KRS-ONE - Maximum Strength

Released last year, Maximum Strength sounds much better than what an artist's 21st album should have the chance of doing.

But if you feel hiphop with reggae is played out (I don't), maybe you should pass on these.

KRS-ONE - Beware

KRS-ONE - All My Men

"Pun, the one that makes the kids run"

Watching Flow TV's special on Big Pun got me listening to his classics again.

Big Pun was mad charismatic, made better battle raps than anybody, managed to pull of some OK club songs, penned introspective and relationship songs without making a fool of himself, narrated great storytelling tracks, and even dropped powerful political comments. And he was the illest lyrcially, ever. He seperated himself from other technical monsters, such as Canibus, by always keeping the multisyllable madness, the scientific, hyper futuristic lingo deep within the pain and struggles of his everyday life. It is there for a reason, not for just for showing off.

Let us look at often quoted rhyme from his first album. Being in need of money, Fat Joe and Big Pun have agreed to do a quick job for the mob. Everything seemed to go be going well, but soon they will discover something about the people they left "dead in the middle of Little Italy":

"Little did we know we riddled two middle men who didn't know diddily".

With that language-stretching syllable-fest he establishes the scene, introduces two minor characters, tells us what happened to them, and what went wrong. I'm not saying he was the greatest ever. But had he been able to carry his weight and record a catalouge as deep as those of Scarface, Cormega, Ice-T, KRS-ONE, Tupac Shakur, Kool G Rap or Rakim, he might have been just that.

At times Big Pun preferred to spit that undilluted street venom so very few artists are capable of producing these days. Besides being the most technical, he was also one of the most hardcore rappers ever. Proof below; Pun at his rawest, ugliest, at his most obnoxious and ignorant.

Fat Joe, Big Pun & Eightball - Heavy Weights

KRS-ONE and the New World Order

I watched Alex Jones' The Obama Deception yesterday (well, most of it anyway).

While it surely is wise to pay special attention to what kind of people the new president puts in his government (as we saw in the documentary mostly bank people, members of the Bilderbergs and The Trilateral Commision, leftovers from the Bush administration, even Henry Kissinger (of all people) as an advisor), Jones' extreme emphasis on certain people and secret organizations does the whole thing a disservice. Conspiracy theory does not make you feel like the world is in our hands (which it really is), but in the hands of a few very powerful men. His dada-like gusto and ability to dig up interesting factoids should be acknowledged, but his analytical tools need to be sharpened.

What I gained from watching this was mainly a deeper respect for KRS-ONE (who stops by to give his two cents on the new administration). He is one of the few rappers who has had the balls and the intelligence to critize the first black president. His message: "Don't get caught up in the emotionalism of Obama!"

Kris is still completely on top of his game, spiritually profound and verbally razor-sharp, having stayed relevant for more than 20 years, releasing more than 20 albums (Pick It Up form the youtube-clip sounds pretty dope, Maximum Strenght needs to be looked into), and succeeding with seemingly impossible tasks, such as incorporating dancehall and vegetarianism into the boom and the bap and still keeping it one hundred percent hardcore. Twenty-two years after Criminal Minded, he still smacks you over the head verbally. If it is one artist I would like to see live, it would be the Blastmaster.

Now what Alex Jones really should do is record an album with the God, supplying the anti-governmental motivation speeches and creepy electronics backdrops that we are used to from his movies to The Teacher's most politically explicit verses.

KRS-ONE f. Truck Turner - Bring It To The Cypher (prod. by DJ Premier)

Saul Williams f. KRS-ONE - Ocean Within

KRS-ONE - You Thug (prod. by Marley Marl)

KRS-ONE - Sound Of Da Police (Showbiz Remix)

"go and tell ya momma i took a bite outta ya bum..."

Ben Sims, Satie, and the birth of techno music

Hard techno is for dancing rather than for listening alone. But some unmerciful tracks of that late industrial funk music do have that repetitive, meditative quality that makes them work just as well in your headphones as on the dance floor. They win in both situations because, as I see it, the track itself emulates the slow and subtle shifts of the uncompromising techno DJ.

Ben Sims - Jenkins Lane

Monotonous music opens your head. This concept goes back to Erik Satie.

