Now this isn't a new concept, if you cast your brains back to 2004
you'll surely recall the hype that surrounded Dangermouses' project
which combined the Jay Z accapella's from The Black Album and a
series of samples from The White Album by The Beatles to create
The Grey Album. This was higly acclaimed at the time and has since become
a kind of cult collectors item, and I've seen them go for mundo mundo bucks on ebay!
Must admit I wasn't really feeling that, it was no doubt a good notion but
I like my hip hop with a bit more FUNK than Dangermouse managed to
wring from his sample base. And since he's done that we've had Jaydiohead
Sinatra vs. Biggie, Hendrix vs. Biggie and God knows how many others I
haven't even noticed spamming up the internets.
Anyway so being a Wu Connaisseur I kind of felt like I had to download this one
just in case it wasn't totally shit. Not listened yet and I'm a bit anxious to be honest...
Anyway the long and short is I can get copies of this double pack LP for £5 each at the moment. This is cheap as chips, as I'm sure you're aware, so if you're keen get at me asap. Email shaolin.drunken.monk@gmail.com today to reserve your copy!!
8 Diagrams featured all nine current members, with previously recorded material from Ol' Dirty Bastard, as well as a tribute track titled "Life Changes." Auxiliary members Cappadonna and Streetlife also appear. In an article from Nme.com, it was stated that the album would feature production from Easy Mo Bee, Marley Marl, Q-Tip, DJ Scratch and Nile Rodgers.[6]George Clinton, of P-Funk; Dhani Harrison; John Frusciante; and Shavo Odadjian, bassist of System of a Down are also on the album as well.[7] This is the Wu's first collaboration since the passing of original member Ol' Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004. "We still miss him every day," GZA added. "It's like you lost an arm or a leg; you feel incomplete. You can still walk or do other things, but you're limited to a certain degree." With the RZA adding, "He was a very special person, like a very rare diamond. You know, it's like you wake up one day and they're saying, 'There are no diamonds in the world anymore, just cubic zirconia...'"[citation needed]
nicked from Wikipedia!
Tracklist:
Campfire
Take It Back
Get Them Out Ya Way Pa
Rushing Elephants
Unpredictable - Feat. Dexter Wiggle
The Heart Gently Weeps - Feat Erykah Badu, Dhani Harrison And John Frusciante
The Rza has gone all renaissance and painted some mad canvas type thing. Well i think he painted it, it doesn't really say. ODB and the Gza also cameo in the painting. I think it's pretty odd though.
Yes another week another sample, this time around i'm honoured to introduce a fantastic slice of music from the Stax Records label. Arranged and performed by David Porter, who alongside cohort Isaac Hayes, rose to prominence writing a shedload of songs for numerous Stax artists in the 60's and 70's. Originally released as a single in 1971 before it appeared on his LP "Victim Of The Joke? An Opera" also in '71, This tune has two main samples both of which involve a simple piano refrain that you will surely recognize, go on use your ears:
David Porter - I'm Afraid The Masquerade Is Over
In the Big Apple 23 years later on, a young man named Christopher Wallace and his producer / manager Sean Combs were in the process of recording one of the hottest hiphop LPs of all time, and lifted a piano hook from the tune above which created the basis of 'Who Shot Ya'. After it was released in '95 Tupac thought the song was a diss regarding his shooting in a recording studio in New York in November 1994, although both Biggie and Combs both went on record saying it wasn't as it had been recorded before the incident, nonetheless it is widely considered that Shakur recorded 'Hit 'Em Up' as an answer, although he did save a few choice words for Mobb Deep and freestyle genius Chino XL, who duly recorded 'Drop a Gem On 'Em' and 'Who Shot Ya?' respectivelly, sure i got that on wax somewhere... Anyway despite all the controversy this remains to be a catchy little beat and one of my favoutires from the 'Ready to Die' longplayer.
Notorious BIG - Who Shot You?
