Tuesday, May 26, 2009

MF Grimm: The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man


















If you haven't heard of MF Grimm yet I wouldn't be surprised. Percy Carey aka MF Grimm started of his career on Sesame Street of all places. In 1994 Grimm survived his 2nd murder attempt. Shot seven times Grimm was blinded, deafened and paralyzed. He later recovered his vision and and hearing but remains confined to a wheelchair. Grimm is also known for being a comic book and graphic novel writer. Oh and it's been rumored that he wrote most of Dr. Dre's "Chronic" album. His cd "The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man" doesn't have the best beats, lyrics or storytelling I've heard. As far as best concept album I've heard? Definitely. How can you go wrong when the whole album focuses on a fugitive Gingerbread Man with stories about his gingerbread mansion and carousel in a metaphorical world of Candy Land. By far the best song on the album is "My house". A song about the Gingerbread Man aka Gingy who meets a girl named Gretel (Hansel's sister). At this point Gingy is scared to tell Gretel that he slings candy so he alters his story by saying that he trades it on wall street. "Couldn't tell the truth, had to think quick, I don't work on wall street, I move it by the brick." Gingy then goes on trying to convince Gretel to come back to his house with lines like, "Your perfume, smells like caramel, come to my house, you could ride my carousel". They then proceed to Gingy's house in his chocolate interior, 600 Gingerbread Benz. Back at the house Gingy then gets Gretel drunk off butterscotch, they bust out the whip cream and the rest is history. Insane song and an entertaining cd. Def check it out.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Plan B: Missing Links

It's been a while since I've been on here... I feel like I always say that. Anyways. I discovered Plan B a few years ago and the kid def has talent. Plan B hails out of East London and has a refreshing spin on rap. If your a rap fan and a Radiohead fan you'll definitely enjoy this song as Plan B samples Radiohead's "Pyramid Song".

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Shad: I Heard You Had A Voice Like An Angel/Psalm 137

I can't believe I haven't posted this song yet. I heard it about a year ago and had to instantly go buy the cd. The song has one of the most gripping beats you'll hear these days. To me this song is about having true talent but getting caught up in the fame and the money and having it ruin your music . "Had a voice like an angel, now you score the drama scenes, the comedy's the fact, we enact what you want to be", a great line that i believe to be about rappers becoming movie stars and how it's somewhat ironic. "Had some old songs still stuck in your memory, distorted though, so you sort of re-assembled melodies and fine-tune and turned em into single after single, in this industry you built so sinfully simple for, you to write cuz, a song is what your life was, the destiny of stars is their light must, fight dusk, with sparks of brilliance to ignite us, and of all the billions of stars, you were by far the brightest, I heard you had a voice like an angel, now it's just a light hush...", basically commenting on how artists take other peoples music and change it and turn it into theirs for the money and fame. "They want vessels void and dark as space, fools wanna make stars instead of music that's smart or special, because art at a level that's real can be harder to peddle", sad but true that the music industry makes more money when people talk about cars, money, and all that is cliche in the rap world instead of making music thats meaningfull and beautiful. Anyways be sure to check out Shad, an up and coming rapper out of canada.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Eminem: Infinite

So I'm not a huge Eminem fan but there was a point and time when I digged his music. Being 14 or so when he released The Slim Shady LP it was the perfect "rebellion" type sound that I wanted to hear. After getting older and having my ear lobs mature I thought that his "shock and awe" lyrics where a little too much for me and overall distracting to his true talent. Recently hearing some of his older stuff I remembered why I liked his sound in the first place. I would def recommend to check out the Infinite album and the single from that album titled the same.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Art Of Storytelling

To me the best songs are the songs that actually have a story and meaning. I'm so tired of turning on the radio and hearing songs about guns, cars, money and women. Weather it's a song about a real life story or a song involving fictional characters, it's always enjoyable to be able to drift off and follow the lyricist wherever they may take you. Here's a list of some of my favorites.


















Geto Boys: Mind Playing Tricks On Me
I always figured this song was about a guy being paranoid because of drugs but I heard it could possibly symbolize their need to feel hard and seeing a threat in every situation. Gotta love Bushwick Bill and his verse in this song. I was definitely saying "wow" after the first time I heard this song. "Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared too, Then I felt just like a fiend, It wasnt even close to Halloween, It was dark as fu*k on the streets, My hands were all bloody from punching on the concrete."

Common: I Used To Love H.E.R.
I like this song for the simple fact of it being so metaphorical. In this song Common uses a girl as a metaphor for hip hop. It's rumored H.E.R. stands for, hearing every rhyme. Common basically states that he misses what used to be and criticizes the direction hip hop was going back in the mid 90's. Also referring to "mainstream" rap, "I might've failed to mention that this chick was creative, But once the man got you well he altered her native."

Tupac: Me And My Girlfriend
Another great metaphorical song. Tupac's "girlfriend" in this song is a metaphor for his gun (much like Nas' "I Gave You Power"). "I love you black or chrome, Turn this house into a happy home, me and my girlfriend."

