elastic flow that weaves in and out the track's pockets, creative turns of clichéd gangsta rap tropes, and that effortless, concentrated magnetism that separates Kurupt from the majority of the west coast. And east coast. And the south.

One of the year's best rap songs.

touched by somethin’ real

2008-05-24T00:50:00.041-06:00

HIP-HOP IN THE PARK
w/ Touch and Nato, Politic Live, Dragon Fli Empire, and others
MAY 24 (NOON-8PM)
EDMONTON
Louise McKinney Riverfront Park. All ages. FREE.

All Canadian musicians strive to break into the finicky American market. Sometimes that takes a while.

Born Randy Mark, local rapper Touch recorded his first song in 1988, and he's been a staple of Edmonton's hip-hop scene ever since. And now he can finally boast a number-one hit in the United States: in late March, the Touch and Nato (collectively known as The Representatives) track "Somethin' Real," from their 2007 album Intelligent Design, topped the esteemed Rap Attack college radio charts.

The track, which features Brooklyn underground icon rapper Wordsworth, was recorded when Wordsworth and mentor Masta Ace were here in town for a show. And rapping in front of a hip-hop legend like Ace—someone Touch grew up idolizing—was a stomach-in-throat experience. "I wasn't expecting [Masta Ace] to come along," Touch says. "He just showed up and we were like, 'Oh! Yeah, okay!' I think that was the first time I've ever been nervous recording a verse in my life."

And as if recording under that sort of pressure weren't enough, when Wordsworth went offbeat when recording his verse, neither Touch nor Nato could find the courage to tell him. "We waited for Ace to step in," Touch explains. "You could really tell that Words looked up to Ace. I look up to Ace, and I look up to Words too—he's one of my favourite MCs."

When Touch and Nato haven’t been touring in support of Intelligent Design, they've kept busy playing shows and have begun planning their next album. Nato has recently done some outside work, producing two songs that appear on Afterparty Babies, the latest from friend and fellow Edmonton artist Rollie Pemberton, known to the masses as Cadence Weapon.

"Well, one and a half," Nato clarifies, referencing the Afterparty Babies opener "Do I Miss My Friends?" "I don't know exactly what I did on that one, but I was there, and [Weapon] told me he was going to give me co-production credit."

But "Hair's Not Clothes!" is definitely his. "I showed the track to him and he started dancing around like Rollie does, and he said, 'Yeah, that's the one.' I finished it off and then he wrote to it. I was crossing my fingers that it would actually make the album, because I did one for the previous album [2005's Breaking Kayfabe] that got cut—which no one will ever hear."

Not even if Nato or Weapon leak the track on the internet? "I can't," laughs Nato. "We already made a pact that we won't."

Touch and Nato will be performing this Saturday at Hip-Hop in the Park, a free eight-hour music festival organized by Don Welsh celebrating hip-hop culture. The afternoon will feature performances by more than 50 hip-hop artists from both Edmonton and Calgary. The all-ages outdoor event harks back to the New York neighbourhood block parties of the late '80s.

"That's what we need," Touch enthuses. "Most of the stuff in the summer is just a bunch of people that know each other getting together, nothing really organized. It's summer—let's get it going!"

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SEE MAGAZINE)

touch and nato
"SOMETHIN' REAL (feat WORDSWORTH)"
from Intelligent Design (Up in Arms, 2007)

cadence weapon
"YOUR HAIR'S NOT CLOTHES!"
from Afterparty Babies (Epitaph, 2008)

spring cleaning

2008-04-27T17:24:00.005-06:00

You should be listening to this. Now.

I know that over the past few months I’ve been neglecting my bloggerly duties—no longer! Here is the rest of the list that I began at the beginning of another rotation around the ball of gas that keeps us alive. Now that Year Three of university is in the bag, look for big things to be popping this summer. You’ll know where to find me by the paper trail.

10: cadence weapon
“IN SEARCH OF THE YOUTH CREW”
[Afterparty Babies]

9: rich boy
“THROW SOME D’S REMIX (feat ANDRE 3000 et al.)”
[Rich Boy]

8: joe budden
“ALL OF ME”
[Mood Muzik 3]

7: aesop rock
“NONE SHALL PASS”
[None Shall Pass]

6: 8 ball and devius
“JUS’ RIDIN’”
[The Vet and the Rookie]

5: kanye west
“FLASHING LIGHTS”
[Graduation]

4: lil’ wayne
“PUSSY, MONEY, WEED”
[unreleased]

3: devin the dude
“WHAT A JOB (feat SNOOP DOGG and ANDRE 3000)”
[Waitin’ to Inhale]

2: kanye west
“STRONGER”
[Graduation]

1: ugk
“INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS ANTHEM (feat OUTKAST)”
[Underground Kingz]

don’t wait, just blow it up

2008-03-02T19:42:00.014-07:00

Rappers often complain that no one goes to shows anymore—and if you’ve been to a hip-hop concert recently, you know these artists aren’t just making up stories. While Edmonton’s growing folk and indie-rock scene continues to attract fans, hip-hop acts—excluding big names like Nas or Method Man—haven’t been able to keep pace. Shad has his own theory to explain this phenomenon.

“I know a lot of rap acts have been disappointed with rap shows,” says the Kenyan-born, London, Ontario-raised rapper (né Shadrach Kabango). “For one thing, a lot of times there will be acts that are booked from the States that don’t get across the border, and then a lot of times people are just poor performers, on an up-and-coming level, and that can make fans a little bit jaded and hypercritical. So much is dependent on your ability to interact with a crowd, which you can develop a little more gradually as a rock band. As a hip-hop artist, you have to learn quickly because you don’t have multiple opportunities. If you’re there onstage and you can’t connect with your audience, you’re done.”

Having spent the last few years touring across Canada and the United States opening for such artists as Common and Lupe Fiasco in addition to non-rap acts like Alexisonfire and The Dears, Shad has first-hand experience with Canadian crowds—whom he concedes are a finicky bunch.

“Canada’s notorious, especially in hip-hop, for waiting for someone to blow up Stateside before we get behind them,” he says. “And this is totally backwards! If you look at cities in the States like Houston, they’ll big up their artists before they even break nationally. They don’t even care about what’s going on elsewhere in America; they just care what’s going on in their own city with their own artists.”

Shad is currently poised to begin a tour opening for fellow Canadian rapper Classified; meanwhile, his sophomore disc, The Old Prince, came out in October. Unlike his independent 2005 debut, When This Is Over, The Old Prince is being distributed through Black Box Recordings, home to Edmonton’s own Ten Second Epic. “The title The Old Prince is part story and part metaphor, for a lot of things,” he says. “It’s a metaphor for my life, for our generation, for the human condition in general. It was an image that came to mind that I thought was relevant and kind of funny and serious at the same time.”

But not too serious—Shad tries to avoid holier-than-thou sermonizing by injecting his songs with playful humour and personal details—something he considers vital to connecting with audiences. He cites Kanye West as an example of a rapper who’s particularly skilled at balancing social issues with personal touches. “If you don’t talk about yourself and your own struggles,” Shad says, “all you can really do is point the finger. That’s more like listening to a speech or a sermon, and that’s not what people turn to music for. Kanye proved you can be successful and still be personal and express yourself without hurting your music. Hopefully my music can do the same.”

(Originally published in SEE MAGAZINE)

shad
“I DON’T LIKE TO”
from The Old Prince (Black Box, 2007)

shad
“COMPROMISE ”
from The Old Prince (Black Box, 2007)

the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (#15-11)

2008-01-09T00:49:00.005-07:00

15: dizzee rascal
“DA FEELIN’”

Maths + English needs its title amended to include = Science, because on his third full-length Dizzee Rascal has got this rapping shit down to a balanced chemical equation. Though one might argue Dizzee dumbed down to double his dollars à la Jay-Z, the more accessible sound of his junior disc is less of a unwarranted surprise than the inevitable. “Da Feelin’” is one of those deep album cuts that clearly should’ve been a single, and it nearly was—with Joss Stone on the hook. But Dizzee and Shy FX, the track’s producer, ultimately decided the song with Joss was “too poppy” and the version that ended up on the album was sans Joss. Which was the right choice—“Da Feelin’” is a slice of summertime, its deep drum n bass groove sizzles like an egg on pavement in mid-July and Dizzee raps with an innocence rarely seen from mainstream rappers about his adoration of the fairer sex. “Getting hard off of a half of a glimpse,” Dizzee admits. You and I both, Dylan.
[Maths + English]

14: lil’ wayne
“WHAT HE DOES”

When asked about Lil’ Wayne a few months ago, 50 Cent said that Dwayne Carter was “a talented rapper but not a great songwriter.” Obviously Curtis has never listened to “What He Does.” Admittedly, Weezy spent 2007 basking in being Weezy, and “What He Does” is a strange detour for the Greatest Rapper Alive, a venture into storytelling that proves, contrary to his detractors, both Weezy’s ability to write an honest-to-god song, and that Wayne might be fooling us with his sizzurp-drinking, newborn-murdering shtick. Wayne’s singular vocals do the leg work for the vignette Wayne narrates; his croak expresses regret, confusion, hurt, and a tenderness that Wayne has hinted at in the past but never quite embraced with open arms. The material itself is genius for its simplicity and its execution: with the precision and nuance few rappers possess, Wayne describes a fight between himself and his girlfriend, his rhyme structure and cadence doing as much work in conveying what Wayne does with the words themselves. He plays with conventional bar length, relying on single words and half-finished thoughts with the lines “You think about that / I'll be right back / Ring / There she go, baby come right back / Click / Ring / Then she call right back / Click / Ring / I toss the phone in the back / Quick / Think / Shit, you all I got” and this technique makes the scene even more dramatic. The cinematic feel continues in the second verse when Wayne opts for a back-and-forth meter, and short, abrupt lines like “I say: ‘Shut up, you pressing my nerves,’ / She say: ‘Who you tellin’ shut up?’ / Then she get up / Start packing her shit up / Start calling her sister / Her sister doesn’t pick up / The tension’s start to pick up / She cryin’, she got hiccups / I’m tellin’ her to cheer up / I’m layin’ down / She tell me ‘Sit up’ / I sit up / She push me down, I sit up / She push me down, I get up” which read like stage directions and allow Wayne to not only be economical but build the tension of the scene until Wayne’s concluding lines: “Then I act like I’ma hit her / But / I’m a better nigga / She can’t find a better nigga / Naw!” Yeah, Wayne wins us over with this refusal to play into stereotypes and devolve into domestic violence, but the fact that Wayne thinks he’s so great simply because he doesn’t hit his woman is also kind of depressing when you really think about it, and with surprising subtlety, Wayne confounds the emotions we’re supposed to be feeling at this moment. “What He Does” really is an example of cadence (and rhyme) serving concept to the point where both become interchangeable and, eventually, one and the same. And that’s just great songwriting.
[unreleased]

13: juvenile
“WHO CAN I RUN TO (feat MANNIE FRESH)”

“Who Can I Run To” is our first taste of Juvenile’s forthcoming Diary of a Soulja, but it’s not really a single. It’s not as immediate as “Rodeo,” nor as flashy. It’s too subtle for a modern rap single, especially from a southern rapper—especially from Juvenile. There’s no real chorus, and while the production, still knocks thanks to Mannie’s crisp drum programming and trademark 808s, it’s also just, well, really pretty, with its twinkling pianos and r&b source material. And Juvenile knows this, so he and Mannie lay some straight up pimp game on these hoes; Juvenile threatens with a smile that “you’re dealing with somebody that’ll bash you in ya eye,” and Mannie cautions some dude to “step aside nigga, ‘cause I’m leaving witcha ho.” But once that chorus hits and the questions “Who can I run to?” floats over the track, any misogyny is subverted and nearly negated entirely, and track becomes something else: a search for Ms. Right. Just don’t tell Juvie that—I’m too pretty to sport a black eye.
[single?, Diary of a Soulja]

12: dj jazzy jeff
“ALL I KNOW (feat C.L. SMOOTH)”

As is the case with a lot of legendary emcee-producer teams, sometimes people forget that they consist of more than just the producers that help defined their sound(s). It was Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, just like Gang Starr was DJ Premier and Guru (really, I swear). It’s true C.L. basically fell into obscurity after The Main Ingredient, but who wouldn’t, after going from rapping over nothing but Pete Rock beats to beats that, well, weren’t. Jazzy Jeff digs deep and pulls out the low, low, low frequencies and C.L. fills out the empty space like your girlfriend does her jeans after the holidays. He sounds youthful, his voice still elastic and commanding, but not intimidating. The beat recalls C.L.’s glory days with the Soul Brother #1 without leaning too hard on his steez. Pete and C.L. might never work together again, but is it sacrilegious to say a C.L. and Jazzy Jeff full-length would probably turn out better now anyways? Ah, what the hell.
[The Return of the Magnificent]

11: ghostface killah
“YOLANDA’S HOUSE (feat METHOD MAN and RAEKWON)”

A lot has been written about “Yolanda’s House” already in the month since The Big Doe Rehab’s release, and for good reason. Without question, it’s that album’s best track, and probably by a lengthy margin. While it remains to be seen if anyone will be spinning the album that got its title from a Cappadonna line (“Careful,” The W) in six months time (I’m going to say probably not; when was the last time you scrolled down to More Fish on your iPod?), “Yolanda’s House” is an example of everything good about the Wu-Tang Clan. Ant-Live’s melancholic violins function as the context of the scene that plays out, and Ghost, Method Man, Raekwon do the rest—a true collaboration between the three, something 8 Diagrams lacked and paid dearly for, the track plays to the emcees’ respective strengths: Ghostface’s frenetic storytelling, attention to minutiae, and idiosyncratic magnetism; Method Man’s brand of pathos and humour; Raekwon’s precision mafioso paranoia. If only 8 Diagrams had more songs like “Yolanda’s House”; or any, for that matter.
[The Big Doe Rehab]

the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (#20-16)

2008-01-03T21:15:00.002-07:00

20: styles p and az
“THE HARDEST”

Styles P and AZ seem like an unlikely pair, and on “The Hardest” their diverging skill sets are highlighted with a yellow felt marker. Styles P treats the best Large Professor beat in years, with its swirling, panoramic synths that radiate like individual beacons of New York ethos, like every other beat he raps over, and ignores it. AZ, on the other hand, does what he does best and burrows into beat. AZ has never had much of a pass game, but his running game has always been second to none, and this is no different on “The Hardest.” Together SP, AZ, and LP form a triple threat no one might have predicted, but one that everyone is glad hooked up.
[The Ghost Sessions]

19: marco polo
“NOSTALGIA (feat MASTA ACE)”

Damn you, Marco Polo. Damn you to hell! I never fall for these kind tracks. “Nostalgia” is one of those songs where each element is designed to propel you down a particular path; in this case, it’s the remember-when-rap-was-good (cough) road, a beaten road with less to see every time its walked on. But rarely is this kind of track pulled off so expertly, and the Canadian beatsmith makes us forget we’re being manipulated by his unhurried track, the type that Masta Ace is money on. Ace has built up such goodwill during his career that he’s the perfect choice for such a track, and that reference to Pat Benatar gets me every single time—it turns out economics isn’t the only field with an invisible hand.
[single, Port Authority]

18: sage francis
“KEEP MOVING”

I feel bad for Sage Francis. The man sounds like he’s one Prozac away from overdosing on every song. And this might make me sound like more of a jackass than I already am, but I sure hope his pills aren’t working. “Keep Moving” is one of the more reserved tracks on Human the Death Dance, although this is a relative term for a rapper known most for his heart-on-his-sleeve raps. The song is so full of crafty wordplay that it demands repeat listens in order to digest all the turn of phrases Sage effortless pens. It’s a depressing track, but it’s clever and engaging, and one instance where the adjective “poetic” doesn’t seem hackneyed.
[Human the Death Dance]

17: kano
“THIS IS THE GIRL (feat CRAIG DAVID)”

