7L Of the Living Dead

When those dudes made a diss rap directed at Byron Crawford, they got clowned on pretty hard. And I kinda felt bad for them because, despite everything else, they were rhyming over a loop from Lucio Fulci's The Beyond soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi. And if you're a serious horror movie fan, you know sampling a classic Fulci soundtrack is the second coolest sample source possible (the first, of course, is peak-period Goblin).

So, lately I've been picking up some 7L & Esoteric stuff I passed over at the time... just whatever I can get cheap (turns out I was right to leave that gimmicky "Herb" 12" alone - whoops!). And it cheered me up when I dropped the needle on this 12" of theirs from 2004 on Babygrande Records, 'cause 7L sampled Fulci's classic theme to City Of the Living Dead (again, all credit going to Fabio Frizzi)! The song is called "This Is War" and features The Army Of the Pharaohs.

Now, The Army Of the Pharaohs is pretty much like The Flavor Unit. At one point ehy were really compelling. And then one of the weakest front-men of the group (in this case, Vinnie Paz would be our Queen Latifah) swapped out almost all of the original members with mediocre replacement acts, ruining their whole shit and spoiling the legacy. I guess that would make Esoteric Apache, the one real hold over from the past period, and Virtuoso could be Lakim Shabazz or Latee... he was allowed to make a few appearances, but basically the crew dropped the ball on his career.

I guess that was a long way to go about saying that this is a posse cut with some underwhelming guest MCs. I don't even really know who's all on here... King Syze, somebody from that group called Outerspace? Anyway, it doesn't matter. They all get that "posse cut" pass, just like those old school songs where rappers would put their dancers, DJs and managers and the record. No one really impresses, but the spirit of a posse cut just makes it all work, and actually whoever it was kicking the first verse came kinda nice. It's all good; just a simple, enjoyable, down-the-line posse cut, just like we like 'em. And it's even got a little bonus scratchin' at the end.

Flip this over, then, and you've got "Rise Of the Rebel," which actually has a similar (but not Frizzi-created as far as I can tell) piano loop driving the music. Esoteric's solo on the mic this time, and the vibe's a little more mellow, as Eso kicks a nice, autobiographical rap about his come-up and his childhood. Nothing incredible, but it's pleasant and listenable.

There's nothing too exclusive to this 12" - both songs appeared on their Babygrande album, Bars Of Death, that dropped the same year. You do get Clean, Dirty and Instrumental mixes for each, though, in just a plain label sleeve. And, come on - how many other hip-hop 12"s are you gonna find with a Gates of Hell loop on it?

How Do You Make the Hip-Hop's Greatest Legends Boring?

I decided to take a random chance on a hip-hop DVD today. It didn't look like much, but unlike most of the cheap hip-hop DVDs out there, Hip Hop Legends represents the old school. That's pretty cool. So how bad can it be, right?

Well, this one opens up with a very high-energy song called "Hip-Hop America," which plays over some credits and random driving footage of New York. I had to skip ahead to the closing credits to see that it was by someone named Deadwate featuring Mag. They played the same song again over the closing credits.

My fascination with the song over, I can now commence to watching the movie properly. In an opening crawl, we're told, "For one night only the pioneers of Hip Hop will get together to share the real story of the movement." Considering the name I saw go by in the opening credits (Grandmaster Caz, Bambaataa, Melle Mel, Busy Bee), I'm kinda amped.

Unfortunately, after that, we run into one of the Achilles's Heels of these hip-hop docs: lame, cheesy narration. Some random guy prattles on about the crime rate in The Bronx and how hip-hop came out of it "and channeled it into something positive." Blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, this guy will keep coming back and back, to drone out about everything we already know. I think more than half of the film might literally be comprised of this guy's voice speaking over title cards.

The rest of this movie, the part we're actually here for, are the interviews. Besides the artists I named above, we've got DMC, DJ Skribble, EK Mike C and others. Unfortunately, they spend most of their time re-saying what the narrator already told us - for example, we're told like four times that grafitti and breakdancing are a part of hip-hop culture, too; it's not just the music. I doubt anyone who picked this DVD up would need to be told that once, really, but okay... maybe some younger viewers decided they wanted to listen to sit-down interviews of middle-aged musicians talk about old music, and this would actually be informative to them ...the first time.

