Speaking of outerspace, I caught up with Erykah Badu last month for this Time Out story, just a few days before she stripped down in front of the grassy knoll. I got to have a nice, laid-back, extra-casual conversation with her—in a dressing room at Jimmy Fallon—the full text of which you can read here. Read to the end for the dramatic conclusion.
Bronx dancehall dude Skerrit Bwoy recently turned up as a talking point on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, during a visit from Aziz Ansari. (Apparently, the two made fast friends). I first heard about Skerrit five or six years ago, back when he was better known as “Sponge Bob.” Now the face of Major Lazer and the international ambassador for daggering (surely, not an easy job), he’s having a bit of a moment. Figured I’d document it in this TONY profile.
DJ QUIK AND KURUPT—BlaQKout (Mad Science)
This was the year of the “temporary” rap duo, as declining record sales and other factors led everyone from EDO.G and Masta Ace to Buckshot and KRS-One to pool their resources into one-off collaborative albums. BlaQKout was easily the most revelatory of these releases, a decidedly un-gangsta, throw-everything-in-the-kitchen-sink type party album that works from start to finish. Kurupt sounded reinvigorated in his role as hype man and pinch hitter while Quik continued to quietly elevate his production and mic game, almost 20 years in. Read the rest of this entry »
I wasn’t planning on writing a “Best Of” list this year, seeing as no one asked me to (What’s up with that?) Fine, I’ve never been all that interested in these things anyway. But as I’ve read list after list these past few weeks, I noticed that few of the albums that impressed me this year were being acknowledged by other folks. Since I don’t get to write about other music styles as much as I get to write about rap, I thought I’d throw together a list of my favorite albums without any rapping on them. I’m not saying these are the best records of the year, in this order: they’re just the ones I listened to and enjoyed on a regular basis. I wouldn’t want to altogether leave hip-hop out of the discussion so I’ll be back with a shorter, all-rap list shortly. (Click on album titles to stream music)
Hypnotic, the world’s best post-hip-hop family brass band, has had a number of full-length, slim-case CDs for sale for years, but, until now, they’d never made a proper album. Recorded in several days for Damon Albarn’s Honest Jon’s label (Hypnotic are said to be featured musicians on Albarn’s next Gorillaz LP), this 11-song LP finally captures the majesty of their remarkable live performances on record. With the group having reportedly put their street performance career to bed, it’s a much-needed document. Read the rest of this entry »
I interviewed Rakim about The Seventh Seal in the new XXL. Also spoke to “Back in the Day” rapper Ahmad about his new life as a Stanford undergrad, and wrote about Dana Dane’s passing of the torch to his son Dana Jr., aka Young Dane.
Sad news today, as the original hip-hop radio DJ Mr. Magic has apparently passed away from a heart attack. Magic was winding down his run as NY hip-hop’s kingmaker by the time I got up on things in the late ’80s, but his “Rap Attack” show with Marley Marl on WBLS, as well as Red Alert’s competing slot on KISS-FM, was the first place I got to hear hip-hop in a concentrated dose. That probably means a whole lot of nothing to anyone under, say, 27 but, for most of the ’80s, hearing one hip-hop song on the radio was like getting that valuable rookie in your pack of baseball cards. There was really nothing like the satisfying feeling of checking in to a two-hour show where you heard nothing but the stuff especially since, for me, it was technically “passed my bedtime” by the time it came on. Read the rest of this entry »
Originally meant to do these together as a comparative piece, but it worked out for the best. The Jay review has been floating around online for a while and is in this week’s issue; the Rae is a long piece, and only online.
One more thing re: the non-Wu guest appearances on OB4CL2. Busta, Slick Rick and Lyfe Jennings kind of just do what they have to do as role players but let’s have a hand for Beans, Kiss and The Ghost SP. If I could pick a list of MCs to appear on a Cuban Linx sequel, these three would be at or near the top, and they brought it. As I stated in an early, scuttled draft of the review, Beans’s verse on “Have Mercy” is just devastating. His visibility might be a little limited right now, but he has not fallen off.
In light of the other day’s NYC Badmen tribute, I thought I’d put together a list of the most essential tracks blending dancehall vocals with hip-hop beats. Why aren’t there any mixtapes of this nature? Meant for this to be up in time for last weekend’s Labor Day celebration but that would have been too appropriate.
SUPER CAT-”GHETTO RED HOT (HIP-HOP MIX)” (1992)
No one captured the Brooklyn/Kingston culture clash better than Super Cat. This video for “Ghetto Red Hot” was filmed in Brooklyn and Kingston not long after the Wild Apache allegedly shot and killed Nitty Gritty outside a Flatbush record shop, in apparent self-defense. Read the rest of this entry »
The following is a joint post with my homey David Ma’s site, Nerdtorious. He asked me if there were any records I felt like writing about and this one jumped out at me:
I’ve been asked a few times how I “got into” dancehall. It’s pretty simple: I’m from New York. (Anyone asking me this is usually not from here). Jamaican music has been a familiar soundtrack for nearly as long as I can remember. I think it was around 1990, when I was 11, that it first left an impression. New York’s twin Black radio stations WRKS (”KISS FM”) and WBLS were playing records by Shabba Ranks and Mad Cobra. Chaka Demus & Pliers’ “Murder She Wrote” first came out around then, beginning its steady rise to Bar Mitzvah/White Folk Wedding-level ubiquity.
Truthfully, I didn’t like the stuff at first. Not knowing too many Caribbean folk at the time, the lyrics, particularly from gruff deejays like Shabba, were initially tough to decipher. And the rhythms, made more for the dancefloor than passive consumption, didn’t grab me the way hip-hop beats did then. My gateway drug came in the form of Shabba Ranks’ “The Jam,” a collaboration with the reggae-absorbent KRS-ONE, and Bobby Konders and Mikey Jarrett’s “Mack Daddy.” This was dancehall, but with a hip-hop beat, and I was hooked. I’d heard rappers like KRS toss around patois in their own songs, but the sound of Shabba and Jarrett’s full-throttle toasting over the familiar thrust of a hard-hitting breakbeat grabbed me in a way I can’t quite explain so many years later. Read the rest of this entry »
After catching Kane at Prospect Park Saturday night (and suggesting the possibility in this brief article), I thought I might take a stab at answering the unanswerable. Mostly ’cause I don’t see the man getting the respect he deserves for being 40 + 20 years past his commercial peak + 11 years away from his last album, and still tearing down every show he does in a manner that is straight up disrespectful to whatever rapper you last saw perform. I’m not trying to turn this space into a journal of whatever live shows I just saw, though, so I’ll let the photos I took on Saturday and some attendant footage do the talking. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s the interview I did with Prince Markie Dee of the Fat Boys for the XXL Backtrack article, in November of ‘08.
Let’s talk about this album you made in 1984.
It was an incredible time. The condensed version is we were just having fun on the corner every day. And we heard on the radio about a contest at Radio City Music Hall, and we went with another group in our neighborhood called the Bad Boys. We were under their wing like, “They’re going to win and, when they win, they’re gonna put us on.” I remember taking the train ride up to the Disco Fever for the semifinals that Friday before the main finals. If you’ve ever seen Krush Groove, that little scene where we’re like “Should we join the contest? Alright let’s join.” That was kind of real. Read the rest of this entry »