Kano is still trying to be everything to everyone, and his sophomore disc London Town suffers for it, but the UK wunderkid gets it right on “This Is the Girl,” a track where someone finally remembered how fucking good Craig David sounds over garage beats. And although “This Is the Girl” isn’t a garage track—or really a grime track at all—there’s enough of garage and grime’s fingerprints, mostly in the restless percussion and the synthesizers that sound like they might implode on themselves at any moment, so that Craig David’s cotton-candy hook shines. Kano can be frustrating for his lack of direction, but he doesn’t lack focus here as he serenades the girl that he might, maybe, probably, at some point in the future, want to wife. Since both The Streets and Dizzee Rascal have embraced their status as pop stars in the UK, perhaps it’s time that Kano follows suit. Forget the girl; that’s the rapper I want.
[single, London Town]

16: lupe fiasco
“PARIS, TOKYO”

I don’t like Lupe Fiasco. He has more natural talent than he probably deserves, but no personality to go with it. He’s about as endearing a personality as Ryan Seacrest (and at least Seacrest had a hilarious cameo in the instant classic Knocked Up, which is more than Loopy can boast). And that’s where those he is most often compared to, like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, will always have him beat—they were regular guys, but charismatic and funny regular guys. While The Cool is plagued by too many shitty concept songs, “Paris, Tokyo” is undeniable. It’s still a run-of-the-mill ode to his girl, but Lupe crams enough of his nerdy wordplay into the track to remind us why people liked the guy in the first place. And I can’t get over the irony that the best track on Lupe’s album is the one that could’ve been pulled from Midnight Marauders. Which is a compliment, backhanded or not.
[The Cool]

the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (#25-21)

2008-01-01T19:00:00.002-07:00

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you... I’ve got three lists I want to write about the last 365 days in music, and this is the (beginning of) the first one. These are the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (i.e. my favourite):

25: sway
“EVERY MAN (FOR HIMSELF) (feat MR HUDSON)”

Akon quietly signed Sway to his Konvict Muzik imprint earlier this year, although judging from the sombre (guilty?) introspection of “Every Man (For Himself),” whether Sway considers this a step forward or two backwards is another matter. The song is the sound of an emcee taking a deep breath—or perhaps gasping for air—before the next leg of his career. The title alone sounds like an attempt to rationalize his decision to side with a major label, as if Sway is trying to convince us he’s making the right decision. But we need not be swayed—we already know what he could do with a “proper marketing budget.” Sway, on the other hand, might be the one who could use some reassurance.
[One for the Journey EP]

24: kanye west, nas, krs-one, & rakim
“CLASSIC (BETTER THAN I’VE EVER BEEN REMIX)”

When “Classic” first came out, the song invited one question: did Kanye West stumble into the wrong recording booth? Haters lamented that the Louis Vuitton Don didn’t deserve to be on a song with three rappers routinely mentioned in Greatest Of All Time discussions—especially over a DJ Premier track!—but once the dust settled, not only did people realize that ‘Ye managed to keep up with his elders, he nearly outclassed them too. Over dusty boom-bap production that sounds like every Premo track from 1995-99 and unlike any of them, the rappers play to their strengths, and it’s effortless. Then again, Premier did make Lil’ Dap and Melachi sound like the microphone didn’t hate them. But Kanye’s verse here would sound hot over any beat, unlike any those weed carriers ever dropped.
[single, Better Than I’ve Ever Been 12”]

23: el-p
“POISENVILLE KIDS NO WINS / REPRISE (THIS MUST BE OUR TIME)”

“Poisenville Kids No Wins / Reprise (This Must Be Our Time)” best encapsulates El-P’s dystopian B-boy aesthetic on an album where every track is like a favourite nightmare (no Arctic Monkeys) that you can’t wait to wake up from until you realize that they’re not nightmares at all. El-P might sleep once you’re dead, not that El-P gets much sleep as things are now; remember, sleep is the cousin of death. And although the world might seem fucked-up beyond repair through his bloodshot-red eyes, the alternative to all of this is even less enticing. As El-P resolves: “And if I live, you have to live, whether you like this shit or not.”
[I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead]

22: the game
“WONDERFUL LIFE”

While The Game’s brand of gangsta rap often veers close to caricature, “Wonderful Life” cruises (and really, “cruises” is the only way to describe it) down an different highway entirely, at a comfortable click—because make no mistake, that driver of this G4 is a pro. The same tropes of your typical West Coast fare are still present, and in particular Jayceon Taylor’s own personal emceeing, err, habits (the gratuitous namedropping, most specifically), but this crumb is the most satisfying of all the morsels that dropped from the plate of Doctor’s Advocate leftovers this past spring.

Perhaps most tellingly, it’s the only non-Dr. Dre track (if we believe the others are, in fact, produced by the ‘Doc) of the bunch. In an ironic twist, Buckwild (if we believe “Wonderful Life” is, in fact, produced by Buckwild) assembles a more authentic West Coast track than logic dictates a New York producer should be able to. “Wonderful Life” is a case of symbiosis between producer and emcee; Game sounds totally at home navigating the weird guitars, and being so relaxed allows his charisma—truly an overlooked weapon in his arsenal—to breathe and permeate every pore of the track. Sort of like a good bag of Cali green.
[unreleased]

21: touch and nato
“BRAND NEW”

“Brand New” is not announcing the birth of a new generation of hybrid rap songs that are one part subversive battle rap, two parts psychological braggadocio, and all parts fresh. “Brand New” is a declaration that Canadian rap is no longer the that kid who follows his older brother and his friends everywhere they go and apes their style. Canadian rap might still be the runt of the litter, but as Touch and Nato prove on their debut Intelligent Design, maybe the rap gods got the prophecy wrong. No longer a second-rate facsimile of American rap, but a separate and worthy entity on its own, Canadian rap is indeed brand new—and it’s been here all along. Auditions are still being held for the rap Steve Nash, but I don’t think the candidates that have emerged will be content with that comparison. They’ll be gunning for a different animal altogether.
[Intelligent Design]

the second best rap album of the year?

2007-10-08T22:30:00.003-06:00

UGK, Underground Kingz review

Although UGK scored their first number one album when Underground Kingz debuted in August, Pimp C and Bun B are hardly household names—their biggest splash in mainstream waters belongs to their contributions to “Big Pimpin’,” Jay-Z’s ubiquitous 2001 hit. In the time since, Pimp C spent four years in prison while Bun stole every track he was featured on.

Underground Kingz is the first album in six years from the southern stalwarts, but their extended hiatus hasn’t affected their music. The beats are still woozy, relying on finger-licking, country-fried grooves and crunkified blues, perfect for Pimp C’s singular drawl and the weathered authority of Bun B’s baritone.

There’s little crossover potential here, besides perhaps the Jazze Pha-produced “Stop-n-Go,” but how UGK managed to top the charts after a decade of being underground titans can be reduced to four words: timing and good music. And housing the best rap song of the year—“International Players Anthem” with OutKast—doesn’t hurt.

4 STARS (out of 5 stars)

Originally published in SEE Magazine

ugk
“QUIT HATIN’ THE SOUTH (feat CHARLIE WILSON and WILLIE D)”
from Underground Kingz (Jive, 2007)

ugk
“REAL WOMEN (feat TALIB KWELI and RAHEEM DEVAUGHN)”
from Underground Kingz (Jive, 2007)

conventional methods of sex totally bore him

2007-10-05T15:36:00.003-06:00

50 Cent, Curtis review

If you thought that using his government name as the title for his latest long-player would signify a move toward more personal material for Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, you’d be wrong. Curtis is Jackson’s most detached and emotionally withdrawn album yet—and his worst.

Mining a field exhausted long before the release of The Massacre, Curtis is an example of an artist trying to make another withdrawal from a creatively bankrupt formula, not realizing the rap ATM reads only one thing: insufficient funds. When one of the best songs on your album is a collaboration with Justin Timberlake over a FutureSex/LoveSounds leftover from Timbaland (“Ayo Technology”), you’ve got a problem. Not to dis the newly crowned King of Pop, but when you’re supposed to be this imtimidating gangsta rapper, the matchup is just a little incongruous. At least The Massacre had some pretty great production and some catchy hooks. To say Curtis is a case of diminishing returns is an understatement.
2.5 STARS (out of 5 stars)

Originally published in SEE Magazine

50 cent
“FIRE (FEAT YOUNG BUCK AND NICOLE SCHERZINGER)”
from Curtis (Interscope, 2007)

50 cent
“SMILE (I’M LEAVING)”
from Curtis (Interscope, 2007)

i know, i know, i look better in real life

2007-10-04T13:47:00.002-06:00

Kanye West, Graduation review

After the grandoise self-importance of Late Registration, Kanye West could’ve gone even bigger for Graduation. But with his junior effort, Kanye discards the masturbatory musical accoutrement of its predecessor in favour of a leaner, more svelte sound.

Graduation is also noticeably more electronic than either of Kanye’s previous albums: “Good Life” takes the Emulator line from Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” and dresses it up with the biggest synths ’Ye and DJ Toomp can find; elsewhere, “Drunk and Hot Girls” samples Can (“Sing Swan Song”), tossing and turning like an acid trip gone wrong.

While still not as naturally gifted an emcee as “Big Brother” Jay-Z, or any of the Bigs (L, Pun, or Notorious) he yearns one day to be compared to, Kanye continues to refine his linguistic command—the sheer number of quotables on Graduation attests to his maturing skills as a performer and writer. As he reflects on “Barry Bonds”: “I don’t need writers, I might bounce ideas/ But only I could come up with some shit like this.”

He’s right—Curtis lost.
4.5 STARS (out of 5 stars)

Originally published in SEE Magazine

kanye west
“BITTERSWEET (FEAT JOHN MAYER)”

from Graduation (Roc-a-Fella, 2007)

kanye west
“GOOD NIGHT (FEAT MOS DEF)”

from Graduation (Roc-a-Fella, 2007)

i need internet rappers to shut the fuck up

2007-09-07T19:18:00.002-06:00

Yes, that’s an Oilers jersey.

Touch and Nato, Intelligent Design review

I originally thought there might be some sort of conflict-of-interest in reviewing Intelligent Design, but then I realized that would be akin to Sean Fennessey not reviewing a Dipset album, or Henry Adaso not covering a Z-Ro single because they share the same place of residence. I’ve never thought that hometown bias was a negative thing, and in rap until recently it’s sometimes worked inversely. So here’s the disclaimer: for those who don’t know, just like Touch and Nato, I’m from Edmonton. But I don’t technically live in Edmonton (St. Albert, bitches), so what partisan leanings? Plus, I’ve never even met the guys. If I had gotten smashed while playing BioShock (game of the year) with them last night, then yeah, maybe I shouldn’t be reviewing their album. But last night I was definitely alone in Rapture. Just like every night.

Cadence Weapon’s debut Breaking Kayfabe (2005) was the first genuinely great rap album to come out of Edmonton; Intelligent Design is the second. For too long have aspiring rappers who don’t hail from the Big Four (New York, L.A., Atlanta, and Detroit-slash-Chicago, for argument’s sake) tried to mimic the styles other regions, especially the “New York sound,” and this has led to little more than frustrating facsimiles of established sounds. This has been especially true of Canadian artists, unfortunately. They all want to sound like an eastern underground rapper or some gangster rapper (Nas, right?). Or if they’re melanin-deficient, Eminem. The UK got it right when the artists there, while borrowing bits and pieces from here and there, managed to create something their own—grime. Those who have succeeded outside of the Epicentres of Rap have done the same. The aesthetic of Rollie “Cadence fucking Weapon” Pemberton’s music falls somewhere between grime’s paranoid danceability and 8-bit Nintendo cartridges; as an emcee he’s like that friend of yours who has an incredible wealth of knowledge in numerous genres of music, and while he doesn’t outright brag about how much cooler than you he is, you know he’s totally thinking it. Yet you still hang out with the dude, mostly because he’s a hoot after imbibing libations and a great wing-man.

There are obvious influences found on Intelligent Design, evident in both Touch’s emceeing and Nato’s production. Touch owes a lot to the wordy, underground rap he surely listened to growing up; his flow is of the labyrinthine variety, twisting around basslines and burrowing into the crooks and crannies of the samples Nato flips. But Touch’s flow is more streamlined than a, say, Talib Kweli, and probably closer to Breezly Brewin’s conversational stilt than Kweli’s. And unlike most underground emcees, Touch doesn’t take himself too seriously and even has a sense of humour (check out the amusing, Slick Rick-indebted “Adult’s Story”). Nato’s beats are all very clean, and his cuts and scratches could have been lifted directly from a Gang Starr album. His production fits Touch like a custom Italian suit, measured to fit snug across his shoulders and altered for near-total freedom of movement so he can make sudden flow changes without tearing something. “Somethin’ Real,” with Masta Ace-protégé Wordsworth, floats in an ocean of sorrow with its muted horns and Ghostface-sampled chorus, and Touch describes “Trained 2 Kill,” a track that recalls Dan the Automator’s work on Dr. Octagonecologyst, as some “superhero, Captain Canada shit,” and he’s not far off the mark.

Whatever the style of track, whether it be the Edmonton-anthem “Where I Reside” (“We outside with big coats that zip up past our throats/ So you can feel the chill in every rhyme I wrote”) or the trapeze-jumping, water balloon-juggling “Freak Show,” Touch and Nato don’t shout out their influences as much as hint at them through riddles and sideways glances. Even the traditional battle track format is given a fresh coat of paint on “Brand New”—here Touch needs not deliver even one diss, but rather he deconstructs his battle with his opponent, calmly asserting that “you’re still a biter even if you just nibble” while his foe shits his pants and runs home to his mommy.

Instead of aping New York rap, Touch and Nato, like Weapon and other Canucks such as Buck 65 and k-os (even if he’s a conscious version of what Wyclef and will.i.am’s love-child might sound like—not a dig at Brereton, I swear), embrace their place of origin instead of shunning it. And it makes for better music. Besides not sounding fraudulent, it helps add to the growing mythology of Canadian rap, and contribute in establishing a “Canadian sound,” whatever that means. Intelligent Design isn’t perfect; it feels overlong and the guests—Wordsworth and Pemberton, who is continuing to work out the kinks in his flow, excluded—sound pedestrian when compared to the veteran Touch. And the chorus to “Can’t Hold Me Back” is just fucking awful. Two great rap albums do not a burgeoning rap scene make—but it’s a start. Now where’s Afterparty Babies, Rollie?

Rating: 8.0 (out of a possible 10.0)

touch and nato
“THE REPRESENTATIVES”
from Intelligent Design (Up in Arms, 2007)

touch and nato
“BRAND NEW”
from Intelligent Design (Up in Arms, 2007)

emcee drag a bitch through the mud

2007-09-04T21:42:00.001-06:00

Juvenile
“WHO CAN I RUN TO (FEAT MANNIE FRESH)”
from Diary of a Soulja (UTP/Atlantic, 2007)

Xscape
“WHO CAN I RUN TO”
from Off the Hook (So So Def, 1995)

Jones Girls
“WHO CAN I RUN TO”
from Jones Girls (Philadelphia International, 1979)

I’m going to get sentimental with this one, so if you aren’t down with grown-ass man talk, then go play with the boys outside and listen to Curtis. You’d probably think that “Who Can I Run To” was just some sort of trite for-the-ladies song from Juvenile and Mannie Fresh. Which it is. But it’s also more complicated than that. Mannie Fresh really should do another album with Juvenile pronto, because the chemistry they share is really something special. Everyone wants Mannie to work with Lil’ Wayne again (myself included), but if we’re getting songs like “Who Can I Run To,” maybe we should be appreciating what we’re getting instead of what we’re wanting; sometimes the two are entirely dissimilar.

