QUICKIES NEIL KULKARNI,
neilkulkarni@btinternet.com
Count Bass D
Passing Through NA
4.0
Man, I loved ‘Dwight Spitz’, but this is just thoroughly competent cocktail jazz occassionally punctured with abrupt samples that lead nowhere. Pass. Hippy.
Ghostface Killah feat U-God, Killa Sin & Inspectah Deck
Murder Spree (Remix) Soul Temple Entertainment 8.0
An Apollo Brown production and a ruff, raw and rugged slab of Wu- Tang genius as we’ve come to expect. Ya need this.
Marco Polo feat Talib Kweli & DJ Premier
G.U.R.U Soulspazm 7.5
This will be on MP’s forthcoming ‘Port Authority II’, but more importantly, it’s a
beautifully articulated tribute to Gifted Unlimited Rymes Universal that any Gang Starr fan should get hold of soon as. RIP.
R.A the Rugged Man & Tech N9ne
Holla-Loo-Yuh Nature Sounds 6.0
Been waiting a while to hear from the Rugged Man. Disappointed by this, annoying hook deflecting what great rhymes you can hear (a quite astonishing verse from R.A) but still gonna hold tight for the soon-come ‘Legends Never Die’.
Reks
Mighty Mouse Trap Rap Brick Records
7.0
Not as hot as his two last singles, but still a salutory lesson in great lyricism with an ace uber-funky production from Anthem & Vintage. ‘Revolution Cocktail’ is gonna be served up soon, get in line.
HIP-HOPREVIEWS A-Trak
Piss Test (Remix) Fools Gold 8.0
Juicy J, Jim Jones, Flatbush Zombies, Flosstradamus and the mighty EL-P guest cameo on this, and for once, the party deserves that kind of multi-headed ruckus. Nice thick, heavy synth-saw leads, pulsating dubby electro backing and absolutely no attempt to try and falsely turn that kind of instrumentation into anything lame ’n’ lazy enough to be ‘club friendly’ or euphoric. Wicked posse cut, as found on Fool’s Gold’s excellent ‘Loosies’ comp.
Ab-Soul feat Mac Miller
The End Is Near NA
7.5
Beatuifully bleak production from (Mac Miller’s alter-ego) Larry Fisherman, redolent of Mobb Deep at their wintry best, spectral Schumann-esque piano meeting shifting drones of vocal and a rumbustious jazz-funk undertow to unsettling, chilling effect. Fascinating, occassionally disturbing rhymes from Ab & MM seal a compelling deal. Where it will appear who knows (no mention of a mixtape/album yet), so keep ‘em peeled.
Azealia Banks
Young Rapunxel Polydor 5.5
TWIZZY ABNOXSHUZ ENT
01. JOEY BADASS FEAT CAPITAL STEEZ ‘Survival Tactics’ Creative Control “This track has been on repeat in my headphones for about six months, the flows and
beat are crazy. It’s just got that head-nod classic blow-your-eardrums feel to it.”
02. TASK FORCE ‘World Without Love’ Music From The Corner “Two true UK poets doing what they do best. TRUE HIP-HOP, look out for MFTC 5.”
03. KENDRICK LAMAR FEAT MC EIHT‘Madd City’ Top Dawg “This tune takes me back to 1996 haha, love the fact MC Eiht is on there. The whole
album is dope, check it out.”
04. RAMSON BADBONEZ‘My Sh*t’ YNR “Pure RAW hip-hop. The beat and bars are tooooooo much — taken from the album
‘Bad Influence’.”
05. O.C FEAT BIG L‘Dangerous’ Payday “Classic tune and O.C is, in my eyes, very underrated. R.I.P BIG L — taken from the
O.C album ‘Jewelz’.”
06. M.A.B ‘On A Mission’ Bandcamp “Produced by JCA, the production on this track (along with the flows and lyrics) is
massive. The whole EP itself is worth checking out, ‘The Dark Side Of My Mind’s Eye’.”
07. RAG N BONE MAN FEAT VINNIE PAZ‘Die Easy’ NA “For me, Rag N Bone Man is one of the sickest vocal artists to come out of the UK, with
an old school soul sound in his voice that makes me want to play his tracks on repeat.”