"Vexations is a noted musical work by Erik Satie. It consists of a short chordal passage and a bass line which is repeated twice in each repetition of the piece. Satie recommends on the score that 'To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.' While the 840 repetitions aren't obligatory, many artists have followed the enigmatic suggestion and played the piece with many repetitions."

"The work was first played in public the requisite 840 times, by a team of pianists: John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer, who coincidentally was asked to play in the course of the event) and Joshua Rifkin, with two reserves, on September 9, 1963, from 6 p.m. to 12:40 p.m. the following day."

If you loop something it changes. The sounds grow. Repetition is difference. "You can't step into the same river twice", as Heraclitus put it, to which Chuck D responded, "You Can't Stop The Bum Rush". What a brother know?

Redman, Raekwon, Method Man, Ghostface Killah

Four Minutes To Lockdown

Wu always had the best posse cuts, naturally. This is the best one I have heard in a while.

The Masters / The Mastas

Is it just me, or does B-Real just get better with time? Making music with La Coka Nostra must have made him sharpen his swords. The Chef sounds hungry, so they blend together nicely, just like Wu and Cypress did on Temple Of Boom (which in my opinion still ranks among the most solid rap albums ever).

Raekwon feat. B-Real - The Masters

Cypress Hill feat. RZA & U-God - Killa Hill Niggaz (prod. by RZA)

And here is my favorite track from Freddie Foxxx's underground classic Industry Shakedown (and some bonus collabos).

Freddie Foxxx feat. M.O.P. - The Mastas

Freddie Foxxx feat. 2pac - Killa

Freddie Foxxx feat. Kool G Rap - Cook A Niggaz Ass

Stor - Pyskos (prod. Ears)

"Kompis tjänar cash, går hem och meckar en gås...
han får psykos... psykos? pyskos! psykooosss..."

Ears (vem?) har fått ihop ett sånt beat som man bara trodde Pete Rock eller vad dom från Ghostface-skivorna nu heter vore kapabla till. T o m autone är använt på ett smakfullt sätt, vilket jag trodde var omöjligt.

Att lägga ner sorgligheter över ett upplyftande, solskinande soul-beat är genialiskt, eftersom själva produktionen blir en del av terapin. Och sen har vi texten. Tänk Shunno. Jag har under flera år pratat med kompisar om att Sverige behöver en rappare som förenar det bästa med en Dogge och en Organism 12. Nu är han här, verkar det som. Det är bara till att lyfta på hatten.




En fråga återstår: Varför är Petter och Promoe med på det här mixtapet, när de under de senaste åren upplevts mer som en förbannelse för svensk rap än den välsignelse som Stor måste räknas som?

From the Wu-Marginals: Pop Da Brown Hornet

The Wu stretches far and wide, its disciples numerous.

Pop Da Brown Hornet from GP Wu is one of the lesser known swordbearers. You need his Tha Undaground Emperor if you like Wu and feel like listening to some more of that golden age boom music. It reminds me of Lord Finesse, the flow and clever punchlines and the dusty beats (courtsey of RNS, known for producing Shyheim's first classic album), but with a distinctive Shaolin twist. Among Wu-bangers such as Follow Me Up, Endangered Species, and the excellent relationsship-song Wantz & Needs, we find one of the deepest tracks ever recorded in this genre. Black On Black Crime is his S.K.I.T.S, reality rap at its best, with the saddest violin ever sampled and poetic lyrics painting the everyday madness and a hope for better days.

Pop Da Brown Hornet - Black On Black Crime

Analord, King of Syntesizers

Which is the strongest track on the Analord-series?

AFX - Where's Your Girlfriend

Much of that project reminds me of a favourite from Drukqs.

Aphex Twin - Vordhosbn

Richard's machines play together with the same kind of warmth and joyful improvisation that you'd expect from a jazz band that's known each other for a thousand years. Perhaps he's the Hansson & Karlsson of IDM? Erik Satie as a bedroom producer? The white Miles Davis?

Is this his best track ever?

Apehx Twin - Polynomial-C

You get the impression that he made a thousand similar ones before arriving at this amazing discovery. It's so simple, so cinematic, so perfect. If I have this in the headphones when leaving home, it will be a good day.