From Juvenile’s upcoming Diary of a Soulja, “Who Can I Run To” in an interpolation of the 1995 Xscape song of the same name, which in turn was a cover of the Jones Girls song—also of the same title—from the late ‘70s. Mannie’s track is essentially a straight loop of the Xscape song, but with his propensity towards live instrumentation throughout his entire career, it could quite easily be an interpolation. It sounds like one too, just like Ghostface’s “The Champ,” where Just Blaze chose to hire musicians to replay its original sample rather than pay exobitant sampling fees. Either way, “Who Can I Run To” is sort of like a classier version of an “Excuse Me Miss,” if the Neptunes could evoke any sort of emotion with their beats. Juvenile’s velvety smoke of a growl sticks to the beat like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth as he runs his pimp game on numerous women, but with some quite dark undertones floating underneath his self-aggrandizement and semi-misogynist rhetoric.

When he proclaims himself “Emcee Drag A Bitch Through The Mud” looking for “bad bitches [...] to fuck,” the haunting sampled chorus of “Who can I run to?” subverts this and prevents things from being too simple. Lines like “Now everytime I touch down you wanna kiss and hug / You try to wear my trust down but I don’t give a fuck” are lines that only someone who has experienced heartbreak and deceit can write; it sounds like Juvenile’s been hurt in the past, and that’s just as powerful as him coming out and explicitly stating “this bitch did done me wrong.” When he raps “Don’t be falling in love now, bitch you know what’s up,” we’re unconvinced that it’s not Juvie who is trying to prevent himself from opening up too much, as his lyrics would suggest. We’re all just looking for someone we can run to, aren’t we? Juvenile just has a harder time admitting it; he reminds me of almost every guy I know. Just as in real life, you’ve got to read between the lines—or in this case, between the lines and between the verses. And until we can find that someone, we’re not gonna be celibate, right? Bring on the drunk and hot girls!

4 STARS (out of 5 stars)

the kids aren’t alright

2007-08-28T16:34:00.001-06:00

That’s baby-making music right there.

To paraphrase Canada’s eminent throwback rocker, “where have all the ~~good~~ young people gone?” I’m going to lose about 95% of those who read this blog (all twelve of you) with this post, but even if these places and events are completely foreign to you, stick around. I was at the Edmonton Labatt Blues Festival this past weekend, working for my cousins selling gelato when I realized there was something off about the Blues Festival when compared to the other music festivals in Edmonton over the summer. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but soon I was able to grasp what felt different—there were no young folks (no Peter Bjorn and John) within sight. Well, that’s not true; there were young people to be found at the Blues Festival, but they were just few and far between. And when I employ the adjective ‘young,’ this includes ages up to twenty-five and as young as dos, but really who I’m talking about are kids in their late teens and early twenties. People my age, basically.

This was a complete contrast, for instance, to the Folk Festival, which was a mere two weeks before the Blues Festival. At the Folk Fest, there were just as many youthful faces around as there were old buggers. Mothers with newborn infants, breastfeeding on a secluded patch of grass behind Stage 2, hipsters with their tweed jackets and scarves in thirty degree weather, and LG’s that would make a jail sentence for statutory rape seem like a steal of a deal. To the old creepy men, of course. At the tender age of twenty, I can still get away with longing for that sixteen-year-old redhead I served ice cream to with the ass of a goddess and face of an angel. Those who attended the Blues Fest were, by and large, aging hippies (the crossover audience with the Folk Festival, not to confused with the aforementioned hipsters), middle-aged, blue-collared, and born pre-1965. Granted, the Folk Fest’s line-up might have been geared more towards the young’ns, with young (and Canadian!) performers like Dallas Green (of City and Colour and the Canadian punk outfit Alexisonfire), Amy Milian (of perennial hipster faves Stars and Broken Social Scene), and Buck 65 (of, uhm, Buck 65 fame) playing. The Blues Festival really didn’t have any names that people with more hair on their heads than faces and nether regions would recognize—save maybe Los Lobos, but even that’s a stretch—so the lack of young folks at the show could be explained by who was performing this year at the respective festivals. And it’s a damn shame, because young folks would’ve had a great time at the Blues Festival. I did, and I was working the entire time!

I ran into a few kids my age, including some friends of mine from soccer, and this girl who has wanted the dilznick for years now (and her moms, which was kind of awkward, I won’t lie), but the lack of 15 to 25-year-olds is something the excellent Blues Festival can’t afford to make into a continual trend. This age bracket is the future of the admittedly young festival, which is only in its ninth year, and if it’s not able to attract young people who love the blues or haven’t been introduced to the expansive and historic genre, but are the ones who will grow to love the southern-fried stomps, barn-burners, and honky-tonk laments of unrequited love, the festival is in deep trouble.

This year’s festival was full of great music from acts like Los Lobos and Watermelon Slim (loved the neon green get-up he was rocking) and newcomers like Canadian Garret Mason, son of veteran bluesman Dutch Mason, and winner of the 2005 Juno (the low-budget Canadians Grammys, to you Yanks) for Best Blues Album in I’m Just a Man. Unfortunately, there was no Juno for Most Obvious Album Title. What all makes all Edmonton music festivals memorable events is their atmosphere; Gallagher Park is a wonderful location for the Folk Fest, all scenic with its helpful dimensions and a landscape that nature probably built specifically for such a festival. The Blues Festival is also perfectly situated in Hawrelak Park. In the 1200-person amphitheatre built originally for outdoor theatre, the acoustics sounded as good at our ice cream booth as it did in the front row.

When watching the Lord of the Rings appendices, it’s often mentioned that New Zealand just seems to have been built for the trilogy of films; any other locations for the fantasy films would have been unthinkable. I think the same thing about both the Folk Fest and the Blues Festival. The New York Times even made mention of the Blues Festival the other day, as if we needed reassurance we were on to something special. And when it started raining Sunday night, it did little to damper the spirits of the festival-goers. It just added to the already magical atmosphere of the night. It was just too bad there weren’t more girls my age around when it started pouring—wet girls are the best kind of girls, after all. Oh well, I guess the Justin Timberlake show in a few hours is where all the sexy ladies (and I—JUUUUSSSTIIIN!!!1!1!11!) will be.

Now only if the Blues Festival can step up their efforts to attract a younger audience—fresh blood, if you will—the festival’s future will look bright. Create advertisements geared towards teenagers, bring in someone like Scarface for the heck of it—if there are any rappers who do the blues, it’s Mr. Geto Boy. The job’s nearly already done for them; they just need to make people aware. Awareness is key, they tell me, right? You’re talking to one of the greatest who did it before. Oh, and Scarface is a pretty good rapper too. Not that any kids my age even know who he is, of course. Damn kids.

lil wayne: best rapper alive (part two)

2007-08-06T15:04:00.001-06:00

Alright... where were we?

Weezy’s ability to fashion something new out of the old is not more evident than on the three love songs found on Tha Carter III Sessions. In most love songs, rappers typically mean mug in a desperate attempt to maintain some distance between themselves and the object of their affection. Usually, all the posturing accomplishes in the end is turning women into an object. There’s a lot of misogyny in rap today still, but you wouldn’t know it from “Something You Forgot” and “What He Does.” Handled by a less capable rapper, the former would feel melodramatic; with Weezy behind the wheel, it’s just really fucking honest. With an appropriately over-the-top Heart sample (from their 80’s power ballad “What About Love”), “Something You Forgot” is Wayne at his most vulnerable. His heart-on-his sleeve raps tear down any walls between him and his subject, which in turn makes us, the listener, feel as if we’re eavesdropping on some tragic scene between two ex-lovers. It’s almost as if on the song the listener is taken out of the equation and it’s just Weezy and his girl.

“What He Does” is straight cinematic rap, with Wayne narrating a quarrel with his woman with the deft touch of a scriptwriter, with his verses feeling like excerpts from an actual screenplay about a hustler knee-deep in the drug game. But it’s more independent film than big-budget blockbuster, especially with its almost Soundclick-esque soul production. Whereas Jay-Z often needed the production to convey emotion for him (read: “Song Cry”), Wayne uses his production more as a guide for his performance on a given track. While his performance is impassioned and theatric in “Something You Forgot,” it’s reflective and rational (“If I don’t hustle then what happens in the morning?”), but no less sincere on “What He Does.” We feel Wayne’s hurt; his conflicted mindset; his trepidations about hustling. “What He Does” is not just a song about selling drugs so much as it’s a song about the relationship between two people based on their economic means—pushing weight is just how Wayne gets by, and it presents its own set of problems for him and his girl to deal with. It’s obliquely about the drug game but directly about people.

The earnest, broken-hearted puppy dog shtick is a much better look for Wayne than the callous, arrogant playboy, and on Tha Carter III Sessions Wayne might have finally found a fitting foil for him in Mack Maine. In his post-Hot Boys days, Wayne hasn’t found an emcee that compliments him and which he can put on his records and have them not be a waste of sixteen bars. Currency is a southern Fabolous rip-off. His punchline raps are more interesting than anything his spiritual father Mase ever wrote, but as an emcee he’s even more boring. Mack Maine, on the other hand, comes off as a veteran New York mixtape rapper with southern sensibilities, although he’s from the same Hollygrove project in New Orleans as Wayne. With his often and numerous references to the likes of Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, Nas (“Heart of a slave, blood of a king”) and Hov (“Remember: males shouldn’t be jealous, that’s a female trait”), you can tell that Maine grew up listening to New York rap. He’s lyrical, but like any southern rapper, he knows the power of bending his voice and infusing emotion into his raps: on “World of Fantasy,” Maine sounds hurt, regretful, darkly optimistic, passionate, confused, and frustrated—often all at the same time. Together, Wayne and Maine have this Federer-Nadal-like ability to return each others volleys in exciting ways. Wayne is still the star of the show, so it’s more like a Q-Tip/Phife Dawg relationship than an Andre/Big Boi (or a Lateef/Lyrics Born) partnership.

This leads us to the ultimate question: can Wayne make good on his potential with Tha Carter III? I think in many ways, he already has. Delaying the album until mid-2008 was the first step in the right direction, but I think people need to really consider what they expect a Lil’ Wayne album to deliver and remember that both Tha Carter and Tha Carter II were good albums for their own reasons. Do you expect the southern equivalent of The Blueprint? The Pretty Toney Album? I think the latter is more likely than the former, and this is no knock against Weezy. If I get raps on par with what he’s been spitting over the course of this past year with excellent production, I’ll be more than content. For Tha Carter III, I kind of wish Wayne sticks with his in-house team of producers, a la Tha Carter II. With their forthcoming Underground Kingz, UGK adheres to this M.O. and it works for them. As much as I want to hear Wayne spitting over Mannie Fresh again, or Timbaland, or Dr. Dre, or Kanye West, how will these songs fit with the other production styles on the record? There’s a lot to consider, since I think Wayne is teetering on mass mainstream success—something no other rapper with such surrealist, oddball tendencies, like Doom or Kool Keith or even Ghostface could manage—with the right single; Timbaland and Justin saved Curtis (I don’t care, “Ayo Technology” rips), so imagine what they could do for Lil’ Wayne. Having achieved a sort of artistic anschluss, Tha Carter III will likely be a fascinating album no matter the outcome. Best rapper alive? If it’s what he needs to hear to keep him rapping like this, why not.

touch and nato, “ADULT’S STORY” video

2007-08-04T16:22:00.001-06:00

Here’s the video for Touch and Nato’s “Adult’s Story,” from their newly-released album Intelligent Design. Look for the cameo(s) from Edmonton’s rap emissary Rollie “Cadence fucking Weapon” Pemberton.

Review of Intelligent Design forthcoming.

summer jam of ‘07: “the way i are”

2007-08-01T18:53:00.001-06:00

The concept of a single song that defines a summer is an alluring one. Being able to simply name a song and have that song conjure memories of summertime frolicking and mid-July keggers, pick-up soccer games and house parties, is convenient. It’s also too neat; real life is messier than that. Most years have more than one song that could be considered that summer’s ‘anthem.’ Last year there a bunch, but the ‘big ones’ included “Promiscuous,” “SexyBack,” “Crazy,” and “What You Know.” All four were omnipresent throughout the summer last year, and when I hear them now they recall numerous nights spent with friends of both sexes. But they weren’t my summer anthems. For me, summer anthems are less about what’s popular and ubiquitous that summer than what songs manage to strike a chord with me—and my friends—in some fashion.

Last year, instead of “Promiscuous” or “Maneater,” I was more partial to another song from Nelly Furtado’s exquisite Loose: “Say It Right.” Probably my favourite track from that album, it’s sexier than the not-so-subtle, circular cat-and-mouse chase game going on in “Promiscuous,” and quite haunting too, with Timbaland’s stripped down production shifting all of the melody to Furtado’s vocals. There’s a lot of tricks employed in “Say It Right,” such as the common technique of multi-tracked vocals and slight echo placed on everything in the song; Furtado’s vocals linger like a humid August night, and the drums feel weightier than the air before a huge thunderstorm. Underneath all the atmospherics, you’ll find Timbaland’s beatboxing and a lonesome voice shouting “Hey!” (probably Mosley) from what sounds like a far off precipice somewhere in a jungle, overlooking miles and miles of untouched nature. It’s one of those nuances that really add something palpable to a song - it’s the type of addition that producers like Timbaland have an ear for. But for my friends and I, what emerged as our summer jam was perhaps an unlikely song: Morrissey’s “You Have Killed Me.” It’s not your typical summer jam, but for some reason it really clicked with us. It was the one song that when it came on we all cheered its arrival. We knew all the words to it off by heart, and it got the most spins of all the songs that were soundtracking our summer.

That’s how it works, though. You can’t choose what ultimately manifests itself as the spokessong for a summer. You have no control over the matter, to be perfectly honest; it’s like how wands in the Harry Potter universe choose their owners. This year, it’s been another wildcard of sorts that has emerged as our summer jam. When it was released in March, Timbaland’s Shock Value turned out to be a pretty shitty album. There were maybe three or four good songs, and sure enough, they weren’t the rap songs. The lead single was pretty cool, and its remix proved Jay-Z can still rap when he wants to, but songs like “Bounce” found Dr. Dre out of his element. Missy Elliot has always been at home on eclectic Timbaland tracks, and Justin too knows his way around Timbo’s funhouse excursions. The good doctor, on the other hand, is lost on the song too fast for his ghostwritten flows, and a song that requires its participants to have formidable charisma. Which isn’t to say that Dr. Dre lacks charisma, but he doesn’t have the kind of exaggerated, cartoon character presence that Missy Elliot does, or the confidence to know how to work with the unorthodox beat. Then there was “Come Around,” the long-anticipated first collaboration with M.I.A., where Timbaland apparently got cold feet and chickened out by giving Arulpragasam that most obvious track he could. And enlisting Elton John to practice scales on a track? Maybe Timbo thought he had to, since he already had an Elton John by way of Coldplay song in “Apologize,” featuring OneRepublic. It’s as bad as it sounds. But hidden amongst its numerous cubic zirconias, there are a few gems on Shock Value, including what has become an unexpected single, and my summer jam of ‘07: “The Way I Are.”

“The Way I Are” is kind of a ridiculous song. Its main conceit is that Timbaland is dirt poor and can’t afford to take his girl out, which is funny because we know it’s not true. When Tim raps “I can’t even buy you flowers, but together we can be the perfect soulmates” it’s all tongue-in-cheek, and “The Way I Are” subverts this common insecurity through Timbaland’s ironic sing-song verses and D.O.E.’s retardedly fun rap. Keri Hilson, who’s poised to release her own solo album soon (featuring production from both Timbaland and Polow da Don), sounds all kinds of pretty. She really works in her melodies into the grit of the beat (which is possible amidst the blinding sheen of Danja’s uber-clean, hospital sanitized synths) and they somehow sound quite unlike anything else on the radio today. To hear four grown-ass men (and by that I mean a bunch of 19-23 year-olds) singing along, at the top of their lungs, to Hilson’s parts while driving around town is truly something to behold. And if that isn’t what a summer jam is about, then I don’t know what is. But I like that just the way it are.

