I'll be back later with a full post, but for now, here's a blast from the past for y'all. Watch homeboy eat the banana during the intro. He's loving that thing. I don't think i've ever enjoyed a banana (no homo) that much.
So this will usually happen on a Sunday night, but my mate Bunners knocked me out with a fat bowl last night, so it's happening today. This weekly (hopefully) post will be to highlight whatever track has been heavy in the rotation of songs i've been listening too. It won't necesssarily be a track released the previous week; in fact knowing the state of hip hop at the moment it probably won't be from the previous week unless it's a good week for Hip Hop. It'll just be a track that is good enough to get me to stop listening to Get This for a while, could be from years ago, could be something crazy, could be a rarity. Or it could be none of these things.
Promoe (Mårten Edh) is a Swedish rapper, and a founding member of Swedish hip hop group the Looptroop. This track has been getting the first play of the morning for quite some time now, and will continue to do so. Taken from White Man's Burden, it's been a while since i've heard a track that uses interplay between the rapper and the sample so well. Headache uses a decent selection of samples from Julie Driscoll's A Word About Colour, taking the chorus as it's own (as do so many tracks these days), but unlike most chipmunk soul beats released these days, the original inspiration for the beat is brought in throughout the verses themselves, in a variety of different ways. As highlighted below, the Julie Driscoll track individual lines of A Word about Colour are sometimes brought in to link one bar to the next. Sample is in parentheses: "My semen's sedated from stress and toxic waste, my whole being's mutated;(my soul) don't even mention my soul, it's been gone for so long...." A clever and mellifluous way to link the original feel of the sampled piece into the new track, and it is put to better use a little further on when samples are used to rhyme 2 lines, and close out the verse: "Stumblin around in a state of mass (confusion), and i see no solution, (confusion) but to turn up the music to soothe this (pain that i'm feeling).
This continues throughout the track to great effect, increasing the effect of both the beat itself and the potent lyrics. And the lyrics are potent enough without needing to be propped by the beat. Again, keeping with the theme of the original sample, the track is heavily politically motivated, although the lyrics lean more towards highlighting the feelings of inadequacy and helplessness that accompany people who feel left out of the political system about the issues For example, "We spiral downwards, inbreeding a bunch of spineless cowards livin' in an illusion we define as ours. Nationalism's that kind of prison we assign all power, desperately clinging on to it until the final hour..." As Rex Hunt might say, this is dizzy stuff folks. Ghostface raps over "Superman Lover", and uses the concept to structure the feeling of his rhyme, but doesn't really play with the original song during his verse at all, and most MC's rhyming over a track with a sample based chorus will use the first line of the chorus to dismount from the verse e.g. Lil' Wayne's "Best Thing Yet": "And that's because I know the sun will raise again, And when it do, Im'a praise the Man. They say "You crazy Wayne!" but I just bake a man, And thats Ms. Baker saying that i'm the...(Best Thing Yet)" Nice, but not nearly as impressive as appropriating a whole track into your lyrics.
Well, that's it. Enjoy the track, and as an added bonus, here's the original inspiration for you to compare the two. Julie Driscoll - A Word About Colour Now, i'm going to drink Vodka and Cranberry and watch The Wire until I crash out. Peace, ~Broke
"The Star Wars Holiday Special was a two-hour television special set in the Star Wars galaxy. It was the first official Star Wars spinoff produced. In it, Chewbacca and Han Solo visit Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's home world, to celebrate Life Day. Along the way, they are pursued by agents of the Galactic Empire who are searching for rebels on the planet. The main storyline of the film contains a variety-show segments as well as a cartoon produced by Toronto-based Nelvana that officially introduces the bounty hunter Boba Fett. The film is notorious for the almost universal hatred it garners from the nerd platoon, or really anyone with any taste. George Lucas had limited involvement with the film's production, and he was understandably unhappy with the outcome."
