Two From Twist

Today we're going to look at two singles from San Jose's own MC Twist. Most people know him, if they do at all, for his period on Luke Records in the late 80's with The Def Squad. But today we've got two of his later period singles from when he came out on the indie label Lethal Beat Records, who also put out Ground Zero, a group I was a fan of for a short while in my youth (we'll get to them another day).

These records are harder, more street and less dance oriented than Luke's Twist. Now, MC Twist was never really a great MC, by today's standards or back then; he wasn't bowling anybody over with his skills. But he came hard, angry and conscious on these joints, which is always an appealing combination to a true hip-hop fan.

First we'll look at "A Step Beyond" - that's the picture cover at the top of this piece. Klu Klux Klan, burning crosses, nooses, newspaper headlines of violent crimes... and MC Twist standing shirtless but in an African medallion on the bottom right corner. If ever a picture cover said "aww shit... it's on," this one does.

Now, I'm not sure if the song quite lives up to the cover - what could? But Twist, who also produces all his own material, certainly tries. The beat is big and hard, but with a funky bassline. The hook consists of a nice pairing of vocal samples by Too $hort and Rakim, and other parts of the song feature sampled, stuttering speeches. Unfortunately, Twist's voice and simple delivery don't manage to keep the promise of the instrumental. This is the kind of song that calls for young and angry Ice Cube, and Twist isn't that. He does grow on you with repeated listens, though, as you get used to his sound. And he at least comes off as determined and sincere in what he's saying - he's got a strong "fuck racists and stay up despite life's hardships" message that he clearly believes in.

The song comes in Clean, Dirty and Instrumental versions. But more interesting perhaps than even the song itself is the strange bonus track, "1-900-KKK." "1-900-KKK" features the same music as "One Step Beyond," but instead of rapping we here Twist briefly explain that racism is as prevalent as ever, and he wants us to listen to this crazy KKK phone message he found. We then hear a completely crazy racist tirade some KKK nutjob apparently left on his answering machine... a real, on-going rant against white women who date black men (though he uses some different terms, as you can imagine), George Bush and "gooks." Finally, Twist comes back on and actually gives us the number so we can call it ourselves. I'd print it here, but this many years later, I can't imagine they're still in service.

Next up we have "S-M-O-K-I-N-G C-O-K-E," obviously an anti-drug song. The beat is basically a stripped down version of Gangstarr's "Knowledge," with some well chosen samples from songs like Too $hort's "Girl" and NWA's "Dope Man." This is one of those from the days when anti-drug songs were as hard and street as any pro-dealing gangsta record. Yeah, he has a message again, but Twist doesn't like coke addicts and doesn't feel compelled to tell you in polite terms. There's nothing on here but Radio and Club versions of this song, but who cares? They just don't make music like this anymore.

Do the Fila and the PeeWee Dance

This is a great, early single from Steady B... back before he was Steady B, and instead had one of the most unfortunate rapper names this side of Shorty Shitstain, MC Boob. It's not his first single... he'd already released a couple 12"s as MC Boob. So he might've went with the name MC Boob here because this is sort of a tongue-in-cheek record. But Boob is a nickname he kept indefinitely (he even refers to himself as Boob on some CEB tracks), so I can't really say why he used that alias specifically for this. Maybe it was a Pop Art contract thing, since he released this on a separate label.

Anyway, the record is called "Do the Fila and the PeeWee Dance" and it dates all the way back to 1986 on Three Way Records, the label's only release. He later shortened the title to just "Do the Fila" (probably for legal reasons, but maybe also to make it more his own), but this is the O.G. 12" with the original full-length title. And if you hadn't already guessed, this was Steady's answer record to the surprise it, "Pee-Wee's Dance" by Joeski Love. That song was an ode to the goofy dance Pee Wee Herman used to do on his kids' show... but apparently, this dance is slightly different. In this song, Steady actually shares an account of how he met Joeski Love (not that I believe it's actually a true story) and they compared dances:

"He moved his hands
In the air like this,
Then I tried to do it
'Cause I couldn't resist.
I said, 'it ain't like that.'
And he said 'why?'
'Cause I'm doing this dance
Called the Fila!"

And by the various descriptions of the dance in the song ("then I bent my legs like I was 90 years old"), I think Steady is saying that "The Fila" is exactly the same dance as "The Pee Wee," except you call it "The Fila" if you're wearing Filas when you do it. At any rate, he wants us to know that he's the master of both, so you shouldn't fret about the distinction.