Timbaland - “The Way I Are (feat Keri Hilson and D.O.E.)”
from Shock Value (Interscope, 2007)

Timbaland - “The Way I Are (feat Tyssem)”
from Shock Value (Interscope, 2007)

Timbaland and Zya & Bada - “The Way I Are (Axwell Orginal Remix)”
from Shock Value (Interscope, 2007)

krs-one: reads too many books

2007-07-18T18:25:00.001-06:00

While other aging rap progenitors are struggling to find a place for themselves in today’s rap landscape, KRS-One doesn’t seem to be trying to do much of anything besides espousing classicist (read: outdated) rap ideals. Whereas most of his contemporaries have moved into plush, modern lodging, Lawrence Krisna Parker refuses to leave his dilapidated project housing even when threatened with eviction. And this time he’s brought former foe Marley Marl along to mount one last stand against those who are trying to demolish what he had a hand in building. But what happens when the threat is imagined and not real?

My first review for Oh Word. Word.

lil wayne: best rapper alive (part one)

2007-07-08T16:59:00.001-06:00

There’s almost no point in writing about Lil’ Wayne anymore. Tom Breihan can’t go a week without writing some inordinate aggrandizement about the guy, but I always look forward to what Breihan has to say about Weezy F. Baby because he writes about him with such schoolgirl glee (that’s not a diss) and enthusiasm; I almost look forward to reading what kind of modifiers and whacky adjectives Breihan is going to employ in trying to describe what makes him so excited about Weezy more than what he actually says about the rapper’s music. Those conflicted about Wayne, such as Brandon Soderberg, have brought up valid points as well. While hesitant in his praise for the rapper, he still acknowledges the skill he possesses—which is a crucial concession in The Defense of Dwayne Carter. Because in rap, you simply don’t get better as an emcee. You might improve (i.e. evolve) as an artist, which makes for better music—something entirely different from being able to rap well—but you’re supposed to get worse at rapping until you retire because no one wants to hear you rap anymore. But Lil’ Wayne has gotten progressively better, and pretty fast. Has anyone else in rap undergone such a dramatic and discernible maturation as Lil’ Wayne? I’d argue no. He’s still not ‘there,’ but his development is beginning to show signs of peaking, as the recent mixtape The Drought Is Over 2: Tha Carter III Sessions has hinted at. Or if not peaking, at least finally making a great album—perhaps the first of many to come.

While I appreciate the fact Wayne approaches his mixtapes as mixtapes, I don’t get much play out of them. Da Drought 3 is full of great raps—something which most rap albums these days can’t claim—but all Weezy’s mixtapes and guest spots leave me thinking one thing: so what about Tha Carter III? You can make all the stellar mixtapes you want, but if you can’t craft an album with songs worth listening to, you’re not going to get much of my time. Which is why The Macarena Dream will flop and why The Greatest Story Never Told (has there ever been a more apt title?) will satisfy when it’s finally released in the year 3030. The Carter III Sessions is a brilliant move on Weezy’s part for three reasons: the first quite obviously being that it’s free hype for the forthcoming Tha Carter III, with the second being it’s a rare look into the methodology of picking what makes an album—especially an album in it the first stages of recording, where dozens of songs are sometimes knocked out before an artist begins to get a feel of where he’s going with the record. Not often do we get to hear these many songs (sixteen) that have been cut from an album, and it’s fascinating to see what is discarded, to—in normal cases—be thrown forever into the vault, never to be heard by fans. Just being able to hear what is recorded for consideration of maybe possibly being an album track lends insight to what is often a mysterious and puzzling (illogical?) process.

The last reason is simple: these songs are proof that already there have been some genuinely great songs to emerge from Tha Carter III sessions. If you skip past the tongue-twister “Did It Before,” where Weezy spends close to four minutes somehow stretching three words into an entire song, and which isn’t nearly as good as the premise might lead one to believe, especially thanks to a lazy Kanye beat, you’ll come to “How You Like Me Now,” a song more soulful than ten 9th Wonder tracks combined. It’s a typical Wayne track, where he runs wild with his free-associative rhymes, but more and more it seems like his Cash Money persona is just a jump-off point for him—it gives him a template from which he can explore how sounds interact with each other and how he can twist his voice into a musical instrumental all his own. “I’m a Beast” is very similar, although its production is almost the exact opposite of “How you Like Me Now,” all hyper-aggressive with its faux-Dynasty dramatics. One of the chief criticisms towards Wayne is that his similes sometime verge on preschool simplicity, but Wayne is one of the few emcees who is able to sell a line like “I’m getting lunch like noon” much like the best emcees are able to do; remember such Jay-Z gems as “I pack heat like I’m the oven door” or “I bounce up like round ball?” Jay-Z makes these lines work, just like Wayne does.

Where the songs on Tha Carter III Sessions improve on the ‘songs’ from Da Drought 3 is in the sense that they are more focused, album-type cuts. “La La La” is sort of an updated “Hard Knock Life” production wise, and “Scarface” takes one of the oldest and played out tropes in rap—likening yourself to Tony Montana—and twists it into something new. Suffering from look-over-his-shoulders paranoia, largely communicated through his delivery, Weezy’s Scarface ode doesn’t draw from the movie when Montana is on top of the world, but instead just as he’s go out in a blaze of glory, and Wayne doesn’t make it sound glamorous so much as tragic. “I Feel Like Dying” is the best I’m-high-as-fuck song in ages. His scattershot, unfocused flow, starting at a seemingly (but not) random point of the beat, coupled with his vivid, colorful imagery and psychedelic non-sequiturs, makes for a more realistic and entertaining drug song than perhaps any I’ve ever heard. While other drug songs about being high, or the drugs they like, Weezy sounds like he is high on “I Feel Like Dying.” Again though, it’s more complicated than just “I like to smoke weed” because of the haunting vocal sample, which Wayne alludes to at the end of the third verse. It’s about both the highs and lows (no pun intended) of being stoned: when he’s under the influence, he can “play basketball with the moon” and feels that he’s at “the top of the top,” but then after the high wears off you hit rock bottom and feel like shit—or dying (“I feel like buying / And if my dealer don’t have no more, then / I feel like dying”). The song hints at the darker, more dangerous elements of drug culture, which is a nice change of pace from the status quo. And the fact Wayne only addresses the potential hazards of losing one’s self to drugs in the last few lines of his last verse makes it extra poignant. Most drug users, especially those who have spiraled into into the depths of drug abuse, still refuse to acknowledge the perils of their usage, instead only focusing on how good the drugs make them feel. It’s a fascinating and creepy song, and I still can’t listen to it at night...

this ordinary joe has got beats

2007-06-25T14:22:00.001-06:00

Joe Beats - Diverse Recourse review

Since Endtroducing forever set the bar for instrumental hip-hop albums, producers have continually looked to DJ Shadow’s 1996 debut for inspiration when crafting their own records. Most of the time, this has involved eschewing innovation in favour of rote emulation of that landmark release. And why not? If you’re going to ape something, might as well ape the best of that something. Before he thought he could make it as a singer-songwriter, Rjd2 came closest with Deadringer—which adheres more strictly to the Endtroducing blueprint than most still are willing to admit—and Scott Herren was able to reach Shadow-like heights as Prefuse 73 with One Word Extinguisher by traversing different terrain entirely. In many ways, One Word Extinguisher is the anti-Endtroducing; the former worked in monochromatic shades where the latter reveled in pastels of all hues, saturation, and opacity, which says less about the quality of said albums than their respective approaches. And while Diverse Recourse is naturally indebted to Shadow’s magnum opus, it’s without a doubt a Joe Beats album.

Anyone who has heard of Joe Beats knows he can craft one hell of a beat. In 2003, he teamed up with Sage Francis to release Hope as the Non-Prophets. His beats forced Sage from his apparent comfort zone into an arena few thought the heart-on-his-sleeve wordsmith could handle himself in, let alone excel at, and it coalesced into what is arguably Sage’s finest material to date. Unfettered from the restriction of beats needing to be ‘rappable,’ Diverse Recourse is the best instrumental hip-hop album of aught-seven.

The songs—and they are songs—borrow from Madlibian tactics in their brevity, with most hovering around the one-hundred-twenty-second mark. This theory of ‘hit them with an idea then move to the next one before they can get too comfortable’ is hardly a new concept, but it suits Beats’ moody, brooding instrumentals. It helps nudge the album along, just like his propulsive breaks. Where he finds all his drums would make a crate-digger cry, or should at least make other producers loosen their collars; intricately constructed but never the center of attention, they don’t just fill up empty space but give songs the illusion of being faster than they actually are, and any tracks that might feel like filler seem to depart that much quicker. Not that there are many misses on Diverse Recourse. And the rest of his samples he works with aren’t anything to scoff at either.

“ETA” could be the beat to an old Prince Paul-era De La Soul song with back-and-forth fast raps between Trugoy and Posdnuos. The California-punk bass of “Spikes for the Punch Bowl” could double as the menu music for the next SSX game (this is a compliment), and “Me Talk Pretty” is one of those thick, atmospheric beats that Jeezy would sound good over if he wasn’t bent on legitimizing ‘doom rap’ as a viable sub-genre of rap. “Friday Afternoon” might be a standout Ant production if he had any subtlety or restraint. Then there’s this unsettling tension to “Cutie Pie” which makes me wonder what exactly gets Joe twitterpated—or if I even want to know.

On the DVD of Alfonso Cuarón’s instant classic Children of Men, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek discusses the relationship between the foreground and the background of the film. Žižek argues that Children of Men is able to capture the pathos of social oppression obliquely, through the background action—essentially, the background is the film. Diverse Recourse works much in the same way. The foreground/background dynamics add texture and emotion: hand-drums are buried in the corners of the mix, there are snippets of conversations just out of earshot, and other unidentifiable sounds fade in and out without intrusion. Perhaps the best example of this tension comes on the closer “Fade.” As the song begins to do just that, what sounds like footsteps appear from the shadows of the song before the beat kicks in again for once last swan song, and they lend real emotional resonance. By such simple means, such powerful feelings can be conjured, something both Alfonso Cuarón and Joe Beats seem to be aware of. All this makes Diverse Recourse a true iPod album, one meant for intimate listens through headphones. If DJ Shadow slapped his name on the cover, he’d be hailed a genius. With Joe Beats as its namesake, Diverse Recourse will probably remain overlooked and even ignored. But somehow I think Beats doesn’t mind; the background is where the real story is, anyways.

Rating: 8.1 (out of a possible 10.0)

Joe Beats - “Fade”
from Diverse Recourse (Bully Records, 2007)

Joe Beats - “Talk Me Pretty”
from Diverse Recourse (Bully Records, 2007)

what about big boi?

2007-06-18T13:21:00.001-06:00

UGK - “International Players Anthem (feat OutKast)”
from UGK: Underground Kingz (Jive, 2007)

Rich Boy - “And I Love You (feat Pastor Troy and Big Boi)”
from Rich Boy (Interscope, 2007)

Diddy - “Wanna Move (feat Big Boi, Ciara, & Scar)”
from Press Play (Bad Boy, 2006)

Fantasia - “Hood Boy (feat Big Boi)”
from Fantasia (J Records, 2006)

So everyone has been losing their shit over recent guest spots from Andre Three Stacks, and thankfully for once most of the hyperbole is justified. His recent verses have been compared to his material on Aquemini, one of four OutKast albums routinely considered to be their best effort. I usually flip-flop between Stankonia and ATLiens as being my favourite ‘Kast album, and while that’s really neither here nor there, I think there’s more of a common thread between his recent verses and ATLiens than with Aquemini—especially in his disregard of riding the beat at times (no Talib Kweli), pushing his bars until they nearly keel under the weight of all the syllables he’s cramming in. It’s the result of an emcee still readjusting to rapping on a more regular basis. But 3000 isn’t a regular rapper, and he’s shaken that Idlewild rust quicker than most rappers jump the shark. So what about Big Boi?

If Andre’s guest verses as of late have been those of a rapper who has rediscovered the joy of rapping and fitting words together in novel ways, Big Boi’s have been those of a rapper at or near his artistic peak. And while everyone is busy dissecting Andre’s recent raps, Big Boi’s have been all but ignored. It’s a shame, too, because over the past few months Big Boi has quietly been putting together guest appearances rivaling those from any rapper in the last few hundred days, both on songs with fellow outkast Andre 3000 and on his own.

Take for example, the UGK song “International Players Anthem,” of which the general consensus is that Andre steals the song with his opening verse. Mr. Benjamin does probably have the song’s best sixteen, but without Big Boi present to keep his doe-eyed ass tethered to the ground, he might fly away in pre-marital myopia. Playing on the complementary nature of Andre and Big Boi’s musical relationship, their two verses are largely opposing forces which bookend the Willie Hutch-sampling track (second only to Cormega’s “Rap’s a Hustle” in the line of songs that sample “I Choose You”). Andre plays the blind romantic and Big Boi the realist, which their deliveries reflect; Andre’s is loose and unkempt, while Big Boi’s is as precise as the laser used to cut the diamonds on the dozen chains around Nigo’s neck on this month’s front cover of NYLON Guys. Andre might have a history of playing it straighter than his partner, but Big Boi’s verse is comedic while remaining good-natured, and is a nice contrast to Andre’s heartfelt sincerity. Rarely have common rapper jeremiads such as the misappropriation of (child support) funds, and less treaded waters like faulty contraception techniques, been handled with such grace and humour, but Big Boi manages to incite sympathy while acknowledging the ridiculousness of said situations that rappers often get themselves into.

As an emcee, Big Boi has always been a blend of conscious technique and fluent mack posturing, and this has been pushed to the forefront of his verses lately, especially on “And I Love You.” The collaboration is your typical why-I-love-you-shawty song, but Big Boi approaches it differently from Rich Boy and Pastor Troy. Beyond his inflections, the chopped and screwed vocals (which suit Big’s southern twang), and at least three different flows, he works in an extended metaphor likening his “impeccable timing” to the skill of “dual ejaculation,” and it’s a clever bit of wordplay—this sort of corporeal (and spiritual) fusion can only be achieved after years of practice, just like rapping. Except if we carry the metaphor, this makes us—the listener—the females that Big Boi is pleasing with his timing (only in audio form). Which is an interesting comment on music-making in general—even Andre’s wordplay hasn’t been this layered during his recent renaissance.

On Diddy’s “Wanna Move,” Big grabs a hold of Danja’s eurodance synths as they whiz by and jumps onto the song running, weaving an intricate flow around the drums and exposing Sean Combs as the dilettante he is. The difference between Big and Diddy on the track is so glaring you might be blinded by Big’s verse after Diddy’s amateur hour flows. Big is at home on these kinds of beats; he’s rapped over his fair share of space-rap beats in his day. It seems most southern rappers are better suited to the super-clean metallics of beats like “Wanna Move” than east coast rappers are—which the exception of Jay-Z—possibly because so many east coast rappers don’t work with beats so much as try to assert their dominance over them, at best using them as glorified metronomes.

Then there’s the Fantasia single “Hood Boy,” where again Big Boi turns up the charisma and tones down the complexity for a more-than-adequate guest verse on an otherwise boring song. It’s an important guest spot because Barrino (or more accurately, her managers) could have gone and enlisted any other rapper for the spot on the lead single from her sophomore album. Remember, this girl did win American Idol and comes with a pre-existing fanbase. They could have opted to get a typical of-the-moment rapper like a T.I.. Hell, they could have even gone with Andre, who is the bigger of the two names in OutKast, thanks to “Hey Ya,” his acting credits, and his newish vanity cartoon. “Hood Boy” stalled on the American Billboard charts at just north of the century mark (at 103 to be precise), but this is due more to the song being pretty shitty than anything to do with Big Boi’s verse. But Antwan Patton was picked for a reason—someone has noticed his string of stellar performances over the last year, even if the general public hasn’t. The prospect of a new OutKast album is music to my ears.