Ok, let's call it like it is. Clearly, this movie is based around the fact that the filmmakers had backstage access to one big hip-hop concert with a lot of old school artists. Some gave them sit-down interviews, and some just gave them a minute or two real quick between numbers. The filmmakers decided, "we can stretch this into a film!" And they set to work adding redundant narration, long credits and some stock photos. But they still didn't even succeed in stretching it to feature length - yup, this is another one of those 60 minute DVDs I keep stumbling upon!

To be fair, if you stick with it, there are a few moments here and there that aren't bad. Busy Bee adds a little humor, and there's a short segment where they actually leave the concert and go film Pow Wow in the Bronx. Someone could edit the highlights out of here and make an okay Youtube video. It still probably wouldn't be that revealing, but it would be cool just to here these guys speaking a bit.

To be honest, I kinda knew this was gonna be another cash-grab DVD... but I figured with all those great old school artists, it would still have to be somewhat worthwhile, right? Nope! Not really... Perhaps if the interviewer talking to these guys could come up with any deeper questions beyond, "tell us how hip-hop started," but there is just nothing compelling in any of this footage. The best thing about this doc is that title song. And it's not that good.

The DVD does have an extra worth noting, titled "The Future Of Hip Hop." It's basically another segment of the film, complete with more narration over another title card and more interview footage with the same guys. I really don't understand why they didn't just leave this in as part of the movie. It would have at least brought them substantially closer to being feature length, and it isn't any less (or more) compelling than the rest of the interview footage. Eh. Oh well, who cares?

So yeah. Don't don't be like me and waste your time just because some great artists are involved. Apparently it takes more than that to make something worth watching. Lessons learned all around, I reckon.

InstaRapFlix #29: Outkast: Dare To Be Different

"The thing that makes Outkast different from everybody else is they wear what the Hell they wanna wear!" That's the opening line. Outkast fans, did you take their music seriously? Sorry, but you'll soon learn their success is entirely due to the vintage clothes they wear. Maybe I just don't appreciate fashion (actually, I know I don't), but that seems a little potentially insulting to me. But then again, you probably won't notice, considering how much more insulting the rest of this film is.

Netflix lists Outkast: Dare To Be Different as 60 minutes, but when you start to play it, you'll see it's really only 41. That should be your first indication that this movie (Netflix rating: a very generous 2 out of 5 stars) is not what you might hope.

It starts us out with an anonymous narrator who confuses the definition of "irony" with "coincidental." She gives us Outkast's basic back-story over a series of press photos. The narration's sometimes pretty funny - I love the way she matter-of-factly states, "Dre often got high while waiting to rob people." Or "Dre's style of dress had people wondering if he had lost his mind, was on hard drugs, or they even thought he was a homosexual." She doesn't even have her facts right (stating Aquemini dropped in 1996, etc).

We get some sloppily-edited EPK footage of Andre talking about his latest album: "it's inspired by the hats - I love the hats! - and the boots the polo players wear." And we get some really horrible green-screen footage of random people - I guess they're just fans - talking about Outkast:

...It actually looks a lot better in that still than it does when he's moving - click to enlarge it. That diagonal line in the bottom left is the wall behind him that they didn't key out, and his arm (his left, our right) doesn't even reach the bottom of the screen.

Anyway, after that we come back to the narrator. That's really the bulk of this film: one woman reading Outkast's bio over some album covers and press photos. We do occasionally go back to the video footage for a few seconds here and there, but it ain't much... In fact, they go back and play the same interview clips multiple times - I can only assume this was a mistake and nobody involved with the production even bothered to watch the movie all the way through!

I did learn a little bit though, I have to admit. I have a bunch of Outkast albums and singles, but I didn't realize "what they became famous for: wearing large caps and dressing in white linen." Once again, I guess it's my fashion cluelessness coming through. White linen was it.

Seriously, I really can't express how much of a non-movie this even is. When the narrator says Big Boi started his own pitbull kennels, the photo isn't even of his kennels - just generic pitbull photos I guess they Googled. I was expecting some unexceptional little collection of interviews edited into a simple little life story, but what I discovered was something exceptionally bad. This is just what they mean when they use the phrase "hot mess." I am actually stunned by what a hunk of junk this is. Only the most desperate, content-starved Outkast fan will want to seek this one out. But at least the user reviews trashing this on the site were kinda amusing.