The music is credited to the mysterious J&S Productions. I assume that's just an alias for Lawrence Goodman, for reasons I'll get to later; but hey, who knows? On the surface, you might say it doesn't matter much anyway, because they're just jacking Joeski Love's beat. But this isn't strictly true. It does use that same, signature "ba bop bah-bah bah-bah bah buh, ba bop bah-bah bah-bah bah bop!" sample, plus that bugged out instrumentation on the breakdown, but the rest of the music is markedly different. The drums are much rawer and harder... The down beats are much deeper and have some really nice echo. honestly, I'm a big fan of the original, but to play them back-to-back makes Joeski's sound like something made with a toy tin drum set.

So with a much bigger bang to the instrumental, and a thematic shift from a kids' show to fly sneakers, this is definitely the version for the streets. There's nothing else on this 12" except the instrumental on the flip. What's interesting is that when Steady put out his first full-length, the self-titled Steady B, later the same year on Pop Art, this wasn't on there. But when the Jive Records later picked it up and gave it international distribution under the new title, Bring The Beat Back, they added this song. And on that album, all production credit goes to Lawrence Goodman (except the one Marley Marl track)... so that tells me J&S Productions was almost certainly an LG alias; and if it wasn't, then he wound up with the credit anyway. ;)

The First Appearance of Jay-Z

(Youtube version is here.)

A Great Big Book of Rap Lyrics

Hitting bookstores today is The Anthology of Rap, edited by Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois from Yale University Press. I hope I won't be accused of over-simplifying when I state that this is a great big ol' book of rap lyrics. Like dictionary big. And it's pretty much nothing but transcribed songs, plain and simple. I mean, there is an introduction, a forward and two "afterwords." Plus the book is divided into chapters, designating eras in hip-hop. Those have little introductory paragraphs. And artists have brief bios for the uninitiated. But you're basically just looking at 700+ of typed-out rap songs. So, is that a good or a bad thing? Well, let's see.

My first thought when I got this is probably what you're all thinking: aren't all of these song lyrics, and bajillions more, already easily available on the internet? Yes, of course. Ten years ago, this project probably would've had much greater commercial prospects, but I'm guessing many of you guys will be thinking it's just plain crazy to plop down $35 (the book's cover price) for a small sampling of what's already available online for free. And... you'd have an excellent point.

But before we dismiss it entirely, let's move on to the second thought that hit me when I received this book: most online lyric transcriptions are riddled with down-right embarrassing errors. Having transcribed a few songs for The OHHLA myself, there's often that one line you can't quite make out, maybe due to a reference you don't get or phrases you're not familiar with, and you're left just trying to sound it out... So, I wondered, did this book just google these songs and lazily cut and paste those transcriptions, ridiculous goofs and all?

I'm happy to report the answer to that seems to to be no. I've flipped through this volume again and again, looking to stumble upon something laughably stupid, and the only errors I could find are debatable and nitpicky. As an example, according to The Anthology, Slick Rick's "I Shouldn't Have Done It" starts out with the lyric:

"Well, I'ma tell you a story and I come out bluntly,
Want a ugly child? Hey, nobody would want me."

But I'm pretty sure he's actually saying:

"Well, I'ma tell you a story and I come out bluntly,
Born an ugly child. Hey, nobody would want me."

But compare that to OHHLA's:

"Well I'ma tell you a story and I come out bluntly
Wanna ugly shot, hey nobody will want me"

Now, that's just clearly wrong. So The Anthology has stepped the game up considerably from the usual transcriptions found online, which goes a good way towards making this a more valuable resource. Even this example song has more errors on OHHLA, which are not carried over to The Anthology (the book and I agree that "I love the wedlock, what up, not going to front/ See the problem that arouses, why on earth did she want me?" should instead read, "I loved her a lot, word up, not going to front, see?/ The problem that arose* is why on earth did she want me?"). And both The Anthology and I concur that the OHHLA is the best of the online sources,** so The Anthology has the best transcriptions you're going to find anywhere.

But of course, where The Anthology is lacking is the natural limitation of the book format. Despite the size of the thing, this book still only includes three Slick Rick songs, whereas OHHLA has about 80. They do an admirable job trying to capture nearly every period of hip-hop (disco era, gangsta, east coast, west coast, underground, pop, the complex and the embarrassingly simple, etc), but in the end, some omissions and choices are a bit suspect. At a guess, for instance, I assume they only included Blackalicious's "Alphabet Aerobics" because they were unaware it was just a simple retread of KMC Kru's "Alphabet Rhyme;" and if they'd been familiar with both, would have included the latter instead.