10 the Hard Way? Judging from their recent output, they aren’t fooling anyone.

he was right, you really can’t tell him nothing

2007-06-12T15:17:00.001-06:00

Kanye West - “Stronger”
from Graduation (Roc-a-Fella/G.O.O.D. Music, 2007)

Daft Punk - “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
from Discovery (Virgin, 2001)

Edwin Birdsong - “Cola Bottle Baby”
from Edwin Birdsong (Philadelphia International, 1979)

Kanye West is the most relevant rap artist in popular music today. Well, Timothy Mosley might argue otherwise, but he transcended rap—i.e. got sick of it—a long time ago. Then again, I’m sure ‘Ye would be disillusioned with rap too if he was surrounded by rappers the likes of Magoo and Sebastien (familial ties or not). But forget Curtis “Interscope” Jackson, and forget President Carter. Definitely forget Weezy F. Baby (please say the Baby!), who for all his recent MF Doom-meets-French surrealism-meets-southern-fried-rap verses has yet to make a meaningful dent outside of rap (though this could well change with Tha Carter III). Kanye is the one working with pop artists—and making good music with them—and is probably the only rapper under the lens of the mainstream who can honestly claim to be making important music. So Kanye West Singles are important events, and lend themselves to be endlessly critiqued. Because it’s not just the forthcoming Graduation that’s riding on the success of his singles—hip-hop is too.

“Stronger” isn’t the first time electronic kingpins Daft Punk have been sampled for a rap song. Just last year, Swizz Beats culled from the song “Technologic” a chorus for Busta Rhymes’ “Touch It,” which turned into the most-remixed song of 2006. And in that same year, Daft Funk sampled themselves on “Human After All” for the Teriyaki Boyz song “HeartBreaker,” which they produced (and which appeared on the album BEEF or CHICKEN?). For “Stronger,” Kanye’s springboard is the French duo’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” from their 2001 release Discovery. Ironically enough, the song sampled funk musician Edwin Birdsong and his song “Cola Bottle Baby” from his 1979 self-titled album. A funk song becomes an electronic song and then comes full-circle and is re-imagined in the genre which began as an offshoot of funk. But “Stronger” is still totally electro. In fact, it’s the most electronic song Kanye has made yet.

But just as “Stronger” isn’t the first Daft Punk-sampled rap song, it’s not the first electronic song to appear on a Kanye West album either. The College Dropout had “The New Workout Plan,” a nod to Chicago’s house scene, and Late Registration saw Kanye transform the Shirley Bassey-performed James Bond theme “Diamonds Are Forever” into a thundering storm of electro swirls and drum programming that resonates like Gregorian chants. “Stronger” is more similar in sound to “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” than it is to “The New Workout Plan.” This is probably due to the fact “The New Workout Plan” is pre-Jon Brion, and it feels unfurnished when compared to the lived-in aesthetic of its brethren. “Stronger” in 2004 would’ve been an interesting beat for a Kanye song, but in 2007 it’s an fascinating song for a Kanye album.

In other words, “Stronger” might have been a looped, straight sample of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” a few years ago or if attempted by a lesser producer. But in the hands of an able Kanye, “Stronger” is one of those epic-sounding songs Kanye’s been making since he started working with Brion. The song begins with the ubiquitous “Work it, make it, do it, makes us harder, better, faster, stronger” robotic vocals from the Daft Punk song, which start the song predictably enough, and Kanye follows an eight-count in with his chorus. It’s a typical Kanye chorus, meaning it’s one of those infectious, sing-along hooks that 50 Cent on a good day excels at. ‘Ye hits the ‘stronger’ and ‘longer’ of the Daft Punk vocals with the same words in his hook, and midway through the song there’s a extended segue where the vocals complete phrases Kanye begins. These are wonderful bits of interaction with the sample—on “Stronger,” the Daft Punk sample isn’t just a gimmick, it’s integral to the song’s concept. And it helps the song carve out its own identity outside of being a ‘rap song that samples a Daft Punk song,’ which the rest of the production does as well. Colorful synth stabs accentuate particular moments of the song; during ‘Ye’s first verse they build toward the cathartic release of the chorus and through the second verse they fill up the empty spaces between bars, which only makes Kanye sound more important. There are also flourishes you might not catch, like little digital glitches echoing certain lines and spots where chopped and screwed music rears its influence.

Not to be outdone by his nonpareil production, the Kanye on “Stronger” is best version of Kanye we could have hoped for on a song like this. He makes the same dumb jokes that we can’t help but quote like Borat lines (“Heard they’d do anything for a Klondike / Well, I’d do anything for a blonde dyke”) and he turns what was essentially a song about self-improvement into a song about both about haters (“Now that that don’t kill me, can only make me stronger”) and trying to get into a girl’s pants. His ego is barely contained by the song (“There’s a thousand of you and only one of me”) and he makes some apt observations about the sort of woman he’s trying to pull in the song (“She’d do anything for the limelight”), but just like the Kanye we know and love, he still goes along with things. But the best part is that through ‘Ye’s lyrics his plight is not resolved, but instead left to our imaginations as he lets the beat ride out before returning for its breathtaking climax. In that way, it’s a song about songwriting too. Kanye’s waiting for the release—the payoff—and in this situation it can only be achieved through his production and not his vocals. It’s perhaps the most humbling statement that West could make as an artist, and a pretty bold one at that.

I’ve heard Kanye West songs at the club before, but this is his first genuine attempt at a club banger. Yeah, it’s an electro song. And one of the best I’ve heard in a long time. But it’s without a doubt a Kanye song, just like his best interpretations of other sounds (see: “Drive Slow,” “These Walls,” “Throw Your Hands (In the Air)”). I was kind of worried about Graduation when “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” was first leaked to the intarwebs a few weeks ago, but “Stronger” has eased my trepidations. While it might not reach the admittedly towering heights of its two predecessors, with songs like “Stronger” we won’t have to be anticipating the worst for Graduation. Kanye has proven time and time again that he knows what he’s doing, and he’s given us no reason to doubt him yet. But he has given us a reason to dance. Song of the summer? Given the proper video treatment (it’s already confirmed to be Graduation’s second single), you bet yer ass. And just like other good dance songs, I can’t wait to hear the remixes of this.

5 STARS (out of 5 stars)

don’t call it a comeback

2007-06-09T15:08:00.001-06:00

He was the rapper, Jeff’s still the DJ

DJ Jazzy Jeff - The Return of the Magnificent review

There are two kinds of producer-helmed rap albums. There are your Shock Values: Timothy Mosley might be the most sought-after man in pop music, but this doesn’t mean he can parlay the demand for his sonic muscle into a career as an artist himself. As that album made clear, Timbaland the Artist is best in short bursts, when the focus isn’t on him. In a supporting role, his hammy approximation of modern pop-stardom is much more interesting than a lot of ‘real’ artists’ portrayal of what a pop star should act like. When he’s not threatening to put Scott Storch in a body bog, he actually has some swagger. The same applies to Swizz Beats, even if his delusions of being a rap star translate into some truly singular and oddball moments such as his single “It’s Me, Bitches” and its head-scratching remix “It’s Me, Snitches.” What Timbo and Swizzy understand is that being famous and all that it entails is pretty ridiculous in the first place, and they use this to their advantage. There are also your The Return of the Magnificents: unlike a Timbaland or even a Kanye West, DJ Jazzy Jeff wants nothing to do with the fame game. The Fresh Prince’s sidekick of yore is content to stay in the background if it means good music. The Return of the Magnificent doesn’t necessarily refer to the album’s patron as much as an ideal that Jeff wants to see in practice again. The ideal is nothing new, but it’s as important an ideal as there can be when crafting music; just have fun and the rest will fall in place.

I envision recording with Jazzy Jeff as a very organic experience—he’s probably one of those low-pressure producers who rappers love working with. If he doesn’t have an unending supply of buddha and video games to spark recording sessions, I wouldn’t be surprised if his studio was on some new-age feng shui shit with yoga mats abound—either scenario seems equally plausible. Nothing on The Return of the Magnificent sounds forced; the rappers who stop by to rap over Jeff’s comfortable beats seem chosen more because they are friends with the veteran producer and DJ and less because they are marketable names. The biggest name is probably the half-out-of-his-element Method Man; “Hold It Down” floats above water thanks to his indelible charisma, even though we’ve heard these rhymes before in various shapes and sizes (bad fart jokes and all).

Usually on these kinds of albums, the bigger names will phone in their verses because they know no one will hear the songs—rarely do you hear a rapper of any calibre bring their ‘A’ game on a producer’s album. But these guys must really respect the Jazz man—or just love music period—because all parties involved sound enthused to be a part of the project. Posdnuos (De La Soul) continues his trend of consistent, workmanlike performances on “Let Me Hear U Clap.” With his pragmatic raps (“I’ll never be the king of New York”), he gives grown-ass man rap a good name. Big Daddy Kane lets his voice melt into the funk of “The Garden,” his deep baritone sounding particularly at home on the track fertilized with soul. CL Smooth hasn’t sounded this good since the last time he worked with old tango partner Pete Rock.

Those who grew up listening to these senior statesmen fare just as well. “Practice” finds J-Live running training sessions for all aspiring major-leaguers, and Jeff’s use of the infamous Allen Iverson press conference spiel concerning his practice regimen is a fresh take on the sampled chorus. The snippet mimics the mentality of newjacks unconvinced of the hard work it takes to become an elite emcee. It plays against J-Live’s fatherly advice—as if shrugging it off in adolescent arrogance—and it provides a nice bit of tension to the song’s otherwise conventional message. “She Was So Flyy” (yes, spelled with two Y’s) with Kardinal Offishall could be a minor hit if it was someone’s else song, which is kind of a sad thought, and “Jeff ‘n Fess” would’ve been a highlight on Rhymefest’s Blue Collar, thanks to Jeff’s calypso flourishes.

This applies to most of the songs on The Return of the Magnificent, besides a few missteps. “Supa Jean” (Jean Grae) isn’t able to shift out of first gear, and elsewhere “Touch Me With Ur Handz” relies on a lame aural pun on the words “master baby” (ahem) for its lyrical panache. Smartly, Jeff stays out of the way of the songs, appearing only in humorous skits about his own (insert air-quotes here) “fame.” Stuck with a rental car with only radio capabilities on his way to pick up his son from Atlanta (beginning the journey in his hometown of Philly), The Return of the Magnificent doubles as Jeff’s ideal radio station. With open, spacious sounds and his utilitarian beats, it’s the type of station you’d only get if you subscribed to XM or Sirius. And had a backpack kicking around somewhere. And I know you have one—even if its hidden in your closet.

Rating: 7.4 (out of a possible 10.0)

DJ Jazzy Jeff - “Let Me Hear U Clap (feat Posdnuos of De La Soul)”
from The Return of the Magnificent (BBE, 2007)

DJ Jazzy Jeff - “She Was So Flyy (feat Kardinal Offishall)”
From The Return of the Magnificent (BBE, 2007)

These rubies shine bright like diamonds

2007-06-04T21:16:00.000-06:00

Dan Bejar interview

As a big fan of Dan Bejar’s music (Destroyer’s Rubies was my favourite record of last year), I was excited to get a chance to talk to the Vancouver native and part-time member of the indie power-pop group the New Pornographers, and more recently Swan Lake with Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer. Here’s what Bejar had to say about being considered a mystery among the media, his surreptitious songwriting, and the ambient fourth side of the Rubies re-release.

(Until the Train Stops) I don’t want to say your use of curse words on Rubies is liberal—perhaps strategic is the better word. But when you use them, they come across very natural, but placed for maximum effect (the ‘fuck’ on “European Oils” is cathartic). Is this a conscious aspect of your song writing, or are curse words just another set of words at your disposal when writing?

(Dan Bejar) I don’t consciously curse, though if the situation calls for it, I don’t see why not... just like life. I think the blue material on Rubies is actually quite reined in compared to other Destroyer records.

When putting together words does how they sound together sometimes become more important then them “meaning” anything? Are the phonetics of the words you choose and how they interact with each other important to you?

I don’t differentiate between the two things, to the point where I barely understand the question when people break down words into “sounds” and “meanings,” which is probably just a sign of how far gone I am in this mess. There is no gibberish in Destroyer songs, as I try hard to stick to words that exist in the English language. No Jabberwocky, no Finnegan's Wake bullshit, that I am aware of. Sound good equals meaning good. Sound bad equals meaning bad.

Rubies sounds to me like an old record. Not just “classic rock” old, which it certainly is, but like something that wouldn’t sound too out of place in the 1800s, in a pub somewhere on a harbour in Europe. In other words, the music seems to be influenced by ethnic sounds here more than any previous Destroyer record. Why decide to incorporate these sorts of sounds?

Well, I think the last few Destroyer albums have pulled in certain elements of that Sephardic vibe, though it’s funny cause I see Rubies really gunning for a classic rock feel, if by classic rock you mean 80s Van Morrison/catholic Dylan.

Being from Vancouver (and the west coast), do you think you have more in common with a European sound (and other baroque sounds) than you would if you were born anywhere else? Do you think that in Canada there is a closer tie to European ways than in the States, and does this affect the art (specifically music) that comes from Canada?

Vancouver’s got closer ties to punk bands really into 70s metal, by this I mean the Pacific Northwest sound that’s been brewing in these parts on and off for the last 20 years.. Not a lot of Paolo Conte or Serrat blasting at Strathcona keggers, not that I would know. Also, from what I’ve deduced, the sound of Europe is early 90s rave music.

Every Destroyer album has had a different sound thus far, probably because you’ve worked with different people on each of the albums. You’ve mentioned that the current Destroyer line up will likely remain the same for the foreseeable future. With a more permanent group of musicians, how will this affect the next Destroyer record?

I actually see many similarities between Rubies and This Night in some of the songs, and a bit of overlap with Streethawk: A Seduction in a couple others... the players have all been kicking around on the Destroyer scene for a while now, just in different configurations. I can’t really say what the next Destroyer record’s going to sound like, which is a little scary seeing as we’re supposed to start recording it in a couple months. As for the line-up, if I said it in an interview, it could easily have no bearing on the truth.

Rubies was recently re-released in double-LP form which includes something called Loscil’s Rubies, which claims that Rubies was chopped from its initial incarnation into what was eventually released. What’s the story behind this?

Loscil’s Rubies is the second in a continuing collaboration between Destroyer and Loscil, in an attempt to make the world see how much I truly dig ambient tones and how much he truly digs spoken-word.

This summer you only have a select number of dates across Canada where you are scheduled to play. Why is that?

I have no idea what moved me to play these shows. Normally, I take the summers off. Winters, too.

You used to be considered somewhat of a journalist’s nightmare, but that sees to have changed over the past few years. Why do you think you’re more open to interviews and the press in general nowadays?

All I did was say “no” to doing a couple New Pornographers interviews way the hell back, and all of a sudden I was difficult or mysterious. Then I said “no” to a couple ill-timed and pointless Canadian features, and things escalated from there. But the interviews I did always involved me being super-cordial, civil to a fault! Fact of the matter, not that many people had any interest in talking about Destroyer in-print until 2 or 3 years ago, even though the first Destroyer record came out in 1996, the second in ‘98, the third in 2000, the fourth in 2001, the fifth in 2002 (you probably see where I’m going with this). Not that I minded making room for yet another feature on Len or BranVan3000, and I still don’t mind.

Destroyer - “Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (Sea of Tears)”
from Streethawk: A Seduction (Misra/Talitres, 2001)

Destroyer - “From Oakland to Warsaw”
from Your Blues (Merge, 2004)

I’m lactose intolerant and sick with cheddar

2007-05-23T13:26:00.000-06:00

Twista – “Give It Up (feat Pharrell)”
from Adrenaline Rush 2007 (Atlantic, 2007)

“Give It Up” is a case of mistaken identities. The Neptunes think they are Timbaland; Twista thinks he’s a cross between David Banner and the Ying-Yang Twins; Pharrell is convinced he can rap. Either way, maybe we should indulge these characters more often, because this song’s pretty damn good. The Neptunes have always fared best with minimal beats that are composed of only a few elements, and “Give It Up” is more akin to the vintage space thump than the Vegas schmaltz Skateboard P and Hugo have been doing the past few years (when they aren’t in their dungeon extracting the spirits of demons for the Clipse brothers).