Sampling for Beginners

Copyright Criminals is a recent documentary, now available on DVD, about sampling and copyright. It's a bit of a short movie, clocking in at just over an hour, but it was getting some positive attention at the beginning of the year. Now that it's officially available on DVD, I figured it was time I give it a proper review.

On the positive end, it presents good points from both sides, letting those both for and against sampling make their case intelligently. It interviews some interesting people from different walks who are affected by sampling and copyright law, from industry employees to DJs to artists who sample to artists who've been sampled. A segment on Clyde Stubblefield, former drummer for James Brown who's been sampled a bajillion times since he performed the percussion solo heard on 1970's "Funky Drummer," one of the most used breakbeats ever. And it leaves you with a pretty solid understanding of the sampling situation.

On the negative end, well, first of all, like I said, it's short. It's short and spends so much time explaining the fundamentals (in case you've been living under a rock since the 80s), that odds are, you won't come away having learned much of anything. This is really a brief, beginners' course on a complex and compelling issue - I was feeling there should be a sequel to get into the more advanced issues and much richer, more detailed stories of real cases made for those of us who already pretty well understand how sampling works. And I'm not even saying this is basic stuff just for us advanced hardcore heads who collect obscure records to read the run-out grooves... even your grandmother who couldn't name a single rapper to save her life will be bored with this rehashed old turf.

The other negative is the constant mash-ups played throughout the movie, performed by some group called Eclectic Method. For about the first fifteen seconds, it's an interesting illustration of how sampling works (in case that you the rock you lived under was so thick you needed to be shown as well as told). They sample old musical clips and chop them into new beats, the way a hip-hop producer would... a corny hip-hop producer, but still you get the point. And for the visual aspect, they show the performance footage of the music they sample. So, again, it's pandering to a pretty ignorant audience, but it's pretty nicely done.

But it doesn't last for just fifteen seconds. It goes on and recurs. And it just keeps coming back, over and over. Soon, a really large percent of this already short film has been given over to this annoying, stuttering video and examples of sampling that really aren't all that impressive on a musical level, either. It's like they knew they had a super short doc, and in order to pad it out into something resembling feature length (which they didn't reach anyway), they let the editor shamelessly indulge himself by looping this footage over and over. When we were discussing this over on the DWG forums back in January, Bob Disaster put it aptly, "those mash up fannies Eclectic Method made me want to stab my eyes out." ...That really says it all.

So, bottom line? It's worth a watch if you can see it for free. It's short, and there are a few bits in there that are worth your time. But it's all been discussed before, and there are much better discussions on the topic to be found, so I really can't recommend paying to see it or purchasing the DVD. There's just not enough to depth to 95% of the interviews that you'll feel compelled to go back to them; and even if you do feel compelled to have a second look, the memory of those awful mash-ups will drive you away.

Mixmasta "D" - Hit Me!

If you don't know who Mixmasta "D" is, that's because you probably think of The Bizzie Boyz as being "Ski and... some other dudes." Well, one of those other dudes is Mixmasta "D." The rest, just for the record, were Fanatic, C.J. Smooth (lol he was the baby on the album cover), Move and Groove. ...Plus, Supreme DJ Nyborn was like an affiliate, down-with-the-crew guy.

So, anyway, after the group went their separate ways, Mixmasta "D" dropped the really tight, underrated Turntable Scientist EP in 1993 with an MC named Flipsyde. Well, now that EP is back in 2010, repressed on Dope Folks Records with three never-before-released extra songs from that same era!

The title of this EP comes from "Turntable Scientist," the CD-only bonus track on The Bizzie Boyz' album, Droppin' It, which was a killer DJ scratch track, showcasing Mixmasta's skills, bringing in a ton of fresh cuts and samples. Bizzie Boyz had a penchant for releasing house tracks, cheesy lonve songs, etc. but when they were on point, they were an example of some of the best hip-hop had to offer. And "Turntable Scientist" was certainly an example of the Boyz' top shelf material.