But my point isn't in playing the "they should've picked this song instead of that song" game. It's just that - because their selection is forced to be so limited (not their fault; it's the nature of the medium) - this book will only serve as a handy reference in those rare instances where the authors just so happened to have coincidentally chosen to include the one song you're interested in looking up. The odds are overwhelming that whatever song you're curious about at any given time won't be in here.

However, if you read the introduction, the authors seem to expect you to not so much use this as a tool to pick through and reference lyrics, but as something to read from cover to cover, more like a book of poetry/ educational tool. As a book of poetry... I think people will (and should) just prefer to listen to the actual songs. And as an educational tool... well, a collection of lyrics with no analysis or commentary is a bit dry, to say the least. Especially 700+ pages worth.

So, bottom line, this seems more like an interesting, and probably exhaustive, exercise on the editors' part than anything most heads will care to concern themselves with. I guess they intend to foist this over mostly on students who will be required to pick this up for a course (it is, after all, from a University press). But it IS neat to have a decidedly more accurate take on these songs than are available elsewhere.

So whether to recommend it to you guys? I'm actually a bit torn. I'm happily hanging onto mine now that I've got it; but I can't say it's worth the hefty cover price. If you're living a "money is no object" lifestyle, then certainly pick this up. It's a fun addition to your collection. Otherwise, though, I'd say hold off unless you come across it super cheap in a discount bin someday. And students, if a professor assigns you this book, just drop by The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive and save yourself the expense. The education system is milking you for enough cash as it is.


*Actually, The Anthology says "arise," which I think is wrong, too... I suspect they stumbled on Rick's accent there. But the point is: they're a lot closer than the other available sources, and give you a truer representation of the substance of the song.

**No shots intended at Flash at all in pointing out these errors. It's a great and invaluable site I'm proud to have contributed to, at least a tiny bit.

Update 11/5/10: Uh-oh... Have a look in the comments. It looks like actually the answer was yes, they did just lazily cut & paste OHHLA's transcriptions. There's a rather damning article posted about this book on Slate that not only spots some more errors (to be expected)... but the problem is that those errors are all duplicates of OHHLA errors. For example, both OHHLA and The Anthology write this line from Ghostface Killah's "Daytona 5000:" "voice be metal like Von Harper." The actual line is "voice be mellow like Vaughan Harper."

Now, the problem isn't that The Anthology made a transcription mistake... or that the editors didn't research Vaughan Harper's name. The problem is that The Anthology reproduced the same, bizarre alternate word and spelling choices printed on OHHLA's website. And it's not just this Ghostface quote, their other errors also seem to be carry-overs from OHHLA.

What does that mean? Apparently, instead of doing their own research or transcriptions, they just copied OHHLA's work and made some alterations. That's sorta like, yaknow... plagiarism.

Every transcriber is credited on OHHLA for the work they submitted on the actual page of the transcription. But I don't see those credits carried over anywhere in the book. ...I'm glad I don't work in Yale's legal department right now.

Now, on the positive side: they clearly did do some error-correcting. So like I said in my initial write-up, the book's transcripts are more accurate than OHHLA's. But, yeah. Disappointing revelation there.

Is Hip-Hop Not Crazy Enough for You?

If you ever find yourself lamenting how hip-hop just isn't crazy enough for you, you'll probably be wanting this. This 12" is "Live From Death Row" by Memory Man, the first release on his own label, Angry Bee Records, from 2006. It features BusDriver and MC Paul Barman, and that line-up alone is probably giving you several ideas of what to possibly expect. And they're probably all correct.

Probably the best aspect of this is that it isn't the hopelessly juvenile joke track we've all come to expect from Barman. I mean, yeah, it's jokey and downright silly at times; but instead of the "I'm really bad at sex, ha ha ha" content that made him relatively famous, this song tackles serious subject matter. I don't know if there's really much direct connection to Mumia Abu-Jamal besides the fact that they've used it him as a title source, but this song is about capital punishment and all that entails.