Cribbed from Wikipedia
This film is shit. But funny as hell after a few drinks, and it's kitch value makes it one of the more bearable Christmas specials. Click here for the highlights clip
Recorded live at Club Uptown, Worcester MA. 1987, this is a classic early Hip Hop routine between 2 of the best to ever pick up the mic. Biz Markie invented the Beatbox (really, he invented it), and spits some tight beats here, but more importantly than the beats themselves is the way he responds to Big Daddy Kane's rhymes, which is the sign of a truly great beatbox. Just like a great drummer, it's about more than creating a metronome beat for an MC to rhyme on, it's about reacting and responding to highlight the flow of the MC. And very few can fuck with Big Daddy Kane on the Move the Crowd tip.
To close it out, if you haven't seen the Aristocrats yet, get to it ASAP. It's unrated (meaning it's too filthy to get a rating from the OFLC) so be prepared to hear the dirtiest language you've ever heard, but it is hilariously funny. It's worth buying or renting just to hear Kevin Pollack do his famous Christopher Walken impression. For now, here's Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame riffing for 5 minutes or so on the infamous Aristocrats joke.
Well, the festive season is done for another year, and an interesting question was raised by my buddy Piers, AKA Dancing at the speed of Light (futhermore known as DATSOL). He pointed out the distinct lack of Christmas decorations on the streets and in the stores this year. Think about it, there were no stupid wreaths hanging from lamp posts, no giant red and green baubles that are inevitably smashed by rambunctious youths, the most you got was some tinny christmas carols in Coles (I would love to splice into the Coles music system and play Tornts for a day through every Coles in Melbourne, no food would be bought but 600,000 Melbourne Bitter longnecks would be sold, and a lot of fights would ensue).
As you can see, in my street it might as well be Ramadan for all the decorations that are out. I even saw a busker in the Bourke street mall 2 days before Christmas WHO WAS NOT WEARING A SANTA HAT. I gave him no candy for his lack of effort. He could play a mean pan-pipe, but come on homie, the santa hat is what makes it. Totally serious look, full Andes peasant get-up, playing "Så Skimrande Var Aldrig Havet" like Gheorghe Zamfir (step your Pan Flute game up y'all) with a Santa Hat on. Now that's comedy. But I digress... Could this lack of christmas cheer be an unexpected cutback made necessary by the massive economic downturn of the past few months? Or is it a bid to acknowledge the growing secular nature of Australia, and attempt to avoid shoving a Christian holiday down the throat of what is quickly becoming a non-christian public? Or does nobody really care about Christmas any more? Has it got to the point where even the vendors and local councils of this country are doing that thing your mother does where she makes no effort for Christmas or her birthday, and when someone points it out, she says "Well, noone esle was willing to put in any effort, so I got tired of doing everything" (damn that stings). If that is the case, that's pretty slack on our part. I can't think of anyone ever who has thanked a local council for putting up decorations, in fact most people complain about them going up too early, if they're even mentioned at all. Well now you all see what your barberous letters to the local paper have done. We get nothing for the festive season, and it's what we deserve. We made no effort, so why should anyone else. Until people decide to grow a giant plum pudding out the front of their house, or something of equivalent nature, then we should live in holiday exile, with no retail staff dressed up as Santa's elves, and no baubles for the youth to destroy. So to bring back the Christmas Cheer, here's the Yo Yo Yo Kids, with "presents". Dance along with the Snowman and reindeer, it's the only time of year you can.
Well kids, here it is. I suppose I should explain this blog, it won't be hard hitting at all (I don't think) , it'll be more like I made my lounge room available to the internet. But if I come home, and there's some amateur porn being filmed on my couch, i'm shutting this bad boy down. A few boring notes, at the moment i'm the only administrator for this blog, but if anyone wants to join me in posting i'm all for sharing the workload, non-existant as it is. Mostly these posts will revolve around musings on music and movies, or general obscure points of interest that have been playing on my mind. Eventually this will be the forum for the radio show I am in the midst of putting together with my esteemed colleague Jackson, so i'll be uploading any pertinent links here for perusal and discussion. Also, some jammin' beats. I won't be posting full albums for download here (support the artists you download snakes), i'm not saying i'm not guilty of it myself because I am, but there's enough places for you to get stuff for free on the net, and it doesn't take much effort to type your favourite artist + rapidshare into Google. I will occasionally post a link to a song or two if it's in relation to the post, or if it's a truly slammin' beat. So with that, as Tobias Funke would say "Let the great experiment BEGIN!"