The use of negative space works for Twista’s warp nine flow, his voice ricocheting off of all the metallic surfaces in the recording booth, becoming a laser in the process. At least four layers of percussion—here a pastiche of sounds including African congas, cowbells, and hand claps—comprise the track, and “Promiscuous”-like synthesizers decorate the chorus. It lacks the sultry tension of a Timbo production, but knocks nonetheless. Not sensuous so much as hedonistic, don’t be surprised when the whips and suspension equipment are brought out. The foppish Pharrell for once doesn’t sound like a complete dilettante when he raps; he even sounds surprisingly capable when he attempts a Twista-lite cadence in late verse. What Twista says on the track is irrelevant—he just lays bricks feverishly in front of him so he can continue running without falling into the abyss. But the Red Hot Chili Peppers reference? I thought I was listening to Twista, not that other guy from “Slow Jamz”.

3.5 STARS (out of 5 stars)

This is his EP

2007-05-21T16:12:00.000-06:00

Sway - One for the Journey EP review

In rap, releasing an EP is a rare occurrence. Besides all the label red-tape putting one out entails, rappers have embraced the more economical mixtape as their answer to EPs. There are a few reasons a rapper would opt to release an EP over a mixtape, even in this post-Drama landscape: they don’t have enough material for a mixtape, they aren’t rapping over other’s people’s beats, or they aren’t rappers in the first place (producers historically have tended to favour the EP over other non-LP formats). Perhaps Britain’s premier pragmatist of rap, otherwise known as Sway (né Derek Andrew Safo), is simply tired of churning out mixtapes; he’s already released four and he’s one album into his career. Whatever his reasoning may be, One for the Journey is the “prequel to the sequel,” and Sway’s first release since last year’s This Is My Demo, which was shortlisted for the illustrious Mercury Music Prize.

With ‘This is not my second album!’ emblazoned across the EP’s Photoshopped cover, one of the returning characters from This Is My Demo—Little Derek—introduces the EP. One for the Journey serves as a good introduction to the British emcee; none of the songs are castoffs from This Is My Demo, though “Up Your Speed” is revisited—this time as a remix with Houston rapper Chamillionaire—and others like “True Stories” are blanket statements of the rapper’s manifesto. Sway and Chamillionaire exhibit natural chemistry on “Up Your Speed Pt. 2”, which retains the raceway scenery of the original but replaces the vehicles in favour of newer—and faster—models, and the final result is a slick, efficient remix that should appeal to fans of both rappers. Skilioso laces “Move Back” with guitars that bounce off walls over which Sway drops skilful braggadocio, although colleague Chiefer is little more than a Sway copycat, and his absence could have freed up space for another DaSafo verse.

Besides these two guest appearances, the other five songs are all Sway. “Baby Father” serves to remind that Sway’s trenchant wit remains perhaps his mightiest weapon in all his arsenal of abilities. Narrating three tales of misunderstanding, including a former flame convinced our hero is the father of her newborn white baby (when both he and his supposed baby mama are “black black,” as Sway puts it), the song would make a solid album song were it not for the garden variety production courtesy of Youngstar, whose squishy horns do a good job of conveying a comical context but otherwise don’t lend much to the song.

But the most adventurous song is also the EP’s best. There’s more going on in “Ex-Boyfriend” than your typical rap song—or even your typical pop song. Whereas most rappers don’t get tired of rapping until they’ve put out at least three albums, Sway unveils his off-key pipes as he half-raps-half-sings. Surprisingly, he doesn’t make a fool out of himself, either. Instead, he effortlessly slips into verse while in mid-croon and the infectious tune is four minutes of pop bliss, with melodies more playful (albeit PG-13) and intricate than anything actual singers like Ne-Yo have ever come up with. A friend of mine was sort of ambivalent towards DaSafo until he was swayed (put hopelessly intended) after hearing “Ex-Boyfriend”, and now he’s a true believer.

As a project between projects, One for the Journey ensures Sway won’t lose any of the hype he’s rightfully earned over the last few years. But as a standalone EP, it feels like a collection of random, recent Sway songs more than an EP that says anything other than “the second album is coming sometime soon.” The “Up Your Speed” remix has been available on his MySpace for months and the Stanton Brothers track (“Get ‘em High”) seems tacked on simply because Sway’s on it. But it’s nice to finally have physical copies of these songs, and as Sway relays with a tongue-twister on the contemplative “Every Man (For Himself)”: “They wanna copy me but can’t copy / The carbon copy, they’re just cardboard cut-outs / In need of a cup of coffee, if they wanna keep up with me.”

Rating: 7.2 (out of a possible 10.0)

Sway - “Up Your Speed Pt. 2 (feat Chamillionaire)”
from One for the Journey EP (Dcypha Productions, 2007)

Sway - “Ex-Boyfriend”
from One for the Journey EP (Dcypha Productions, 2007)

Can he talk his shit again?

2007-05-18T17:14:00.000-06:00

Kanye West – “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”
from Graduation (Roc-a-Fella/Def Jam, 2007)

Here I formally predict that Graduation will be Kanye West’s The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living; an artist who won over listeners by walking the tight-rope between brash arrogance and endearing insecurity loses touch with what made him such a fascinating personality in the first place. Call it the Jay-Z Syndrome, which infected a majority of Kingdom Come; when an artist attains a certain level of notoriety, they can’t talk about their days huddled over the crack pot or eating condiments because they couldn’t afford groceries—that reality is so far removed from them it would only sound patronizing, not to mention self-important and artificial. But but it’s a double-edged sword, because what are these rappers left to rap about?

“Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is interesting for a number of reasons. Co-produced not by Late Registration collaborator Jon Brion but DJ Toomp, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” isn’t so much the brother of “What You Know” as a distant cousin thrice-removed. Both songs share common DNA though; shimmering to the verge of stuttering, the track’s tempo is off-putting at first—almost lethargic. And when compared to Brion’s flourishes on Late Registration, the synths feel naked. The drums are Toomp’s as well; in fact, the only aspect of the beat that is distinctively Kanye is the vocal sample that floats above the track’s gleaming surface, almost like an afterthought. But someone’s realized the best way to utilize Jeezy—cut out all his actual rapping and you’ll get the same effect without the superfluity.

The question that begs asking is: why is Kanye outsourcing beats? “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is an arrogant statement in that Kanye thinks he’s a good enough rapper that we want to hear him over other producer’s beats. He addresses his liberal use of slant rhymes (“They say I talk with so much emphasis / Ooh, they so sensitive”), which is only highlighted here as ’Ye has to rely on a delivery-heavy flow in order to match the beat’s introspective pace. And introspective Kanye is on “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”: every line is calculated and there aren’t any throw-away lines. It’s all very typical Kanye West, and there are even some gems strewn about the ‘feel bad for me because I keep fucking up’ overture, including the Meryl Streep-referencing: “So if The Devil Wears Prada, Adam Eve wear nada / I’m in between, but way more fresher, with way less effort.”

As a single “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is a questionable choice; as a deep album cut it makes more sense but its logic still doesn’t convince. For all intents and purposes, it’s a southern rap song—but so was “Drive Slow”. But “Drive Slow” was interesting because it was a southern rap song as envisioned by a Chicago native who makes New York rap. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is just a southern track, with none of the nuanced region-blurring and artistic interpretation that Kanye is capable of. It’s a case of Kanye “talking his shit again,” and luckily for Kanye he’s not just shit-talking. I just hope there’s no songs on Graduation about trashing hotels. Kanye doesn’t possess the satirical ability to pull that one off.

3 STARS (out of 5 stars)

I’ve got an interpolation where a sample ought to be

2007-05-16T20:48:00.000-06:00

Omarion - “Ice Box”
from 21 (Sony, 2006)

Yasunori Mitsuda - “To Far Away Times ”
from the video game Chrono Trigger (Squaresoft, 1995)

Björk - “Innocence”
from Volta (One little indian, 2007)

Producers have come a long way since the early days of hip-hop, when the palettes from which they drew their samples were, for the lack of a better word, limited. “Oh great, another song with the ‘Funky Drummer’ drums.” After running James Brown’s catalogue into the ground, crate-diggers had to look elsewhere for samples to craft their songs out of. While jazz and soul music remains the land tended most for samples, these days nearly all types of terrain are being cultivated by producers. Stoupe and Danger Mouse love their world music, and Louis Logic producer J.J. Brown traveled further back in time, forgoing the 60s and 70s in favour of earlier decades for the samples he worked with on last year’s criminally slept-on Misery Loves Comedy. Timbaland went through a phase where all he sampled was Indian and east-Asian music, which was one of his most exciting phases, and it spawned one of his biggest hits (Jay-Z’s now ubiquitous “Big Pimpin’”). But Timothy Mosley has sampled everything from southern twang (“Deliverance”) to remixes of 4-channel Amiga modules for the Commodore 64 (“Do It”). And while he’s not the first person to sample music composed for video games, he might be the first to have a bonafide hit doing so.

The lead single to Omarion’s album 21, “Ice Box”, is credited to Timbaland (probably because that damn Timbo is just so hot right now, even if Shock Value wasn’t) but is in fact co-produced (ghost-produced?) by King Logan and Johnkenun Spivery, together known as The Royal Court, two producers who have had their hands on such recent Timbo-helmed songs as the Bobby Valentino single “Anonymous” and “Beg For It”, also off of Omarion’s 21. Who did what on “Ice Box” is up for debate—although the “My Love”-aping synthesizer arpeggios don’t quite have that Timbo or Danja sound to them—but what has been incorrectly identified by sample hunters as being from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (WTF?) is actually from the classic Super Nintendo game Chrono Trigger. The mournful piano melody that peaks out from the shadows of Timbo’s drum programming is not from “Sealed Door”, as it has been posited, but instead “To Far Away Times”, by famed Japanese composer Yasunori Mitsuda, who scored all of Chrono Trigger’s soundtrack. The pianos don’t show up until 2:38 and they fade into the background around 3:14, but when they arrive they are unmistakably what has been sampled—or more accurately, interpolated—for “Ice Box”. It’s not a true sample, because the piano sequence on “Ice Box” has been recreated (probably by either Logan or Spivery), and a close listen reveals they are not from the same recording.

I’m certainly not the first to recognize the source of those keys to be from Chrono Trigger, but the sample isn’t from “Sealed Door”; the melody is similar to that found on “To Far Away Times”, but the tempo doesn’t match with that found on “Ice Box”. But sampled from what is often regarded as the definitive Zelda game, as Minneapolis radio host Special Ed suggested on his blog in late February? To slightly alter Timbo on “Ice Box”: “You’re so cold, you’re so cold, you’re so cold.” Other rap songs have also sampled video game music, and “Ice Box” is not the only Timbaland song to do so, either. Take a close listen to “Innocence”, from Björk’s just-released Volta, and you might recognize those gunshots as being from the silenced PP7 of the N64 game Goldeneye 007. Hmmm, is Timothy Mosley a Nintendo fanboy?

My 25 favourite hip-hop albums: the aftermath

2007-04-26T19:30:00.000-06:00

Jeru remembering the day he met Premo.

What didn’t make the cut.

26. DOGGYSTYLE, snoop dogg
27. THE LOW END THEORY, a tribe called quest
28. DOE OR DIE, az
29. THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF SLICK RICK, slick rick
30. LIQUID SWORDS, gza
31. LATYRX: THE ALBUM, latyrx
32. STUNTS, BLUNTS, AND HIP-HOP, diamond d
33. ROAD TO THE RICHES, kool g. rap and dj polo
34. LABCABINCALIFORNIA, pharcyde
35. LONG LIVE THE KANE, big daddy kane
36. A PRINCE AMONG THIEVES, prince paul
37. IRONMAN, ghostface killah
38. DISPOSABLE ARTS, masta ace
39. UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT, camp lo
40. WORD... LIFE, o.c.
41. FANTASTIC DAMAGE, el-p
42. RADIO, ll cool j
43. PAUL’S BOUTIQUE, beastie boys
44. NO ONE CAN DO IT BETTER, d.o.c.
45. THE REALNESS, cormega
46. THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST, jeru the damaja
47. ENDTRODUCING, dj shadow
48. SOUL FOOD, goodie mobb
49. HOPE, non-prophets
50. MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, binary star

My 25 favourite hip-hop albums of all-time

2007-04-24T15:45:00.000-06:00

Before we proceed, let’s get one thing out of the way: there is no scientific formula for deciding what the twenty-five best hip-hop albums of all-time are. It’s impossible; music is subjective, not objective. When anyone compiles a list of the best albums of all-time, what they are doing is declaring their favourite albums—the LPs that have affected them the most personally. Does someone who writes about music for a living have better taste than defjukebox42 from some random underground rap forum? More often than not, music writers prove this false (hack and cough). My point is, even supposed “experts” on music judge music based on their own preferences and biases. I’m an aspiring music journalist myself, but I don’t fool myself into thinking I “know more” about hip-hop or am any more qualified than the average VIBE scribe to judge the latest in rap music.

When esteemed bloggers Jeff (Passion of the Weiss) and Joey (Straight Bangin’) asked me to be part of their ambitious project to try and come up with a list of the best 25 rap albums of all-time, I realized a) that such a task was more difficult than I ever realized and b) I would never be completely happy with any list I ended up with, whether I spent 40 minutes or 40 years adding and subtracting, revising, and second-guessing. So here are my twenty-five favourite hip-hop albums. Understand that there are easily a hundred albums that could have been included in this list, and nearly were. But I’ve got only got twenty-five spots, and as painful as it was not to include a Doe or Die or a Low End Theory or a De La Soul Is Dead or a Masters of the Universe or an Endtroducing or a Hope or a Great Adventures of Slick Rick or a Critical Beatdown or a Doggystyle or any number of albums I love and hold dear to my heart, these such albums were knocking—no, pounding—on the proverbial door of house of the twenty-five finalists, and it took all my energy to hold the door shut.

25. THE COLLEGE DROPOUT, kanye west

Kanye West will never be hailed as a great rapper, no matter how much he improves over his career. But he’s an example of the underdog working with what he’s got in his arsenal and overachieving when no one thought he’d succeed. He’s not the first producer-turned-rapper—though he argues he’s rapping as long as he’s been producing—nor will he be the last, but The College Dropout is a portrait of a kid (because that’s really what ‘Ye is, even now) from Chicago who just wants to be like his heroes. By pulling pages straight out The Biz Markie Book of Record Making, he proves you don’t have to be a natural rapper to make a classic. Late Registration might be in purely technical terms, but The College Dropout is exceeds its successor in every other way. The intangibles win will every time—which explains why rappers like Canibus might be able to rap, but will never make great music. But don’t tell Kanye that, his head is big enough as it is.

24. A GRAND DON’T COME FOR FREE, the streets

Mike Skinner is an even worse rapper than Kanye West. But I don’t consider Skinner a rapper so much as a poet who just happens to make hip-hop—call it British rap, call it grime, or call it spoken-word-hip-house—but don’t mistake A Grand Don’t Come For Free for anything but a masterpiece. Perhaps partly due to the fact his performance isn’t that of a traditional emcee’s, Skinner embodies the Everyman persona better than nearly any artist has in the history of hip-hop. And unlike A Prince Among Thieves, for instance, Skinner weaves a compelling narrative entirely through the actual songs, with nary a skit to push the plot along. The ultimate storytelling album, you just can’t help but root for The Streets to pull off the biggest upset in rap history.

And the ending. It still affects me as much as it did the first time.