In some of his music, especially the meditative tracks from SAWII, there is a strong arhaic, collectively subconscious, nearly religious feeling. You almost believe him when he says he composed that album in a state of lucid dreaming. It's fitting that John Peel interviews him at this place.

Aphex Twin - Stone In Focus

inget representerar bättre den förhöjda livskänslan som hör samman med den rena upptäckarglädjen i hemdatornätverkens generationer

The Producer Of Planet Rock Speaks

Some Vodka brand interviews the legendary Arthur Baker.

Was wondering the other day, when I found the weird but cool track posted below while record digging, what he has been up to since he produced Planet Rock (I mean, that record is my age. I mean that record got mad kids and grandchildren already)?

The Crazies & Arthur Baker Vs Felix Da Housecat - Quiet Riot

The Bomb Squad

After the holy trinity Dre and Primo and RZA, I put The Bomb Squad. Their wall-of-noise aesthetics, their approach to sampling, and their energy and aggression level (as well as their diversity) is as important a leap forward in boom bap research as the discoveries of Kurtis Mantronik or Marley Marl. Their sonic portrayal of the chaotic urban landscape is very much missed in rap music these days.

Public Enemy - Lost at Birth

Although they surely have influenced almost all producers working within hiphop, their sound gave even stronger echoes in other genres. Groups like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers - matter of fact all that big beat, breakbeat, hardcore, jungle, drum n' bass noise - would have been impossible, or at least would have sounded very different without Public Enemy's second and third album.

Public Enemy - Anti-Nigger Machine

Among other guest productions, they went on to lay the sonic landscape for Ice Cube's brilliant first solo album, helping him to make a political record rivaling PE's efforts. And on the Juice soundtrack they helped Rakim make one of his best songs ever ("I'm a put it on a bullet... and put it in your brain!")

Rakim - Know The Ledge

As you can read in the Unkut interview, The Bomb Squad started as a soundsystem, and these days they, like many others, have continued their musical explorations into the realms of dubstep. Rockthedub has paid attention to this, and offers us two of their live mixes.

Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (official video)

Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (official video)

This is nuts. No idea they had videos (alright, in lowest-fi quality but whatever).

The Dungeon Family of the seventies, but a hundred times more ground breaking. The Stooges teaming up with Sun Ra. Yeah, they seem to be making quite a scene running around in New York in priest robes, face paint, wolf masks and diapers. Quite a crowd seems to be forming around them.

A friend who grew up in Detroit saw them perform on some random TV show right when they were getting big (somewhere around 1970 I'm guessing). He was around 12 and said it was like the martians had landed. And the music: african jungle grit, dirty delta blues burned out in urban feedback terror, all wrapped up in some pulsating ghetto spaceship funk. They really had something going on, I mean they're were more than just standing on the verge of getting it on.

Here's that great article about the greatest groups of all time that you probably missed last time.

And if you're smoking good, please get this over here.

Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove

Funkadelic - Whole Lotta BS

Funkadelic - Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow

(Funk is its own reward.)

Thugstep returns

I noticed that DJ Nappy has all his classic blends, or mashups, or remixes, or whatever you call it, in a nice folder right here.

Finally I have an mp3 of Stuntin Like My Daddy again, my favourite track (and I'm not even a Lil Wayne fan) of this marginal but very entertaining subgenre.

Thank you, rockthedub, and DJ Nappy, this is classic shit.

Force Tracks for the summer

I dagarna ligger det väldigt nära till hands att lyssna igenom Force Tracks-katalogen. Techno, som vanligtvis hör natten till, har i den tappning som SCSI-9, Swayzak, MRI, Luomo och Dub Taylor serverar mer att göra med solsken och den urbana semesterns intensiva ljusupplevelser än industriområden och mörka, fuktiga nattklubbar (även fall det ena inte utesluter det andra).

Det här är den perfekta musiken en solig dag när du sitter på vagnen eller går nerför gatan, eller bara sitter rakt upp och ner i parken eller på en uteservering med en kall och kollar på folk; samtidigt oemotståndligt studsig och atmosfäriskt drömsk dansmusik.

Luomo - Body Speaking

MRI - Data Boogie

Scsi-9 - deep&fax

En låt som heter nåt med fax (också HST:s weapon of choice) får två tummar upp. Brytburken har alltid haft ett gott öga till arkaiska kommunikationsmedel - som ex. text-tv-tangentbordet och rörpostsystemet.