In fact, actually, BusDriver's verse sounds jokier than Barman's. He raps in a confessional style of a victim of rape and incest turned murderer facing his last moments on death row... which I realize doesn't sound funny, but it's packed with lines like, "my last meal consists of chopped liver, pop singers and a chocolate chip cookie." Barman's verse is reminiscent actually of Lateef's verse on "The Wreckoning," where he graphically describes the process of decomposition of the human body. Here, Barman spends much of his time graphically detailing the experience of dying via lethal injection, though he carries it farther, following the prisoner all the way to Hell.

All I can say is that both verses are of the sort that reward repeated listenings, which seem to be fewer and fewer these days. This is enhanced because both MCs rap really fast, over a hyper-kinetic, ever-changing musical bed. The loops are constantly changing and in constant cheery defiance of the subject matter, playing circus horns one second and happy bells the next. You could easily listen to this song a dozen times and have no idea what it was about unless you were paying rapt attention.

The B-side, "Live From Death Row Pt. 2," disappointingly does not feature the MCs from part one. Instead, it's a new beat by Memory Man, covered in vocal samples of various news reports and soundbites about the death penalty. It's interesting, and the music, while decidedly different from the A-side, keeps the notion of pairing energetic, constantly changing up-beat vibes with somber stories of sanctioned death. In fact, Mumia himself is actually sampled at one point, reporting the case of a man convicted in an unjust drug bust. And unlike the first one, this one has a nice breakdown where Memory Man is given a chance to show off his turntable skills. But in the end, it still doesn't have half the appeal of the compelling A-side. Instrumentals for both parts are also included.

There's actually two versions of this 12". It was picked up and rereleased in Europe by Chopped Herring Records, and that 12" includes everything from the original Angry Bee release plus a bonus track. It's an instrumental called "No Smoking In the Gas Chamber," a slower, darker instrumental that still has a catchy upright bass tune and looped vocals telling us "there'll be no smoking in the gas chamber." It's a cool little bonus, but if you've already got the domestic release, this isn't worth going out of your way for. The real gem of this 12" is just the main track - the rest is just extra.

So I wouldn't be too fussed about which version you pick up, but you should definitely pick up some version. Even if you're someone who finds yourself exclaiming, "oh, I HATE Paul Barman" whenever he's brought up, trust me and give this one a chance. It's just a flat-out great, timeless rap song that deserves a lot more recognition than it gets.

The Ultimate In Horror Disco Rap

Okay, my fellow bloggers... Who else is doing a Halloween themed post today? I want to see lots of fun, scary hip-hop posts when I check my reader Halloween evening. Here's mine:

Here's a Halloween, monster-mash-style rap song most people have never heard of... but they really should seek it out, 'cause it's one of the best. It's M C G's "Friday 13th" on United Sound Music from 1985.

So, like the title says, this is a very disco rap-style horror rap. I'm not sure how much of the music is by a live band and how much is programmed and looped, but it all sounds very rich, so I'd guess that at least some of it is live. In either case, it's great. It's got a lot of spooky but up-beat synth notes and crazy sound effects. There's a simple, sung hook that just goes, "Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th." But damned if it isn't catchy as hell the way it meshes with the music.

Lyrically, it's a simple and familiar narrative: M C G is invited to a party to MC, but it turns out it's a party being held by monsters! Of course, the narrative isn't the point, it's just a fun excuse to come up with lots of goofy and fun rhymes about a long list of famous monsters (of Film Land?). And M C G has that great, bassy radio-DJ voice that a lot of the early disco rappers used, and it sounds great. Everything about this song is 100% enjoyable... check a sample of the rhymes:

"I was invited to a party to MC,
Wouldn't exactly say it was the place to be.
I got scared outta my wits
When I seen who was playin' all the hits.
It was the one they call Transylvania D.
He said, 'welcome to the party, M C G.'
It was a hot summer day when he passed away,
But he was at the party, ready to play.
I looked at him with nothing but fear,
He said, 'don't be afraid, get over here.'
Then the beat got vicious and so nutritious,
I rapped so hard I broke all the dishes!"

This record is on the rare side. But it's absolutely worth seeking out if you enjoy the really old school old school stuff. And the fact that this is a great Halloween record only adds to the appeal.

Happy Halloween!

A Couple of Twins

(Youtube version is here.)

Creative Juices Music

More hot new music? How about a whole label's worth? Until pretty recently, I was sleeping on these guys, which gave them a chance to create a whole back catalog of ill music I need to check out. In case you've been missing out, too, I'm talking about Creative Juices Music. They got plenty of new talented artists putting out their first releases, including Alucard, Critical and Ide, who seems to be their centerpiece artist. And they've got some established artists signed to their label, including Jise of The Arsonists and UG of the Cella Dwellas.