Now we're in New York (again) and Robert F. Diggs and his older cousin Gary Grice were plotting world domination with another 7 of their mates. In 1993 the group they were in went supernova and spawned various solo recording projects for the main protagonists. Grice under his moniker The Genius or the GZA dropped a jaw dropping album widely regarded as a milestone in hiphop 'Liquid Swordz'. The LP was entirely produced by Diggs aka Prince Rakeem or the RZA who at the time was cemeting his reputation as the creator of the rawest kung fu styled hiphop beats. It was the first Wu solo LP I purcahsed and still remember ordering my CD copy from Our Price week before it came out - the internet didn't exist in those days and if you wanted tunes, you had to hope Our Price stocked it, order it in yourself, or go to a big store Reading or London to cop that shit. After going down there after 6th form everday for two weeks they finally they had it, having been weened on hiphop with the likes of Cypress Hill, NWA, ONYX and Tupac and it flipped my mind. I was blown away by the intense rawness of the soundscape and masterful rhyming laid down by the RZA, GZA and co. Tracks like Shadowboxing, Liquid Swords and 4th Chamber changed my life! This track is not my favourite of the album, to many heavy tunes on there, however it's still a bad tune which also samples a fantastic film: Shogun Assasin - as several other tracks on Liquid Swordz do. Featuring Old Dirty on the chorus and Wu members Masta Killa and inspectah Deck, this is some real hip hop shit, check it out:
Gza - Duel Of The Iron Mic
And finally a little touch of modern day underground new york music, a retake on the above tune by the Els Michels Affair. Released in 2006 on 7" and also appearing on the 'Enter the 37th Chamber LP' it's well worth looking up! :P
It's been a long time since I've posted any new Hip Hop up on the blog, mostly due to the fact that wicked tunes seem to be quite thin on the ground in '09. With most of our American cousins concentrating on Auto Tuning their vocals to death rather than generating a sick flow over a phat beat.
However I've got a couple of bits I like today, so without further ado here they are:
First up is Ghostface Killah, apparantly his shows in the UK this year were pretty average so I'm glad I got a chance to check him last year when he (and the Wu) rolled through the country! This is somewhat typical for Ghost but I like it:
Ghostface - Forever
And this little number boasts a verse from GFK too, here he can be found alongside Inspectah Deck and sometime Wu collaborator AZ. Beats was produced by a bunch called 'The Revelations' and it's nice too!
Wu Tang Clan - Harbourmasters
I'm a bit late on this one, as it has been doing the rounds for at least a few weeks now. Coming straight out JA this cut see's Dancehall veteran Shaggy (Oh Carolina!) in reflective mood over a lush soul backing. I'm fairly sure the sample is from The Delfonics as I reckon Ghostface also made use of it on his Fishscale LP, will check over the weekend and maybe even do a sampled by?? post... Big Tune!
I ran outta work with that shitty cold feeling coming on and jumped on a train to London at 6, as we needed to get up there pronto cos the doors to the venue opened at 7pm and I heard that the GZA gig in April was not only rammed but he also finished his performance by like 10pm and I definitely didn't want to miss any of the action. After being slightly confused by a mad woman dressed up like Britney Spears in her 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' video who was reading a book about science and flashing her knickers about the train carriage we finally arrived in Paddington got some grub down us and headed over to Camden. As we arrived we rocked straight in the club, no queue, no search, no nothing, although the bouncer on the door did ask me how old I was. I wasn't expecting that at all and pretty much said something like "er what? ummmm really? 28?" so he ushered me past. Strange Times eh? We got inside and the venue was pretty amazing, i haven't been to Koko before and was mightily impresssed with the setup they got going on. We hung about for an hour or so before a flurry of activity onstage preceded the arrival of DJ J-Love (who somewhat alarmingly played no records and instead seemed to have two digital samplers hooked up to a mixer, odd) followed shortly after by the man himself Chef Raekwon with a 'How you doing London?'. He then popped of a couple of verses of a few random tunes like C.R.E.A.M. before bringing out Ghostface to join him on stage and start the performance properly.