Cold Rob: A-Z mix series

Calfornian techno maverick Cold Rob, now living somewhere among the lush hills of São Paulo State, Brazil, sends us this:

I'M STARTING A NEW MIX SERIES A-Z.

HERE'S "A". I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.

PEACE

zSHARE - Cold Rob A.mp3

Starting out tech-house, the set goes into some harder stuff. Dope shit all the way through. Now where's "B"?

Chip music made good

For me personally, chip music rarely goes beyond interesting, but this live set from Quarta330 really delivers, going from an opening west coast vibe through traditional gaming style to bouncy house vibes.

(via Chipflip)

Playboy Tre - Liquor Store Mascot

Listening to this, it's no longer relevant to talk about "southern rap", as if it was a separate entity. This tape, like much other rap from the Southern states, transcends stereotypes and expectations. In a way it reminds me of Jay-Z, both the beats and the raps, except that I'd much rather listen to Playboy Tre. Ultramagnetic to the microphone, he got truckloads of charisma.


Other rap these days:

Max Minelli - Backpack Dreams & Hip Hop Wishes. Another southern over-achiever lays down technical raps over carefully selected slices of classic NY-boom bap. That's a recipe for success.



And these days, when the weather is warm you have to listen to some svenska klassiker:

Ken - Underjorden

Ken - Situation STHLM

Jorge Ben is a genius

Jorge Ben - A Banda Do Ze Pretinho

Play this on the high volume. It's time to clean up your head for the new week.





Jorge Ben, one of the great geniuses of Brazilian music.

Saw this guy live in the center of São Paulo together with another 100,000 people. He pumped out his hot buttered samba for some three hours, calling up girls from the crowd to dance around on stage during a climatic medley that ended with a stunning tribute to his protector... São Jorge. The sixty-six year old musician made it well worth missing Afrika Bambaataa, who played at the same time, but on the other side of the city center.

Racionais MC's - Jorge Da Capadócia

Ken Ring - Hip Hop

jääääääääävlar!


Ken Ring - Hip Hop (youtube)

Ken Ring - Hip Hop (mp3)


Sveriges bäste rappare.


Ken Ring - Bounca Bitch (DJ Large Remix) (mp3)

Ken Ring - Trailer 2009 (youtube)

Ken Ring - Stockholm City (youtube)

Ken Ring - Håll Om Dom (youtube)

bonus:
Mofo the Maverick - Ken Ring

Pstq-bootlegs

Om man inte har nytt material, så kan man åtminstone gå tillbaks och dammsuga fildelarnätverken efter obskyra spår. Här finns tidiga, knasiga experiment, halvsläppta låtar och lösa samarbeten. Man blir påmind att behållningen med Sedlighetsroteln inte var Looptroops och Timbuktus skitduktiga skitnödighet, men exempelvis PstQ på Hallå:

"Jag låter det vara osagt vem som har lama texter,
har pyjamasfester, och vems brud som har adamsäpple.
Ni apar efter oss, men åt helvete med era stilbyten,
jag får lämna varje inspelning med tre jävla bilbyten."

Även om det är ojämnt, bevisas det flera gånger att PstQ kan mer än att skriva krångligt, roligt, otrevligt.

Medan jag sov:

"Jag kan inte skilja mellan verklighet och mardröm
Det som om världen trampar vatten i en malström
Jag kanske vrider mig i sängen, svettas kvicksilver
Eller sitter blickstilla i TV-flimrets krigsbilder
Tillhör det drömmen, febern, mina jämna plågor?
Filmen i mitt huvud är på temat hämnd och hem i lågor
Dårar till män som patrullerar sitt stängsel
Vid minsta misstanke statueras exempel
Och väljer dom att fängsla nån, finns det alltid svenskar som
Saknar ryggrad och låter Pentagon hämta dom
Eller har jag drömt det också? Vänta nu
Är det terrorister eller frihetskämpar vi bekämpar nu?
Jag har en dröm jag kallar flygkaparn och skyskrapan
Monstren under sängen, fanatikern och sydstatarn
Och fy satan vad den skakar mig i själens djup
Jag trodde jag var vaken så när fan tar den jäveln slut?"