23. ONE WORD EXTINGUISHER, prefuse 73

Logic dictates that Endtroducing should be on this list instead of Scott Herren’s sophomore release as Prefuse 73, but DJ Shadow’s pioneering album feels cold and uninviting compared to the lush, digital strokes and warmth of the music of One Word Extinguisher and its little sister Extinguished.

22. STRESS: THE EXTINCTION AGENDA, organized konfusion

Pharoahe Monch’s school of Verbal Acrobatics + one of the best performances from a duo ever + a partner who didn’t suffer from Phife Syndrome + more memorable songs than their debut held + the best concept song about a gun besides “I Gave You Power” in rap history + an O.C. guest verse + a vintage Q-Tip beat + “Why” = Stress: The Extinction Agenda = a classic.

21. LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, common

A better album than Resurrection, which is more than enough reason for its inclusion.

20. FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET, public enemy

The black CNN.

19. EFIL4ZAGGIN, n.w.a.

The black HBO.

18. MADVILLAINY, madvillain

Had all the hype in the world, but still exceeded everyone’s expectations. One of the few albums on which I’m still trying to catch every pop culture reference and each sample source, even though I knew every word to every single track since before it was released.

17. DO YOU WANT MORE?!!!??!, the roots

The Roots are an interesting group because they have four albums that would be hard to argue over if tauted as one of the best hip-hop albums ever. You’ll see Illadelph Halflife and Things Fall Apart, even Phrenology mentioned among the best of rap’s best. But Do You Want More?!!!??! stands out as The Roots crowning achievement because it is their best collection of songs (from “Distorition to Static” to “Mellow My Man” to “Essaywhuman?!!!??!” to “Silent Treatment”), the album they had progressed beyond being a jam band and before they started making music for the critics and getting too serious for their own good, and the encased the infectious chemistry of Black Thought and Malik B who bounced rhymes off each other like they were separated at birth.

16. MOMENT OF TRUTH, gang starr

There are two distinct phases to DJ Premier’s career: roughly 1989-1995 and 1995-present. His most inventive production (and arguably his best) came in the former period (see: The Sun Rises in the East or any of his 1994 work) but his style’s mold hadn’t hardened until the second half of his career. 1998’s Moment of Truth is the best Gang Starr record for a number of reasons, but one more important than the rest: Premier and Guru never compliment each other better. The by-then trademark lilt of Premo’s beats never sounded as effortless or as natural, and the self-proclaimed King of Monotone Guru delivered the best performance of his career, stepping outside his monotone comfort zone to traverse more animated areas, which to his credit made all his previous work with Gang Starr sound like he was about to fall asleep (or sippin’ that purple stuff).

15. DELTRON 3030, deltron 3030

The best concept album in rap ever, period.

14. MECCA AND THE SOUL BROTHER, pete rock and cl smooth

If my only reason was “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y)”, you still wouldn’t argue.

13. RAISING HELL, run dmc

The best merging of rap and rock ever.

12. PAID IN FULL, eric b. and rakim

Nas lied when he said KRS-One had already made the blueprint for rappers, because Eric B. and Rakim (Rakim, really) had drafted it years before. The most influential album of all-time when it comes to emceeing, and when most records sound dated after four months, Paid in Full still sounds as fresh in ’07 as it did in ’87. Rakim changed the way rappers rap, and to this day few have caught up to him twenty years ago—they don’t call him the God for nothing.

11. BLACK ON BOTH SIDES, mos def

If you posited that Mos Def could be the best rapper of all-time solely based on Black on Both Sides, you’d have a solid case. And with his recent releases, I’m starting to wonder if it was a fluke. A glorious, once-in-a-lifetime, classic beyond reproach, fluke.

10. DEATH CERTIFICATE, ice cube

Let’s just say there were people who actually thought Ice Cube was finished after he left N.W.A..

9. CRIMINAL MINDED, boogie down productions

The reason KRS-One is so annoying these days and why no one can say anything.

8. ATLIENS, outkast

Aquemini might be the better album on paper, but ATLiens belongs in outer space.

7. ONLY BUILT 4 CUBAN LINX, raekwon

Some days I like it more than Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

6. THE CHRONIC, dr. dre

The party album. Sorry Snoop.

5. ENTER THE WU-TANG (36 CHAMBERS), wu-tang clan

The rap equivalent of all the great kung-fu films ever created.

4. THE INFAMOUS, mobb deep

The Infamous is a case of antipodal emotions. Without a question the hardest rap album ever, The Infamous is hopeless yet optimistic; desparate yet disparate; guilt-ridden yet amoral; a large collection of cautionary tales and fatalist protagonists (antagonists?), but Prodigy and Havoc never once look for pity. They tried to repeat their success with the subsequent Hell on Earth, but when comared to The Infamous it sounds like a shoddy G-Unit record, even though Hell on Earth is an excellent album on its own right. That’s how good The Infamous is.

3. REASONABLE DOUBT, jay-z

“Yo, I’m makin short term goals, when the weather folds / Just put away the leathers and put ice on the gold / Chilly with enough bail money to free a big willie / High stakes, I got more at stake than Philly / Shoppin sprees, copin three / Deuce fever IS’s fully loaded, ah ha yes / Bouncin’ in the lex luger, tires smoke like buddha / 50 G’s to the crap shooter, niggaz can’t fade me / Chrome socks beamin’ / Through my peripheral / I see ya schemin’ / Stop dreamin’, I leave your body steamin’ / Niggaz is fiendin’, what's the meanin? / I’m leanin on any nigga intervenin’-with-the-sound-of-my-money-machine-in *Brrrr* / My cup runneth, over with hundreds / I’m one of the best niggas that done it, six digits and runnin’ / Y’all niggas don’t want it, I got the Godfather flow / The Don Juan DeMarco; swear to God, don’t get it fucked up”

And, that’s just the first verse from the first song. And the beats are just as good.

2. READY TO DIE, notorious b.i.g.

What makes Biggie such an incredible emcee is that while he was quite the, er, rotund man, his breath control was that of a rapper eight stone lighter, and it never hindered his effortless flows. Though his life was cut tragically short, it would be hard to imagine Christopher Wallace topping his debut, even if he had a dozen cracks at it (pun hopelessly intended).

1. ILLMATIC, nas

There are albums that will will forever be brought up when lists like these are discussed, but few will appear on almost 100% of lists. Regardless of what list you read by whichever writer, chances are Illmatic will be on the list, and probably ranked pretty high, if not at the number one spot. If a Rap Awards existed and there were individual categories for Best Lyrics, Best Beats, Best Guest Appearance, Best Singles, Best Performance By An Emcee and Best Sequencing, Illmatic and Nas would be a serious contender, if not a shoe-in, for all trophies. The only award it might not win is Best Intro (though it’s classic on its own right) and Best Skit (as it doesn’t have any). There’s nothing in life that’s perfect, but Illmatic is the closest thing rap might ever see.

The T.I.P. of an impending iceberg

2007-04-16T04:24:00.000-06:00

T.I. - “Big Shit Poppin’” (produced by Mannie Fresh)
from T.I. vs T.I.P. (Atlantic, 2007)

Somewhere between 2004’s Urban Legend and last year’s monolithic King, T.I. made the transition from a good southern rapper to a great rapper period. The exact moment that this happened is hard to pinpoint, with ’05’s “Soldier”, with Destiny’s Child and Lil’ Wayne, being proof positive of his progression; Weezy’s as well. But what is certain is that the rise of Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. culminated with the release of last year’s single-of-the-year (sorry Mr. Barkley) “What You Know”. It’s true that we became privy to what that was all about in part due to DJ Toomp’s monstronious production, which provided the amphitheater for T.I. to deliver the anthem each previous single in his career hinted he had in him, but T.I. took full advantage of his skill set with a performance that matched the song’s epic setting. “What You Know” is an impossible lead single to follow up, but T.I. delivers a valiant effort with “Big Shit Poppin’”, the first missile from the forthcoming psychiatric session T.I. vs T.I.P., which is scheduled to detonate on July 3rd.

T.I. navigates Mannie Fresh’s keys with the precision of a lithe panther; the warbly synths wisely stay out of T.I.’s way, the thought of challenging the Herculean lone guitar that emerges from the shadows of the track for each equally stadium-sized chorus never once daring to cross their thoughts. Fresh understands that a beat for an occasion of this magnitude needs to lend credence to the boasts of the Atlanta rapper, and support T.I.’s boasts it does—but so do T.I.’s vocal ticks and ad-libs, not to mention his trademark, Hov-circa-Blueprint swagger, which is simultaneously intimidating and inviting. It’s almost too easy for T.I., but at no point does “Big Shit Poppin’” sound like a “What You Know” redux (perhaps an efficient hybrid of the two King tracks “Top Back” and “I’m Talking to You”, minus the latter’s third verse Formula One, photo-finish tactics) or an exploitation of a proven formula. And that’s why it works. T.I. might be pulling the wool over our eyes, but if the results of his artifice are this satisfying, then this sheep is a willing victim.

4 STARS (out of 5 stars)

Kroeker a cultural diplomat

2007-04-06T13:52:00.000-06:00

Joel Kroeker - “Against Myself”
from Closer to the Flame (True North, 2007)

Joel Kroeker - “Closer to the Flame”
from Closer to the Flame (True North, 2007)

Musicians are similar to professional athletes in many regards: they’re rarely at home, they have to deal with living on the road and they often find themselves under the scrutiny of the public eye. However, there’s one similarity between the two vocations that’s rarely noted: that both musicians and athletes often drop their studies to focus on developing their craft.

Joel Kroeker, however, managed to juggle both at once, professionally playing music while attending the University of Winnipeg. Later, he earned his Masters in Ethnomusicology here at the University of Alberta, which has proven invaluable to Kroeker as a singer-songwriter.

“Ethnomusicology is basically the study of music and culture,” the Winnipeg native explains. “It’s kind of like the anthropology of music. In comparison to musicology, which is usually based on western music, ethnomusicology is all over the world.

“It’s helped me to see past the normal stereotypes that we all sort of see and look more insightfully. If you don’t look deeply into something or research it, you tend to just accept the stereotypes and how music is used in each culture. And not necessarily ethnic cultures, but also singer-songwriters and musicians.”

Having lived in Edmonton during his tenure as a graduate student, Kroeker is adamant in his praise for the Alberta capital as both a place to live and a burgeoning music scene. Describing the sense of community that exists in Edmonton between musicians, Kroeker admits to missing his former place of residence and the venues that it contains.

“We were one of the last bands to play at the [old] Sidetrack Café before it closed,” Kroeker fondly reminisces. “I’ve played there so many times during the three years I lived in Edmonton—I played there constantly. Playing shows with bands like Captain Tractor and all the local bands were a lot of fun. It was just such a great venue.

“It’s like that everywhere in Canada, though,” Kroeker continues. “Part of it is related to the music business being confused about how to deal with the situation, which then affects all aspects of music. What’s sad about that is that this aspect of culture in the city will be negatively impacted. People need a place to go to experience new things that will blow their minds, and actually feel like they’re learning something and seeing something new.”

Though he now lives in Vancouver, Kroeker is back in town next week performing at the Velvet Underground as part of CKUA’s “Live From Alberta Stages” concert series, as well as to promote his latest album release, Closer to the Flame. The album is a surprising contrast when compared to his 2004 effort, Melodrama: whereas Melodrama chronicled his life as it was falling apart, Kroeker insists Closer to the Flame is a much more positive affair, where all the pieces of his life have been picked up and put back where they belong. It has spawned a major hit in Québec with “Déjà Vu,” an English/French duet with Québec star Dany Bédar. The track also appears on Bédar’s album Acoustique … en studio!

When asked what he thinks has contributed to his success in Québec, Kroeker, ever the good sport, laughs and gives an honest answer: “Absolute, total, luck.”

Originally published in The Gateway

Fishing for fitness, charity

2007-04-05T14:48:00.000-06:00

Jeremy Fisher - “Cigarette”
from Goodbye Blue Monday (Aquarius, 2006)

Jeremy Fisher - “Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar)”
from Goodbye Blue Monday (Aquarius, 2006)

There are people who swear by their bicycles for transportation, and then there are those who actually practice what they preach. Case in point: singer-songwriter Jeremy Fisher. The Hamilton, Ontario native spent six months atop his trusty two-wheeler in 2001, touring in support of his independent debut, Back Porch Spirituals. Beginning in Seattle, Fisher rode almost 7500 kilometers across Canada before ending the “One Less Tourbus” tour in Halifax.

It was certainly an unconventional way to tour, but had a good cause behind it. Fisher partnered with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy to raise money for the Tour des Femmes, which promotes access to education and bicycles for girls in Africa.

“A lot of girls in Africa didn’t have access to education,” Fisher explains in a conversation by phone. “There was infrastructure available to the boys, but not the girls. They couldn’t afford bicycles, but if they had, some of them were willing to ride up to 20 miles a day, there and back, just to go to school. I saw a parallel between what I was doing and what they were trying to achieve.”

Fisher’s cross-country trek was more than just a fundraiser for a noble cause, however; there were ecological undertones to it as well. A proponent of green transportation, Fisher acknowledges that his choice of a bicycle as his main vehicle extends past just being an excellent source of exercise.

“It’s a lifestyle for me,” says Fisher. “I definitely have an awareness of the impact of fossil fuel traffic on our streets and our highways. I don’t own a car, and I never have. When I did that tour, I wanted to help out a cause that was working towards exporting that model of transportation to other parts of the world. I just wanted to try and spread the word about it. I really wanted to put a positive spin on it, not getting on the case of cars or anything.”

He may not be touring by bicycle anymore, but Fisher’s still keeping things green on his recently released third album, Goodbye Blue Monday. Having parted ways with former label Sony, the once-again independent Fisher has taken a more hands-on approach to his music career. His homemade, self-directed video for lead single “Cigarette” debuted two months ago and has since reached over a million views on YouTube—an accomplishment Fisher is very proud of.

“I feel like I’ve been successful in part of what I’ve set out to do with this record, which is [to] go for a more grassroots approach to the marketing,” states Fisher. “I’ve made three videos, and I made them all myself at home on really crude equipment on my laptop and I feel really justified in making the decision to leave the major label.

“People are responding to [the video],” he continues. “They are e-mailing it to their friends and putting it on their own MySpace pages. People have taken it on to be their own, which is why I made it. All of the sudden, if you have something that people want to see, you have the means to get it to them.”

Originally published in The Gateway

Feel the good vibrations

2007-03-21T16:57:00.000-06:00

Mark Wahlberg interview

If you would have told Mark Wahlberg in 1997 that in the next ten years he would work with Martin Scorcese, produce an award-winning HBO series (Entourage) and become a father, he would’ve probably laughed and called you crazy—but he couldn’t have called you a liar.

The former underwear model and rapper-turned-actor is enjoying the success that playing Sgt Bryce Dignam—his scene-stealing character in The Departed —has brought him. The film, the highest grossing of Scorcese’s illustrious career, went on to win four Oscars including best director and best picture, and Wahlberg received a best supporting role nomination for his part. But just because his acting chops are finally being recognized, this doesn’t mean it will affect the type of projects Wahlberg chooses.

“I’ve certainly gotten a lot of offers [for roles] since the Oscar nomination,” Wahlberg reveals over the phone. “I certainly can’t just start looking for, like, English period dramas and stuff that’s going to get me nominated again.”

His first role since The Departed is in the action film Shooter. Loosely based on the Stephen Hunter novel Point of Impact, Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, a retired Marine Corps sniper. After the United States government becomes privy to information of an impending assassination attempt on the President, Swagger is brought out of retirement for one last mission. But there’s a twist; when Swagger fires at the assassin, the President goes down and Swagger is framed in the very assassination he was ordered to prevent.

Shooter might sound like a run-of-the-mill action flick, full of explosions and testosterone, but Wahlberg explains the movie harkens back to the action films of yesteryear, like Taxi Driver and Dirty Harry, where the focus was more on the character than the body count amassed.