The label has a surprisingly unified sound... The production is rich and the lyrics are very late 90's. Think of that era when you first heard The Rebel Alliance or Jedi Mind Tricks, or when Canibus was an exciting new artist. The lyrics are smart and sometimes topical, but they still retain that raw hip-hop freestyle nature. All the MCs come with nice lines without sounding jokey, instead remembering to fall back on creativity and flow. They've got a house DJ, DJ Connect, adding first class scratches to their projects. This label is the epitome of "keeping it real" from a late 90's ethic. Hell, this is the label that got The Outsidaz to reunite ("Still In This" features Pace Won, Young Zee and Yah Yah)!

I've recently picked up a bunch of their projects - if you want a good place to start, try Ide and DJ Connect's incredible Ideology and Ide & Alucard's For Fuck Sake album, an ill ode to liquor - but still have a bunch more to score. And if it's still all a little too overwhelming, fortunately they've got a a nice (unmixed) sampler CD (pictured... and better yet, ughh has it in their freebie section, cop it quick!).

The one and only Mista Sinista cuts up a quality introduction, and then we're thrown right into it. New and as-yet-unreleased cuts by their full roster. There are some nice cameos, too, including Thirstin Howl III, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Casual, Steele (of Cocoa Brovas), and Hell Heaven Razah. But the guys you don't know will impress you at least as much as the big names. It helps a lot that the production is some serious, consistently quality stuff. Think of like The Snowgoons or Marco Polo.

There are new songs by UG - and oh shit, he's kicking his "mystic" style material for the first time in at least a decade! Those songs are advanced tracks from his upcoming album for Creative Juices called Portals. Damn, I can't wait!

Seriously, I got a bunch of their discs (yeah, unfortunately they're all CD and no vinyl... the one downside to this outfit) all at once, and I'm just putting one in after the other, and each song is as impressive and exciting as the last. Fuck, why didn't anybody tell me about these guys earlier? They've got a website, so you can check it out here for more info. Or maybe all you guys reading this are already completely up on them, and I was the only jerk sleeping. Heh

More Great, New Music

It's tempting to say J-Live is back, but he never really left. He's been putting out a lot of music, actually, over the years. There was a little gap between 1996 and 1999, but really since then, he's put out a ton of albums and 12"s. However, I don't know about you guys, but... after being initially excited about his early 12"s, I've let a lot of these fly under the radar.

But I'm damn glad I didn't let this one fly under. Based on an online recommendation or twenty, I held off for a bit but finally picked it up, and damn it's nice. "The Way That I Rhyme" is the latest single on his own label, Triple Threat Productions. Now J-Live has come out on a whole bunch of different labels; but throughout the years, he's always maintained Triple Threat, and even in 2010, he's still putting out wax.

Now, this track isn't produced by anybody I've ever heard of before... his name is Korede. And if this track is any indication, he's definitely somebody to watch out for in future (here's his myspace; I just looked it up). Simply, this beat is niiice. The drums and bass are subtle, but strong and really drive the rhythm. More superficially you've got some hot string samples and a smooth vocal sample. And the hook, when the DJ starts cutting up Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock's "It Takes Two" is perfect! It's like two mixed vibes: one upbeat and energetic and one cool and calming, but somehow they both manage to function at the same time, and even compliment each other. Meanwhile, J-Live's vocals sound like they're taken off some late '97 single that was lost in the vaults or something, with a fun narrative style and some dialogue interplay between himself and a female fan. All these elements working together, add up to an easy must-have.

The B-side doesn't stand out quite as much as the A-side - how could it? - but it's still pretty fresh. It's called "Poetry In Motion" and produced by Locsmif, who's been around the underground for a minute and did some tracks for OC. The beat's got a nice, choppy jazz vibe, and J-Live comes off cool and confident on the mic. This could actually pass pretty well for an OC song, actually - and that's certainly a compliment.

So this is the lead single off of J-Live's upcoming EP, Undivided Attention, with the B-side remaining exclusive to this 12". You also get instrumentals for both tracks here, and a clean version of the A-side. There's nothing limited or pricey about this one, so you really can't go wrong... another terrific hip-hop record in 2010.

Back To Burn?