Unfortunately the sound system in Koko was not set up as well as it could have been, which meant that I was struggling to identify the half the tunes til Rae started spitting and it's not like i'm unfamiliar with Lex Diamonds' output and even when he was ryhming sometimes you just couldn't hear him clearly over the distorted beat. That was definately the most dissapointing thing about the show for me.
Anyway with Ghostface now onstage and a few hangers on bouncing round stage for those all important chorus shouty bits off they went performing virtually every track off OB4CL with the exception of Wu Gambinos and maybe one other as well as chucking a few other bits in here and there including the RZA remix of Rainy Days (I fucking love that tune) One by Ghostface and of course the obligatory ODB homage with thier take on Shimmy Shimmy Ya. Now I saw Method Man & Redman do the same thing in Bristol last month and they took the roof off! It literally went Dawn Cox mental when they dropped that shit on us, but in London it felt strangly muted, like people were having a good time but they were either too cool, too old or too mean to forget their inhibitions and throw their hands in the air. Ghost n Rae weren't fazed and fired straight into Triumph after that (exactly the same as Red & Meth did) and again it just felt a bit like I was the only person in the venue who bought Wu forever on the day it came out in the UK and listened to it over and over until my ears bled - the vibe just wasn't in attendance.
They took a bit of a breather for a minute and invited some local emcee's up on stage to spit a verse. I think some guy called Strike won, but they all sounded pretty awful to my cynical ears, one of them jumped on stage said he was from Birmingham an got boo'ed off pretty much straight away then gave Rae some grief (why would you do that?). But like Rae said 'being Hip Hop is all about having a big set of swinging balls so you gonna jump up on a stage where no one knows your name to spit a verse' an he's right. De La Soul were chilling on the sidelines and they popped out to say hello and plug (1) their gig in the Forum the following night. Ghostface actually gave them mad props saying that the skits De La Soul put on their first few albums inspired him and Raekwon to do the skits on their subsequent wu releases and as far as he was concerned nobody could skit like De La!
Then on with the show, another couple of tunes off the OB4CL, then they started getting all sorts of ropey assed women out the crowd for some Ice Cream action, man that was funny. Women of the UK you should be ashamed of yourselves, when Raekwon chants 'Yo make some noise if you got a good clean pussy' and recieves virtual silence in return you know you're in trouble. He said it three times in a row and got no response at all so he's all like 'Damn whats wrong with all these bitches up in here'. I was pissing myself laughing and shouting 'Welcome to the UK' back at him loud as I could, because we all know what state most of the women in UK are in at the moment (i.e. worthless skets) after all this equality bullshit over the last x amount of years. Anyway that a whole different blog post by itself... Back to the show, so they got some nasty assed street bitches on stage and start performing Ice Cream while they're all shaking about looking like they are feeling just a bit selfconcious haha, funny but the tune went down well nontheless. Then i think they jumped straight into a megamix of tunes, Ghostface literally pointing at DJ each time he wanted a new beat, ended up being a bit random but all good nonetheless.
Then for the last tune Raekwon went for something fresh of the forthcoming OB4CL2 album, but we had to leave the venue by this point in order to catch the last train home. All in all it was a wicked night but the vibe was nothing compared to the Method Man and Redman night in Bristol, but at the same time we were standing quite far back and the sound system left allot to be desired. I'm totally glad i went though cos everyone knows Ghostface is the fucking man.
Incredible night, Method Man & Redman rocked the Carling Academy in Bristol, with a banging live performance. They kept the tempo up throughout their PA running from classic tune into classic with the crowd ryhming along. Support Act DJ Vadim an Yarah Bravo were well placed to hype the crowd up before the big dogs got on stage. and pulled of a decent act. But the night belonged to Red & Meth who perferomed numerous hits from the wu family (ODB's brooklyn zoo & shimmy shimmy ya took the roof off!) as well as their own banga's. Support was from someone from Gilla House i didn't catch the name of and Streetlife from the Wu fam (I should apologise - I always thought streetlife was the girl who sings on the Wu albums, so i done him a disservice there, won't happen again mate). Gonna be sticking up more vidz and piccies in the next few hours!