08. JINXSTA JX ‘Question Knowledge’ Bandcamp “This tune is off a mixtape called ‘Promotional Warning’. The message in this song is
very real and my kind of hip-hop. It’s free to download, so you would be silly not to.” 09. BUGGSY FEAT TONY CIKLONE, WALINO, DJ RIOT & DJ
FATO‘Britaly Chillin’ Superwatt “I’ve got a lot of love for the overseas link-up, check out the video on YouTube. All round BANGER.”
10. PHYSIK ‘Underworld’ NA “A very sick up-and-coming artist from Glasgow. This is for the really raw hip-hop
heads who truly listen to the lyrics. He has bars on bars of heaviness!”
Wonderful unsettling intro like something Cabaret Voltaire woulda boomed out of a Sheffield- circling van circa 1975 — then the beat gets going, AB gets going and so does any interest you might’ve had. Bass nowhere near loud enough, vocals actually too distorted to be effective as anything other than a messy irritant. Two minutes in, it all falls apart, and AGAIN it gets interesting. Then the beat starts, she starts barking and again you start snoring. Next time, AB, go harder, go weirder or just GO.
Gunplay
Pyrex Maybach Music Group 8.0
Something weirdly fantastic about this utterly amoral, lyrically inexcusable paean to crack dealing (esp. when heard in conjunction with its deeply lurid video). Partly it’s the demented dwarves-in-the-rockmine loop that’s shot through the whole thing, partly it all hinges on this little hook that happens every other minute that sounds like metal popcorn popping in a pan. It surges ahead in the
Vado
God Hour We The Best
9.0
mix, summoning up both the rock-making process but also the chatter-toothed insanity of the most desperate crackhead better than any more earnest analysis could ever give. Like I say, utterly irredeemable. Utterly essential.
Juicy J feat Pimp C and T.I.
Show Out (Remix) NA
8.0
Again, it’s the bass that’s crucial here, and it’s so solid and engulfing it seems to take up over 50% of the soundscape until you’re waist-deep in it, struggling against the quicksand, happy to slip under. JJ is typically great on the mix and on the mic, and the soon-come album ‘Stay Trippy’ (great title) should be one of 2013’s most illicit thrills. A one- man hit factory.
Papoose
Turn It Up Honor B4 Money Records 7.0
Weirdly clean for a Premo loop, crackle-free and all the more unsettlingly arranged for it, the queer 5/4-time anti-geometry of it distracting you from Papoose’s Bed-Stuy braggodocio until it all clicks in for you a minute in. Hoping there’s more from ‘The Nacirema Dream’ album (ie. stuff that’s even stranger than this) but this still pisses from a great height over much hip-hop production I’ve heard from the States this month.
Phill Most Chill & Mr Fantastic Superfunk Inc./The Most Fantastic
www.djmag.ca
Love the bass on this, a thick, oozing detuned thang oddly reminiscent of New Flesh For Old at their most out-of-control, well served by some heavy kicks and rippling choral vocals. Great lyrics from Vado as well about religious paranoia, the church and the streets that church aims to interpret and control. Crucially, there’s a palpable sense throughout ‘God Hour’ that this could only come from those Harlem streets it so effectively portrays. That’s not down to anything you can put your finger on, but anyone from anywhere can feel it intuitively and instinctively.
AE Recordings 7.5
Love this kinda high-bpm wreckage. We’re kind of somnambulantly going round like hip-hop has to be low-end heavy and sluggish in movement, but ‘Superfunk Inc.’ is a glorious reminder of those Ultramag/Eric B. & Rakim-era times when rap came at you at two thousand miles a minute, so fast you barely had time for your mind or booty to catch up. On the flip, ‘The Most Fantastic’ rotates on the kind of heavy-hitting smoky beats that are gonna sound better the dustier and scratchier the grooves get. A great 12”.
Ramson Badbonez feat Billy Brimstone
Warlords & Immortals Boot 8.0
Boot makes this essential, RB & BB (aka Jehst) makes this double essential, Jazz T & Zygote on the mix make this triple essential, limited edition silver-vinyl 7” makes this more covetable than your neighbour’s ass. Cut-ups of
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