Atmosphere: Always Coming Back To You
Every time I hear this song it's like I'm on a journey. Slug always does such a good job of describing things so well and so subtle at the same time. I think this song is about temptation. "He held the register open, while he counted her change, I was next in line, which meant I was invisible, From where I stood, I could see that the till was full, He didn't look the type to play super-hero." Everything here suggests that he could have easily robbed the store. "Another manic Monday night, it's gonna be a long walk, A car pulled up a fixed up Cutlass, A woman and a child climbed out, and left it runnin." Slug talks about having a long walk ahead of him and then a car is left unattended with the keys in the ignition. Later a kid gives him a gun and Slug puts it in a mailbox to get rid of it. That's my take, Who knows though, Slug is so complex!

Outkast: Da Art Of Storytellin (part 1)
Had to put this song on for the title alone. It's really a great song though. I'm not exactly sure what it's about though. The first verse Big Boi sings about getting with a girl named Suzy Skrew. "I gave her a Lil' Will CD, and a fuckin poster, It's like that now." That line makes me believe the song is about groupies. Big Boi seems to take it for what it is while Andre 3000 seems to fall in love with Suzy Skrew's friend, Sasha Thumper. "Talkin bout what we gonna be when we grow up, I said what you wanna be, she said, "Alive". Def the songs best line.

The Lost Boyz: Renee
The song describes a man who meets a girl and a relationship soon blossoms. Renee later gets shot and dies. "Ghetto love is the law that we live by", referring to inevitable tragedy and loss for those who live in the "ghetto".

CunninLynguists: Seasons feat. Masta Ace
Another song that uses metaphors to describe hip hop. The lyrical content in this song compares the four periods of hip hop to the four seasons of weather. Masta Ace compares Old school hip hop to spring, Deacon The Villain compares the Golden age of hip hop to summer, the third verse handled by DJ Kno compares late 90's hip hop to autumn and in the last verse Mr. SOS compares the bling era to winter, referring to it as the "ice age". Basically pointing out the decline in hip hop. My favorite line in this song is, "Jolly, fat, white men get paid when rap hits the shelves, And artists themselves get treated like Elves, Matter of fact, Santa's gotten so greedy when a rapper sells, You even need clearance to sample Jingle Bells, What the hell?"

Friday, March 6, 2009

2Pac Out On Bail (Live 1994)

So obviously 2Pac is far from underground. Basically this site is about good music and 2Pac definitely provided that. These days you see performances on tv at various music awards and Grammy's and they disappoint 9 times out of 10. Don't get me wrong, Kanye's "Hey Mama" at the Grammy's last year was one of the better perfromances I've seen in a while but overall rappers of today have lack luster stage presence at best. 2Pac always put in so much energy and passion into his music and you can definetly see that in this perfromance at the Source awards.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Hammer Man Cartoon

This post strays from what you'd normally expect to see on this blog but it's a necessary post indeed. MC Hammer was the first hip hop artist that inspired me to listen to the genre and therefore I'll always have a soft spot for him. Hammer Man and Waynehead (produced by Damon Wayans) are 2 of my favorite cartoons from this era. Here's the intro (classic). Sadly it only lasted a season.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Naughty By Nature- Feel Me Flow

This music video from the mid 90's is one of the more memorable one's for me. I mean yeah there's ladies taking their shirt's off and wet t-shirts but for some reason it just seems to be in better taste than the music videos of today, it has that feel to it like it's all in fun. From the use of pagers to the then cliche blurred out t-shirts, this video by Naughty By Nature will always bring me back to my childhood.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Horrorshow Interview

Normally I'm the type to discover music on my own, by way of the internet, magazines or even through related bands. When I first heard about the Horrorshow it was through a good friend of mine. So obviously I had to give them a listen. When I did I was pleasantly surprised. Horrorshow hailing from Australia consists of Adit (producer) and Solo (vocals). With that being said these guys don't need much of an introduction.














Your beats are what first drew me to your music. Do you find you are sampling material, or are you creating original material in the studio?

We do a bit of both to be honest. Adit can play bass and guitar and a little bit of keys as well so he mixes those elements of live instrumentation in with samples and synths and all kinds of shit. Sometimes a beat will be entirely drawn from one sample or a collection of samples put together and sometimes he'll play the whole thing live. There's one track on our album that we recorded with a band and also some others where we got friends to come in and play instruments on top of samples - - it really depends on what we're trying to achieve with the track.

A couple of videos featured on your Myspace show you performing with a live band. Is it hard to take your songs and reproduce them with a live band on stage? Have you ever considered adding a permanent full band to Horrorshow to perhaps gain a more mainstream appeal?
It's not hard to take our music and play it with a live band because when we do that we're not too concerned about exactly re-creating the original track, we prefer to just take the original track as a starting point and develop a version of the track which is gonna work with the live band format. Obviously it's a very different kettle of fish and you can get a very different sound with all those instruments so we like to play around with that - it's more fun that way. As far as making the band permanent, that set was a special one off thing we did for our album launch. With that said, it was a lot of fun and worked really well so it's definitely something we'll think about doing a bit more of in the future. All of the musicians in that video are our friends and most of them we see them or play with fairly regularly. But if we were to do that it wouldn't be for mainstream appeal - it'd be because it sounds fresh. There's something very rewarding about working on a bunch of songs for so long and then hearing a band transform them into something else all together.