“The high intensity action movies that they’ve been making lately aren’t really the kind of character-driven movies that I love and that I grew up watching in the ’70s,” Wahlberg says. “This is kind of a throwback to that. You’ve got a guys’ guy who’s all about honour and integrity, and it reminded me of the great films that I grew up watching. It’s much more of a Travis Bickle or, you know, Dirty Harry, than it is a Terminator-type character.

“For a good portion of my career, it was all about the filmmaker and we necessarily didn’t focus on the part or the script itself,” Wahlberg adds.

“I think I’m at the stage of my career where I’ve got to start satisfying the audience and myself. So basically I want to make movies that I would want to go and see and that I think people want to see me in.”

For Shooter, Wahlberg went through extensive sniper training to prepare for the role of Swagger. He also had to physically transform himself—which included slimming down from his Departed weight—in order to be able handle the rigorous demands of the stunt-work, which he did almost all himself.

“I did everything Antoine [Fuqua, the film’s director] asked me to do, which was pretty much all of it,” recalls Wahlberg. “You want the audience to feel like they’re really watching me go through all these things and not feel like they’re cutting away to a stuntman constantly. So, more than was probably safe, but, you know, we survived, so it was worth it.”

With the filming of Shooter behind him, his future projects will need to be chosen carefully, for the actor says that he plans on retiring at the age of 40—he’s going to be 36 in June—and divert his attention to his other career, fatherhood.

“I said it for two reasons,” Wahlberg elaborates. “At the time I was pretty frustrated with the kind of movies that I was being offered and the kind of movies that they were making. I committed to only making the kind of movies that I would want to go and see, which has certainly revived my passion for film making.

“I’ve been focused on me for a long time and at some point, obviously, my attention is going to have to shift to [my children]. But hopefully I’ll be in a position where I can still make a movie every year or two.”

Originally published in The Gateway

For Pete’s sake

2007-03-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

Pete Rock interview

He’s the man behind “This World Is Yours”, “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” and countless other classics like “Rather Unique” and Mecca and the Soul Brother. The legendary Pete Rock is in town this Saturday playing at the Starlite Room, and I managed to get a hold of the Soul Brother #1 (or #2, next to James Brown, according to the man himself) today for an interview. Here is what Pete had to say about producer beef, hip-hop’s future, and his upcoming projects:

Until the Train Stops: Your manager told me you’re in L.A. right now, what are you doing there?

Pete Rock: Working on a bunch of stuff with people.

Until the Train Stops: Could you name any of the people you’re working with while in L.A.?

Pete Rock: Not right this second, it’s got to be solidified first. A couple of good people.

Until the Train Stops: What have you been up to lately?

Pete Rock: I’ve been chillin’, working on a new album. It’s called New York’s Finest.

Until the Train Stops: Is it like a Soul Survivor-like album with a focus on New York?

Pete Rock: Somewhat, but I’m talking more about as far as myself, as New York’s finest. Like I have Slum Village on there and they are from Detroit. It’s not a New York based album; it’s more New York than anywhere else, but it’s open to anyone.

Until the Train Stops: So will be assuming rapping responsibilities in addition to producing the beats?

Pete Rock: Yeah, definitely.

Until the Train Stops: Speaking of the Soul Survivor series, will see ever hear another installment, and if so, who do you want to get on for the third record?

Pete Rock: There’s a lot of good emcees that I want: Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik. People from the east coast like Fabolous. Eminem.

Until the Train Stops: Is there any chance you and C.L. Smooth would get back together and do another album together?

Pete Rock: Nope.

Until the Train Stops: Have you heard his new album, American Me?

Pete Rock: Nah, I didn’t even know he had an album out.

Until the Train Stops: You did a bunch of tracks on Ghostface’s Fishscale. What’s working with Ghostface like?

Pete Rock: It was cool. It’s a classic collaboration, you know, with the way I make music and the way he loves soul.

Until the Train Stops: Last month was the first anniversary of J Dilla’s untimely passing—do you have a favourite Jay Dee story?

Pete Rock: I have lots of them; I have lots. Basically, he always invited me out to Detroit and I’d play music with him and stuff like that. That’s how we met. He let me stay in his house while he was out doing what he was doing. It was just a good feeling, you know, that he invited me to Detroit like that. Then he came to visit me in New York, and we’d ride around in my truck playing music and stuff. It was good.

Until the Train Stops: Last year DJ Premier worked with Christina Aguilera. Is there anyone outside of hip-hop you’d like to work with in the future?

Pete Rock: Oh, definitely, definitely. Lots of those. Any one of those pop stars. Whitney Houston I’d like to work with.

Until the Train Stops: Recently, Timbaland and Scott Storch have been firing diss back and forth between each other—Scott Storch going as far as writing a diss song and actually rapping on it. What’s your opinion on producer beef?

Pete Rock: I think it’s ... [laughs] It comes with the territory. Producers having problems with each other is nothing new. It’s all music; rap, whatever. It’s all good though, it just makes it more exciting. Show off your talent. As for Storch rapping on his song, everybody’s rapping right now, know what I’m saying?

Until the Train Stops: Of today’s up-and-coming New York rappers, who would sound best over a Pete Rock beat?

Pete Rock: Jay-Z. And Biggie, rest in peace. I always consider him [Biggie] the best, to me.

Until the Train Stops: Would you entertain the thought of working with Nas again?

Pete Rock: If he reached out to me, yeah, maybe. I haven’t talked to him for a long time. You’d have to ask him.

Until the Train Stops: What are your thoughts on his new album, Hip-Hop Is Dead?

Pete Rock: I can see the purpose of why he was doing it, and naming the album that, but I think that overall hip-hop is definitely not dead, it’s just that we have a couple of people who are steering the music in the wrong direction, you know?

Until the Train Stops: So if hip-hop’s alive, where do you see it going in the future?

Pete Rock: Just getting back to it’s roots, and back to real music. People are tired of hearing the simplicity of the pop, commercial hip-hop. People wanna hear something that’s gonna drive their soul in a positive way.

I stay commited like one foot in, one foot out

2007-03-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

300 movie review

5:45 PM - “I guess we should print out some directions to the theatre—it’s all the way on the south siiiiide.”

5:56 - “Fuck ma, I already ate and the movie’s at 7. Fine, eat fast Marco. I know, I know, you can’t resist my mom’s pasta ... don’t even think about making that joke.”

5:59 - “We’ll make it on time, don’t worry about it.”

6:20 - “We’re supposed to take the Yellowhead? I’ll take 111th instead. We’ll get there faster; what’s the street again?” “152nd, man.” “We might be five minutes late, Renny.”

6:40 - “What the fuck? Are you sure it’s 152nd?” “Dude, I know how to read directions.”

6:41 - “Errr... did I say 152? 1525. I think it might be 15th street.”

6:42 - “We’re gonna be like fifteen minutes late, Renny.”

7:08 - “Told you we’d make it on time. I bet the trailers are still playing.”

7:12 - “We’re here for the 300 screening. We’re late? Really? I don’t believe you. The lobby might be empty and the theatre doors closed, but what evidence do you have? ... just let us in.”

7:14 - “Renato, it’s fucking packed.”

7:15 - “...and it’s started already. Great.”

7:16 - “Looks like we’re gonna have to sit in the very front row.” “God damnit.”

7:20 - “Seems like it just started, though.”

7:23 - “Why do they have a random hole into the abyss in the middle of Sparta?”

7:25 - “So this movie is by the same guy who did Sin City?” “Based on his comic—er, graphic novel.” “Kinda looks like Sin City.” “Yeah. That’s not a bad thing.”

7:30 - “So what have we missed?” “Nothing important, I’m going to venture.”

7:35 - “Hey, the Persian emissary—that’s Tyrone Benskin, he’s in Charlie Jade!” “What the fuck is a Charlie Jade?” “Sigh.”

7:40 - “You know, the acting’s not half bad for this kind of movie; it’s actually pretty good.” “Yeah, but Sin City had good acting too.” “And Jesssica Alba’s sweet, sweet ass.”

7:43 - “Boobies!” “Nice boobies.”

7:58 - “So this movie is pretty violent.” “But it’s so stylized that it’s not even that disturbing. And it’s necessary for this kind of film.”

8:06 - “Didn’t I see that jump thrust kill done by Brad Pitt in Troy?” “Who cares, it’s still cool as shit.”

8:08 - “Man, these seats blow.” “So this is what it feels like to be about to be tea-bagged.” “You know how I know you’re gay?” “How?” “You know what it feels like to be about to be tea-bagged.”

8:10 - “That dude with the hump is so gonna gonna betray Lenodidibas. Ledoodoodicus? Leonidas? Damn Greeks.”

8:20 - “It’s Dennis Rodman!” “No, it’s not; not enough facial piercings or bling.” “But he’s got like 100 dudes carrying him.” “BAAAAALLLLLIIINN!”

8:28 - “These fight scenes are epic.” “The epicness has been noticed.” “Too epic?” “That’s like too much vagina: impossible, and even if you somehow had an overabundance of vagina, you’d just be an asshole.”

8:40 - “Oliphants?” “Where’s Legolas?” “In terrible chick flicks with Kristen Dunst.”

8:44 - “So when was the Asian army inspired by Guy Fawkes for their military masks?”

8:45 - “Why are they wearing full masks in the first place?”

8:46 - “They’re Asian, it’s not like they can see much anyways.” “..."

8:47 - “Somehow I don’t think this film is historically accurate.”

8:48 - “Who are you kidding? Ogres and trolls exist.”

8:49 - “Yeah, in Asia, right? You’re an idiot.”

8:53 - “Oh shit. I think this scene is meant to be emotional.” “Dude just got decapitated!” “You’re heartless, man.”

9:00 - “The battle scenes have been pretty brutal, eh?” “Blood. Decapitations. Locust clouds of arrows. Doooooope.”

9:05 - “That was cool.” “Indeed.”

9:10 - “I don’t think the story was particularly important.”

9:11 - “I think the story was just there to provide some sort of justification for the battle scenes.”

9:20 - “Want to see it again sometime?”

9:21 - “Hell yeah.” “Me too.” “Hopefully just not from a tea-bagging angle.”

9:22 - “...you know how I know you’re gay?”

9:23 - “...now, how do we get home?”

3 STARS (out of 5 stars)

Def Jux cancer benefit show

2007-03-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

You tell that crowd how depressed you are, Cage!

Def Jux cancer benefit show - March 23rd, Long Island @ Landmark

I’m not usually one to plug shows since artists have people who actually get paid to do that sort of thing, but this really is a worthy cause: I just found out the guys at Insound are putting together a cancer benefit show featuring Cage, Rob Sonic, and the Hangar 18 boys—all talented Def Jukies—on Friday, March 23rd, in Long Island. All proceeds will go to the Sass Foundation for Medical Research to fund cancer research, which, having personally known people who have been touched by cancer, is a very important thing. Tickets can be purchased from Ticketweb and Insound. It’s a positive step to see rappers doing these sorts of benefits; this is definitely something I can get behind. Good for Definitive Jux.

The best 20 albums of 2006 (finito)

2007-03-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

1. DESTROYER’S RUBIES
destroyer

When I was deciding what was the best album of last year (read: my favourite), I took many approaches. I looked into my iTunes history to find out what album got the most plays over the past twelve months. I tried to recall what album—if any—I was able to get my friends to listen to, and more importantly, fall in love with. I thought about which album made me feel the most. I even tried to go about it objectively in a What Album Displayed Superior Musicianship And A Whole Bunch Of Other Things People Look For When Supposedly Objectively Critiquing An Album way. Regardless of which strategy I employed, I kept returning to one album: Destroyer’s Rubies.

Rubies is one of those definitive albums that encapsulates everything that’s special about a band; with a oft-revolving set of members, Destroyer is often considered a Dan Bejar solo project, but Rubies is the work a full-fledged band. If you didn’t know it was a 2006 record, it would be difficult to date Rubies; this helps it reach a sort of timelessness. This could be in part due to Bejar’s references to numerous dates and times; military times, the 2300s, 1987, 2002, the 20th century in general. He mentions historical and mythological figures: Clytemnestra, Tabitha, Zeppelin and Floyd, even his previous works of his own. The strongest lyrics on Rubies aren’t lyrics at all; Bejar’s aphasic “La la la las” and “Dai dai dai dais” that appear on nearly every track communicate the emotions that need to be conveyed when beautiful phrases like “I brought bells to the wake and you, you didn’t mind” are no longer sufficient. They sound so intimate, so primal, that Bejar takes you to all these places and times without ever needing to reveal where you’re going.

* * *

This year, more than any other I can remember, winter has greatly influenced my emotional state. A little bit of preamble: Alberta winters begin late October (sometimes sooner) and last until late-March on a good year and mid-April on a bad year (sometimes later). It’s not that this winter has been particularly long or cold or any extreme that could induce a sullen state of mind. There’s a lot of snow on the ground, but that’s not out of the ordinary for prairie winters. And it’s not that I’m depressed or suffering from SAD (season affective disorder), it’s just that this winter has been one long rumination for me. I’ve been working a lot of things out in my head—think of it as a philosophical exercise where the question is me and the answers are whatever I’d like them to be, if only I knew what I wanted them to be. This past week the bud of spring has begun to emerge from the seemingly permafrost: warmer temperatures (if you consider -5 degrees Celsius warm), minor melting of snow (on the roads mostly), and the sun is finally rising before I wake up. All slow but sure signs spring’s return is imminent.

Music helps prep me for seasons and soundtracks them as they are happening. Itching for spring—which I’m not sure even exists in Alberta, as it often feels like winter segues directly into summer with no perceptible transition period—albums that represent spring for me have been monopolizing my iPod, almost with a “if I will it, it will come” mentality. Stress: The Extinction Agenda. Young Roscoe Philaphornia (criminally slept-on like an old college futon). Moment of Truth. Illmatic (which admittedly could make the apocalypse sound beautiful). More recently, Secede’s Vega Libre.

And Destroyer’s Rubies. Maybe there’s some hope left for me, after all.
—Renato Pagnani

I remember talking to Renato upon the release of Destroyer’s glam-pop powerhouse Rubies and marveling at just how perfectly it suited my nature. Its inaugural spin was downright dizzying: Rubies seemed to me to come from some subterranean netherworld where Bob Dylan spent his whole life ghostwriting for David Bowie. Bejar’s layers-thick lyricism is like a winter coat upon the smiling cherub of his melodies; the songs bounce playfully along, their depth at first obscured by rollicking sing-alongs and joyful bursts of power pop guitar. This child dances along in a gossamer wonderland of glam-pop affectation until just watching him wears you out and you find yourself collapsed in a heap, nearly strangled by a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

Or maybe that’s just me.

At any rate, between laying waste to pitchfork-wielding hipsters (“born of wealth with not a writer in the lot”) and alluding to Van Morrison and the Greek legend of Damocles in the same couplet (“Have I told you lately that I love you? / Did I fail to mention there’s a sword hanging above you?”), everything about Rubies just seemed to fit. It felt, somehow, as if making someone listen to this album would tell them more about me as a person than mere words could even begin to. In that curious way casual music fans will never quite understand, this album was mine.

Rubies entered my life at more or less the same time my high school sweetheart resolved to leave it, and to this day I credit it for keeping me going through those first few desperate hours. The best articulation I can give my relationship with Rubies is the one I offered Renato:

“Lately, when people ask how I’m doing, my instinctive response is just ‘Rubies.’”
—Matt Boyce

I hope Matt doesn’t mind me recycling his post from few months ago, but it’s a much better blurb about Rubies—and a much better piece of writing in general—than I could ever aspire to produce. And to borrow a line from his contribution, it just fits.

Destroyer - “Your Blood”
from Destroyer’s Rubies (Merge, 2006)

Destroyer - “Painter in Your Pocket”
from Destroyer’s Rubies (Merge, 2006)