What's interesting about this is how... like Ski evolved into the Original Flavor crew, who had a pretty unique sound in '93... This EP has almost the same sound. Flipsyde would fit right in on Original Flavor's second album with his swift, tongue-rolling styles here. But where Beyond Flavor started to drag a bit after you got past the terrific single, this EP holds up all the way through... I think it's just a question of more consistent, and perhaps less commercial, production. Had the instrumental for "Lyve," for example, been used on OF's album - with it's funky, buzzing bassline, high-pitched screeching loop and great Onyx vocal sample for a hook - they would've definitely released it as a single. And "Strate Phrum da Krates part II" (what I want to know is: where was part 1 released??) is a massive collection of ever-changing samples and loops combined into one, constantly changing song.

So yeah, this has all four songs from the original, rare '93 EP (and they've remastered them), plus the "Shoutouts," which is set to a def, jazzy beat, so it's worth preserving. The only think they left off is the instrumentals (gotta track down the OG for those. But the price we pay for those instrumentals is, as I said above, three previously unreleased tracks. Can't argue with that!

"Da Weekend" sounds a little older, almost more of a classic Bizzie Boyz'-style song, as opposed to Original Flavor-style. "Scooby Dooby Wah Wah Wah" features a smooth but fun, old school jazz kind of groove with lots of vibes and stuff. Very 90's. And finally there's "Do Whatcha Do Best," which basically takes "Turntable Scientist" from Droppin' It, and turns it into a hype vocal track. This is probably the sickest track on the EP!

So, yes, this is limited. Dope Folks only pressed up 300 copies, but it's fairly reasonably priced at $20 and still available from the label. If you're interested, you can get at them via their blog, dopefolksrecords.blogspot.com. I have a feeling a lot of heads are sleeping on this one, but they're gonna regret it!

Laugh Tracks On Rap Songs

I was just listening to 7L & Esoteric's latest mp3 "leak" that flips "Drag Rap" (I forget what it's called already, sorry), and I was immediately annoyed by a stupid gimmick. Now, it's a contemporary trend in hip-hop, so it would really be wrong of me to single out 7L & Esoteric for doing what bajillions of battle rappers have been doing to their singles for years. I guess it just annoyed me a bit more because I was hearing an artist I like and respect doing it, as opposed to just hearing it on some generic Copywrite song. Anyway, the gimmick I'm talking about is adding a laugh track to your rap song.

Just like in awful sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, rappers are adding cheesy, canned laughter to their songs, presumably by their producer, DJ, hype man or weed carrier who's ostensibly, for some reason or other, standing in the vocal booth alongside the MC. Every time the MC drops a lazy, generic pop culture reference super-sick, killer punchline, the other guy emits a loud, "Ha ha!" "Wooo!" or "Damn!" I mean, really... if you need to tell the listener that your last lyric was supposed to be witty, your punchlines ain't killin' 'em, dun.

I have a theory about this. I think the trend came out of the late 90's proliferation of radio freestyles. With the release of the many volumes of Wake Up Show Freestyle LPs, combined with taped radio freestyles being dispersed and collected in mp3-form over the internet, these freestyles sometimes became more enjoyed and respected than the artists' actual songs ("Nas's verse on that record is alright, but he kicked it better in rare this Stretch & Bob session over the 'Tried By 12' beat, check it!"). And on almost all those recordings, you'd hear the shows' hosts laughing along and amiably applauding and encouraging the MC, clapping, cackling, and falling out of their chairs if the artist said something critical about a hacky celebrity.

But whatever natural, off-the-cuff charm those recordings had is completely lost when you're clearly deliberately editing it into your song in a sad, self-serving attempt to sell us on how funny you are. I mean, it's bad enough when mixtape DJs edit in their own corny voices over the songs they play, we don't need you doing it for them in advance.

Even the actual sitcoms have learned to stop prodding their audiences when to laugh: look at The Office, 3rd Rock, Sports Night, The Simpsons, etc. They've hung it up and respect their audiences at least to be competent to recognize what's funny. Songwriters, seriously, don't allow yourselves to be outclassed by My Name Is Earl. Leave the canned laughter on the dusty shelf where it belongs.

Godfather Donnie

(Youtube version is here.)

