rap

A$AP Rocky – L$D

/ David James / 2 Comments

How many rappers drop bars about dropping acid?

This may not be the best tune on A$AP Rocky‘s new album, but it exemplifies the tripped out charm of the whole spacey affair. The video feels like a lighthearted take on Gaspar Noe’s swirling labyrinth of a death trip, Enter The Void, all pulsing lights and liquid camerawork. Check it.

L$D, funny enough, is one of the more conventional tracks on the album. It acts as soft, neon-glow connective tissue, sliding effortlessly into the kaleidoscopic heart of the hallucinatory album. In that way, the name suits it perfectly.

The full album, At.Long.Last.A$AP, is a full-bore journey through psychedelic underworlds both street-level and subliminal. It’s one of the most cohesive yet dreamy hip-hop full lengths I’ve heard in a while, and surprised the hell out of me. After only kind of enjoying his major label debut a couple years ago, this one feels like a revelation.

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If dropping acid really gave Rocky his own revelation, allowing for an expanded sense of his own art, I’ll admit to being a little jealous. It’s been over a decade since I’ve had a deeply psychedelic experience and I feel like my inner life is about due for another little journey. I’m thankful for the reminder.

Notorious B.I.G.’s best tune: Gimme The Loot

/ David James / 3 Comments

This is the song that made me realize Biggie was far more than just the guy behind a few great singles on MTV in my youth. It took years, but Gimme The Loot launched him from a dream to the pantheon of all-time great rappers, in my view.

The beat is monstrous and the lyrics hit hard and fast, dancing in a trick-move delivery that is still mostly unmatched in the world of hip-hop. Biggie could spit rapid fire with eloquence, twisting literary turns of phrase and gutter-blast shade in the same bar, all with a flow and voice so catching and endearing, it was inevitable he’d become a megastar.

Because of the time and place I grew up, my biggest association with hip-hop was via MTV, so my biggest impressions of Biggie were the Puff Daddy features that came right before and after his death. Great songs, no doubt, but oversaturation pushed me away. It wasn’t until the end of the decade, when cruising with friends, getting high, and listening to rap for hours on repeat, that his true genius revealed itself. I was tapped in and could no longer look back. This guy was as real and perfect as Nas on his debut, or 2pac on his last album, for that matter. The skill and artistry cut through the fog of ubiquitous Puffy videos and overabundance of so-so posthumous collections, and I realized what all my friends were loving years before.

As it is, he was cut down in his prime and we’ll never know what could have happened. But this song, and the album it’s found on, Ready To Die, will always stand as a testament to the heights of artistic power that major label rap achieved in the 1990s.

Kendrick Lamar’s weirdest tune: Cartoon and Cereal

/ David James / 2 Comments

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With an alien flow, unnerving production, and stream-of-consciousness lyrics that ping pong from Looney Tunes to Fourier, this song owes as much to out-there jazz and experimental music as it does to Kendrick Lamar‘s more traditional hip-hop tunes.

Listen to Cartoon and Cereal right here:

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Shabazz Palaces Live On KEXP 2014

/ David James / 1 Comment

Witness the most cosmic act in hip-hop, Shabazz Palaces, unleashing a hyperdrive tapestry live in the KEXP studio.

The whirlwind performance shuffles tracks from the best album of 2014, Lese Majesty, unfolding fresh aspects of their sound. There’s also a fine interview, discussing the recording process and what it feels to be making music that sounds like absolutely nothing else on earth.

These guys do not fuck around.

I dug this video from my drafts after listening to the groundbreaking album, Blowout Comb, from vocalist Ishmael Butler’s previous group, Digable Planets. In one of the most improbable second acts in music history, an early 90s underground rap hero emerged over a decade later with a new (at first mysteriously anonymous) project, breaking the few remaining rules of hip-hop like some young start up. With the group’s second album, they transcended all genre definitions, creating a sound as pure as it is unique.

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Shabazz Palaces have officially joined weird, pioneering heroes like Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, Aphex Twin, and John Coltrane in truly rarefied space.

Digable Planets – Blowout Comb: Best hip-hop album of the 90s?

/ David James / 4 Comments

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Inspired by a friend’s reminder, I cued up one of my favorite albums of all time: Blowout Comb, the underrated second and final release from Digable Planets. For those who aren’t familiar, they are jazz-inspired contemporaries of monumental groups A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul… but they go way deeper.

This album is the real deal. Here’s the second to last song, a kind of manifesto:

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Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly

/ David James / 10 Comments

Kendrick Lamar‘s new album, To Pimp A Butterfly, is out by surprise a full week ahead of time. It’s for sale digitally and streaming in full on Spotify. Click play below. Right now.

I’m sick. I woke up today too ill to even go to work. But then this happened. I’m feeling a bit elevated right now.

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I don’t have anything too meaningful to say yet. Here’s a couple comments I made with friends during my first and only listen:

  • I don’t care about what anyone else has to say on the first day of an album like this, that’s going to have a lot of discussion flying around. I like to hear it “pure” as can be, I suppose. So uh, after 2 tracks I’ll just say that I’m really enjoying this, and the dark swirl of production tics is reminding me of D’Angelo’s latest (Best of 2014 album by the way), in a really positive way. Old and new sounds mixing for something vintage but not dated sounding, maybe?
  • Almost at the end. Loving the thick jazz sound. Not quite jazz-hop in that Digable Planets way, it does remind me of their masterpiece Blowout Comb in a very slight way… which is a good thing since that’s a top 10 album of the 90s for me.

There’s no need for a lot of discussion the moment something as important as this hits our collective ears. Just listen and absorb it. We’ll talk later.

Edit:

Second listen observations: thinking that this evokes the warm but gritty production of D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, the sprawling, psychedelic structure of Shabazz Palaces‘ Les Majesty, and the free jazz embrace of Flying Lotus‘ You’re Dead. It’s no coincidence that all of these featured on my Best of 2014 list. I’m linking it again for emphasis – if you like this, there’s a lot of fun music streaming on that page. This album is hitting me with a deep and immediate connection.

The Best Music of 2014

/ David James / 26 Comments

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This is a list of seriously amazing music. The best albums released in 2014, no shit. You probably haven’t heard of some of these artists. That’s okay. That’s awesome, in fact. Most of it’s off the beaten path, and it’d be a shame if that’s the only reason you never heard it. My biggest pleasure with this blog is hearing from friends who discovered something that’s become absolutely essential in their lives. I treasure that feeling and only hope to spread it. Enrich your life. Be adventurous, try out some of the music streaming on this page! It’s free right now and you’re definitely not doing anything better!

Okay.

I know this is late in the sense that most people publish their lists before the year is done, but I couldn’t care less about being first in judging an entire year’s worth of beautiful music. I’d always rather be finished than first.

Every piece of music on this list deserves attention. You’ll probably love some and hate others, because that’s how taste works.

See the Best of 2014 Honorable Mention list for the greatest albums that didn’t quite make the final cut!

[Note: excepting the ABSOLUTE FAVORITES section, these albums are listed in the order I heard them.]

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