Mic Terror ft. Bruus - Big Steppas (2023)
ShyBelligerent - Son Of A Bitch (2023)
Myaap ft. Lil RB - Wham (2023)
Luh Tyler ft. Latto - The Grinch (2023)
The Wild Magnolias - Injuns, Here We Come (1975)
Other stuff: I dropped my best songs of 2023 list, my 2023 late pass list and my best movies and TV shows of 2023 list. I also sung the praises of Ice Ice Baby as one of Rap's best One Song Wonders™. Meanwhile, over on The Spartorialist, King Kos dropped a best 2023 movies list, a worst 2023 movies list and a best 2023 home releases list.
I was flipping through the Daily Mirror this past friday and Garry Bushell had the Danny Brown & JPEG Mafia LP as one of his favourite albums of the year. Gotra be the only time I've looked at a newspaper in 2023 and laughed. The selection makes sense tho - of course Mr. "OI!" punk himself is gonna like a rapper/producer who wears Dr. Martens boots.
Why would you prefer Scarface to be backed by a deejay? Almost all of his beats from the last thirty years have been keyboard/live instrument based with nary a wikka-wikka-waa-waa.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Garry Bushell, critics squabbling with one each other is a close second to rap beefs, imo:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/KermodeMovie/status/1350736702210453505
Because this performance sounds too Later With muso to me. I'll always prefer a DJ playing instrumentals to a band trying to recreate the instrumentals.
ReplyDeleteScarface & his guitar and Mike Dean & his keyboard adding flourishes over the top of a DJ might work better for me, but I'll never be able to enjoy live rap performances with full backing bands.
Spart, if only they'd brawled in a press screening.
ReplyDeleteI might be the only one on the rap internet who couldn't get into Face's tiny desk.
ReplyDeleteRappers with live instruments sometimes irks me because it reeks of the snobby 'let's elevate rap music by playing it with a backing band' and Face leans a bit too much into Andre 3000 / Kendrick Lamar's "Look mom, I'm special!!!" shtick.
Real happy for everybody and good to see Face get more recognition (lord knows he deserves it), maybe just wasn't for me. Juvenile's tiny desk all the way.
That said, congratulations on another year of rap blogging.
"Rappers with live instruments sometimes irks me because it reeks of the snobby 'let's elevate rap music by playing it with a backing band' " but in this case, the songs being performed were originally created with live instruments.
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ReplyDeleteAs bad as most live Rap performances over vocal tracks are, I'd take that over a live backing band comprised of Real Musicians With Real Instruments™ 🤮
2 of the 6 songs in this performance didn't use live instruments for their studio versions and it's no coincidence that they're the 2 worst songs in this performance.
ReplyDeleteNever forget that the only bad song on The Diary was the sequel to My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me with the awful replayed version of the Isaac Hayes sample.
The tinydesks just show up a problem - rap shows suck + tons of rappers could actually kill it live but vocal tracks, no soundcheck, bad mix, bad mix makes them cuff the mic, overzealous hypemen etc. even these 80s lads w “chops” need this neutered muzak so theyre audible. Most frustrating thing about modern rap music by miles, bring back djs
ReplyDeleteFace just had a chip on his shoulder about showing the world hes a real producer w real instruments lol. Weirdly, aside from dj quik n some new orleans rappers, scarface is the only other rapper i can think if whos shined w a band before but that was not in a library n w the proper Backyard Band where the drums go hard not this jazzmatazz version. He absolutely killed it tho, one of the best ones
Spoonie Gee's early recordings over Real Instruments Played By Real Musicians™ gotta be in the pantheon too.
ReplyDeleteSpoonin' Rap
Love Rap
New Rap Language
Spoonie Is Back
The Big Beat
Get Off My Tip
For sure. youd only give it to Spoonie though?
ReplyDeletemad how the early band stuff was on some level tryna reproduce the actual(better) live rap experience n now the positions have flipped. I think my first memory of this fuckery was seeing Mama Said Knock You Out mtv unplugged version on youtube or something n innocently thinking well theres a reason this kinda thing never caught on :(
Id love to know what Pimp Cs studio musician band from super tight/ridin dirty era would sound like live though ngl, I know the lad from the meters could rip
ReplyDeleteSpoonie really knew how to pick them A grade Pumpkin, Sugar Hill house-band and Davy DMX beats. Spoonie managed to get Pumpkin's 2 different eras of beats too.
ReplyDeletePumpkin & his band's Man Machine replay on Fearless Four's Rockin' It knocks harder than the Kraftwerk source material.
There's loadsa stuff from that era which belongs in the pantheon, most notably Chris Stein & co's beats on the Wild Style soundtrack.
It would've been better with less rimshot and a decent choir/backup singers. Other than that, I enjoyed it a lot. Certainly a lot more than Cypress Hill sleepwalking through their set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUApO77uUUk&t=104s
ReplyDeleteI dunno, that Cypress Hill performance of As The Shit Goes Down is pretty much the only Tiny Desk thing I've ever liked enough to listen to more than once. The rest of their set sounded off, but the band nailed that one song tbf to them.
ReplyDeleteI used to think they were all completely original compositions apart from rappers delight, was slightly let down when I heard the og feel the heartbeat yrs ago tbh cos that was one of my fav beats ever.
ReplyDeleteThat being said - White Lines >>>> Cavern
Beat Bop, Teen Machine Rap, you could go on all day about beats that slap way harder than anything from tinydesk.
I wish I could read more proper credits from this era, actually even the late 80s - I just found out dj doc did So Whatcha Sayin the other day lol
ReplyDeleteActually erick n parish barely touched a drum machine until their third album, first one wasall tape loops done by i forget the engineers name. Third albums their masterpiece anyways tho
ReplyDeleteHell no. Strictly Business all day, everyday, forever and a day.
ReplyDeleteHappy new year
ReplyDeleteThe Mic Terror track is dope. Good to hear a Molemen production
Innit just. Song knocks.
ReplyDeleteWhat are some of your fav rap albums turning 30 this year?
ReplyDeleteNo particular order:
ReplyDeleteKMD - Black Bastards
OutKast - Southernplayalistic...
Biggie - Ready To Die
Organized Konfusion - Stress...
Scarface - The Diary
Nas - Illmatic
The Beatnuts - Street Level
UGK - Super Tight
Digable Planets - Blowout Comb
Also very fond of Slick Rick's Behind Bars. The good songs on that are some of his best shit.
Did somebody say something about "Later with Jools"-esque live hip hop? https://strangersthatclique.bandcamp.com/album/the-heavy-after-hours
ReplyDeleteFave rap albums of 1994 (or just the ones that spring to mind right now):
Kwest tha madd Lad "This is my first album"
Jeru "The sun rises in the East"
Streetfighter OST
The Coup "Genocide & juice"
Dred Scott "Breakin Combs"
Arrested Development "Zingalamaduni"
Da Odd Squad "Fadanuf Fa Erybody!!"
Paris "Guerilla Funk"
Gang Starr "Hard to earn"
Gravediggaz "6 feet deep"
YAGGFU Front
"Action packed adventure"
Urban Species "Listen"
The Goats "No Goats no glory"
(which brings us back to the topic of live hip hop)
Most disappointing albums of 1994:
Da Lench Mob "Planet of da apes"
Fu Schnickens "Nervous Breakdown"
Coolio "It takes a thief"
Kwest's album was from 1996. I think he dropped a couple of 12"s from it in 1994 tho.
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