Grandgood Caz

Before Grandgood was one of tour leading hip-hop newsfeeds it's become today, they were putting out music on vinyl. And this is their debut release*: a 7" record, recorded in 2003 and released in 2004, by DJ Signify and Grandmaster Caz. That's a heck of a combination right there, so let's repeat it: that's DJ Signify of one of the greatest underground contemporary turntablist crews, the 12oo Hobos, and Grandmaster Caz, the old school master MC from the legendary Cold Crush Brothers.

And if Signify and Caz aren't enough star power for ya, just get a load of the credits: It features a spoken interlude by Waterbed Kev of The Fantastic Five, it's co-mixed and arranged (with Signify, of course) by Stenski and was mastered by SixToo of The Sebutones! That's a pretty damn auspicious (and ambitious) line-up for a debut single from an indie company.

There's no title, but it's just the one song (with the instrumental on the flip), with some almost dark, ominous samples over a funky old school-style congo drum break beat. The hook sings the praises of the four elements of hip-hop: "B-boys make some noise, and all the graf heads, let's tag it up. DJs get busy on the 1s and 2s, and MCs just do your stuff!" And Caz kicks two verses sharing his history:

"I was one of the first DJs to put in work,
After seeing Clark Kent, Coke la Rock and Herc.
I kept the name Casanova, before it was Caz,
And tried to battle Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash.
Me and Disco Wiz, my partner in crime;
He used to cut up the breaks, I used to mix and rhyme;
I used to practice 'till my cuts were right on time.
Then Theodore started scratchin'; that's when I said I'm
Gonna take it to another level. And I did, B:
First cat to cut and rhyme simultaneously!"

Then, just when you think the song's nearing its end, Kev gets on the mic and demands we give them some of that "old to the new school shit." The beat changes, kicking in some banging hard drums and DJ Signify provides a sick scratch interlude (you knew we had to get one of those at some point, right?). Then Caz comes back, kicking a high energy, hardcore verse (pretty much every line ends with "nigga" for one thing). And it ends with one more scratch session. Neither half of the song has that light, bounce, rock style to grab the casual, bouncy fans, and the last verse certainly wasn't opening any doors to radio play; this is strictly for the heads.

And it was marketed strictly for the heads, too - limited to 1000 copies (which was considered a little more "limited" back then), vinyl only. It came in a cool picture cover (above), and is relatively easy and inexpensive to find used today if you dig around a bit. Or, if you're not a vinyl head (what're you doing here, sir?), you can cop it digitally from Grandgood for just $2 ($1 if you don't care about the instrumental) here.


*More or less... apparently there was a DJ Signify mix-CD called Teach the Children released before this, if you count that. But this is catalog number GG 001. ;)

Come On, Motherfucker!

After The Notorious B.I.G.'s shocking death, a lot of projects were released, including everything from incomplete songs, shelved material, hordes of remixes and rejiggings of his old acapellas and even freestyles. One of the biggest of those releases was the Born Again album, released by Bad Boy Records in 1999. That it's a sub-par album goes without saying, but considering we were never going to get any new Biggie material, fans were happy to get what they could. It was consisted of scraps and bits of Biggie material mixed with new producers and guest MCs, meant to give us the sense that Biggie was... wait for it... born again.

One of the songs on that album was "Come On," featuring Sadat X. The rhymes were tight and not material we'd heard before. In fact, the boldly delivered line, "release the brainstorm to make your motherfuckin' brain warm," has even managed to enter the lexicon of unforgettable Biggie quotes, It's just too bad the production, by the certainly not untalented DJ Clark Kent, kinda sucked. I mean... it's okay; but it's definitely a case of the beat not living up to the MCs rhyming over it.

Now flash forward years later. In interviews like this one with UrbanSmarts, Lord Finesse lets the world know, "I did another joint for him that never came out, with him and Sadat X. It's called 'Come On Motherfuckers.' That was dope too, that was real dope."When asked if that would ever come out he simply replied, "I don't know. I got a copy."