Some of your songs mention "Sydney hip-hop politics," with references to clothing and style. How do you see Sydney hip-hop culture affect your music, and in your mind, how does Sydney hip-hop differ from that of mainstream American rap?
Sydney hip hop culture affects, or at least has affected, my mindstate and the way I see the world and my city. Sydney has a great vibe and increasingly alot of dope hip hop is being made here, but there's also some stuff which is pretty wack. I guess in some ways that added to my hunger to try and make our own attempt at bringing what we have to the table. We also all had a keen interest in graffiti while we were growing up in the "scene" and I think through that we got more of a feel for hip hop and all its elements, the importance of style etc. To me hip hop from Sydney is so different from mainstream American rap I'm not sure where to start but in alot of ways they're just reflective of the environments that birthed them, just the same set of tools - beats, rhymes, cuts, call and response etc - being used to reflect on what are two very different societies.

Would you like to take your music worldwide? What do you see the challenges are in bringing your style of hip-hop to a global audience?

Of course we'd like to take our music worldwide. It's not really somethign we're specifically aiming for because in reality it's a pipedream - exporting australian hip hop to the rest of the world is a difficult task I think because in a lot of ways it deals with distinctly australian issues and voices and so it's not always as appealing to people from other countries. With that said I've had people hit us up from Mexico, Germany, Portugal, London, the U.S. and all kinds of other places saying they're enjoying the music so hopefully one day we can take our music in some form overseas. Some acts from Oz are starting to do so now and that's really exciting, hopefully they can break down some barriers for the rest of us.

When I first heard the name "Horrorshow" I instantly thought of heavy metal music. Do you think your guys' name has affected people's willingness to give your music a listen?
Possibly - who really knows. I think it's worked both ways cos we get some pretty scary looking metal fans who add us on myspace obviously having checked us out for the same reason you have. We definitely get very mixed reactions on the name but I'm not too fussed. Alot of people say to me "oh but you guys don't sound like metal" or "I thought you guys would be like horrorcore" but really they're not looking past the initial aesthetic or imagery of the name and looking into what it actually means, which is what it's all about to me.

If someone was to listen to you guys for the first time what tracks would you suggest they listen to and does that differ from your own personal favorites?

I would say No Rides Left, possibly also Waiting For The 5:04, All Summer Long and Choose None or something like that. To be honest I struggle alot with personal favourites, choosing a favourite track is like trying to say which one of your kids you like the best. One might be ugly, one might be funny, one might like to party alot and one might be really depressed but they're all my kids and I love em to death. I think that's the thing with our first album, we were experimenting with creating a lot of different moods and so there's quite a wide spectrum of stuff on there. But yeah - I would say No Rides Left, i think it best captures what we were tryign to do with that album.

So whats next for you guys? What do you hope to accomplish in life and in music?
Touring, a new album - we're trying to stay busy and make the most of what opportunities come our way. As far as what I want to accomplish in life and music? That's a question that I don't really know the answer to. The past 12 months have been absolutely crazy for us and we've already been so lucky to have some of the experiences we've had - touring with Hermitude, getting down with all the Elefant Traks crew and playign some really awesome shows alongside our friends like Spit Syndicate - we're really just taking it as it comes. But hopefully we'll be around (in music and in life) for a while to come..

If you guys were to have a metaphor for your music what would it be?
Um... I'll make one up. Our music is a big fat joint - it lifts your spirits, makes you laugh sometimes, makes you hungry for more, is best when shared with friends and above all it makes you think.

I'm definitely sold on you guys but for those who aren't or may not have heard of you yet, what's something you would say to persuade them?
I would simply say (and I don't know if this would convince people or not) that our music is honest. A lot of people who know me and Adit will listen to our music and be like "yo that really sounds like you guys" and I would have to agree with them. I think it's weird that I should be using that characteristic as something which will differentiate us from the pack or whatever but I feel like a lot of people these days aren't making music that's really that honest. They're making music which is trying to sound like some kind of preconceived idea of what it should sound like - people just copying each other or writing songs which are saying very little at all about themselves and that's not really our style. We're not reinventing the wheel by any means but we are making honest, heartfelt music and we do put a lot of time and effort and thought into it. so check us out... you never know, you might like it.

Make sure to check out the Horrorshow on their myspace and once you do that you can support these guys by buying their new album, The Grey Space.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Cyne- Steady

In case you're too lazy to check them out yourself..... here's a taste of what to expect from CYNE. This is the first song I heard of theirs and was the catapult for my appreciation of CYNE.