Well, come to find out, "Come On Motherfuckers" was the same song as "Come On" off Born Again, but (like everything else on that album), remixed. In an article for The Fader, Sadat X tells us all about it: "Clark Kent did the remix to [the Notorious BIG collaboration] “Come On”, but the original was done by Lord Finesse. I had met Biggie prior to that. One day Bad Boy called me to come on in. Puff was there and it was me and Big—we had a box of Phillies, we just brainstormed and we did it. I found out it wasn’t going to be on the album when [Ready To Die] came out. It was probably out of Biggie’s control, so I wasn’t mad. It did make it to a couple mixtapes, it did get around the underground. They called and told me they were going to put it out [Clark Kent’s version] on [the posthumous] Born Again. I like the original beat, but I was in no position to contest. That was the one song on the album that was actually done with Biggie, most of them were recorded by other people later." So "Come On" was always intended for Ready To Die, and featured a beat that everybody seemed to prefer way more than the subsequent remix? This needed to drop!

Well, a Japanese label called Soundtable, named after the record store it was born out of, came to the rescue in 2008. They actually released it twice: they included it on the first volume of their limited (300 copies) Lord Finesse's Rare Selections series of vinyl EPs [update: according to DJ Mike Nice in the comments, this version is actually different; a first take]; and even better, they released it as its own 12" single, which included the instrumental and acapella! That's the release with the sticker cover shown above, and if it wasn't already obvious, that's the ideal way to have this track.

And the best news is that Finesse and Sadat were right: this track is better. Way better. Like, blow-the-Born-Again-version-completely-out-of-the-water, and-some-of-the-best-work-all-parties-have-ever-done better! This is classic DITC production at its finest; on the one hand jazzy and vintage-sounding, and on the other, ominous and hardcore. The bulk of the instrumental was recycled for Big L's "Da Graveyard," but I daresay it sounds even better here. The fact that this version was shelved is indicative of everything that was wack about Bad Boy. This easily would've been one of the best tracks even on Ready To Die.

Like the Finesse EP, this was also limited to 300 copies. So, expect to pay a bit for this one... There is also a European bootleg of this, which is super easy to tell apart from the legit 12" - it's just printed on a generic white label, in a plain sleeve, and the A-side apparently plays at 45rpm. I haven't heard it, so I can't vouch for the sound quality being the same; and, nowadays, the bootleg is rare enough that you'd probably wouldn't save any money getting that version anyway. So I'd hold out for the OG unless I found a really good deal on the boot. In either case, though, it's definitely worth the trouble of finding for your crates.

The Original Beat Diggin' Doc

I'm trying to get a little deeper with my hip-hop documentary coverage on here lately, if you haven't noticed. And you really can't keep covering these - especially on a site like this one with so much emphasis on underground and vinyl - without talking about the original Beat Diggin' documentary, pretty much the first ever documentary film on the art of diggin' in the crates, at least from a hip-hop perspective. There've been several since, but this is the first.

Directed by Jesper Jensen, this first hit the internet about 10 years ago. And unfortunately, to this day, this remains unavailable on DVD. Part of the reason for that is surely that it's a short film, only thirty minutes long. Finding distribution for a short film is next to impossible. But, fortunately for us, it is literally all over the internet. Just do a search for "beat diggin" and you'll find it on Youtube, Google Video, Vimeo, and a billion video hosting sites you've never even heard of. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say don't feel guilty for streaming or downloading this one; there is no purchasable option.

The documentary is pretty straight-forward... it interviews a bunch of New York's most respected crate-digging producers, including Diamond D, Showbiz, Da Beatminerz and Godfather Don. We see them in the studio and out at record stores, talking us through their purchases. We talk to record store owners and even see some live performance footage by Common and Mos Def (which sorta doesn't quite fit in, but what the heck). For only being thirty minutes, it gets pretty in-depth... Diamond talks about how producers no longer loop drums, "everything's more programmable now," and that breaks are now all about grooves. Godfather Don talks about how to create new drum beats by using pieces of different familiar break beats, and also why perhaps you shouldn't do that. I'm not gonna spoil everything, though; just go watch it.

Since 2001, Jensen's has gone on to produce some other indie hip-hop docs for his production company, Busybody Films, including Tape Masters, Who's Next?, and his latest, Beats, Rhymes and Videotape. You can read up on all those on Jensen's myspace, here, and check out clips and trailers on his Youtube channel, here.

The Return Of Lord Digga... Sorta

(Youtube version is here.)

(And thesix2sixshift.blogspot.com is the blog url I mention in the video.)