More new music today. In fact, I'm going to be doing a bunch of new music posts all in a row. And for today, I'm going to look at one I've mentioned a couple of times, but just finally got my hands on: Themselves' Crownsdown and Company. If you missed it, Themselves dropped their "comeback" album, Crownsdown, last year. And this is a limited (1000 copies - mine is #0979) CD-only remix album of that.

So, interestingly, they keep the sequencing the same. "Back II Burn" was the first song on Crownsdown, the "Back II Burn" remix is the first song on Crownsdown and Company, and so on. This might not be a good thing in this case, because it causes them to lead with some of their weakest material. Themselves handled their own remix of "Back II Burn" and the metal guitars and such they add certainly don't improve over the original. Then Dalek's remix of "Oversleeping" is even worse - just a weird, distorted mix.

Now, I have to be honest. I haven't listened to Crownsdown too much since I got it... it was kind of a disappointment. So I'm not going to talk too much about how the remixes stack up to the originals, because I don't even really remember all of the originals; most of them didn't leave much of an impression on me. I went into this remix album hoping it would breath some more life into the material and make matters a little more compelling.

And sometimes I think they succeed. Buck 65's remix of "The Mark" relies a little too heavily on arbitrary noise and distortion (possibly to cater to the non-hip-hop contingency of second generation Anticon fans), but despite that, it's still pretty gripping, and it's certainly not lacking in energy. I don't care for the hook anymore than I did the first time around, but I guess it's asking too much to hope he'd've scrapped it?

Alias's remix of "Gangster of Disbelief" at least brings attention back to the lyrics, which is an area where a lot of Dose's projects unfortunately wind up having issues. I don't really care for the drums, but at this point I guess they've become Alias's inescapable signature sound. The rest of the production works well with it, though.

13 & God's remix of "Dax Strong" is nice; I think it really manages to capture that natural cohesion of wildly disparate styles (live instrumentation, computer sounds, simple and bugged out vocals) the band is always after, but doesn't always secure. If I wanted to give someone a good example of "what 13 & God are like" and what they're capable of, I'd play this song.

The sound of Lazersword (whoever that is)'s "You Ain't It" remix is like an Egyptian Lover tune updated for the youth of 2010. It's certainly interesting, but the vocals are practically an after-thought, included only out of obligation to the project... it really wants to be a slow and spacey club beat that maybe should've been saved for a different project.

By contrast, the remix of "Roman Is As Roman Does" by Our Brother the Native (whoever THAT is) plays equally trippy - in fact more - but it really makes excellent use of the vocals and original song to make something completely bugged out, but also fitting. It's insane, and I don't think you could qualify it as hip-hop anymore; but if you're open and a fan of Themselves, you should appreciate this crazy mix.

"Skinning the Drum" on the other hand, is as hip-hop as it gets. On the one hand it uses plenty of old school vocal samples, classic drums and familiar breaks, but it's by Odd Nosdam, so you know it's also wildly original at the same time. At this point in the album, it's almost hard to believe I'm still listening to the same album that opened with those crappy opening mixes, 'cause this is great!

The remix of "Deadcatclear II" by Baths (the third producer here I've never heard of, but that's okay) is as heavy on the computery distortions and effects as anything else on here, but it's good. And when it strips down a bit, playing one of Dose's verses almost acapella, it gets really effective. Practically each sample element or loop is given a chance to breathe on its own and really draw you in, and like "Dax Strong" and "Roman Is," really manages to capture the better vibes of Dose One's recent projects.

The last remix, Bracken's spin on "Gold Teeth Will Roll," is another good 'un. It's moody and atmospheric. There's some very cool, subtle use of scratching at the end, too. I don't remember anything on the original Crownsdown feeling like this, but it should've.

Finally, we're given one extra bonus track: a brand new Themselves song called "Antarctica." It's pretty good, too. The music's low-key but but subtly busy and vibrant. Dose flow blends with it perfectly as he kicks a pretty simple but nice message to the struggling artists out there, and there's a quite clever use of a Saafir vocal sample during the breakdown.

So, in the end, I really have to recommend this, at least for fans who are already predisposed towards Themselves' style(s) of making music. I started out thinking, "man, i can't believe I got suckered into blind-buying another..." but by the end, I was really quite pleased with it. There's a couple of songs I'll always skip, but the good material to be found here is certainly worthwhile and plentiful enough. Heck, it's even got me thinking of breaking out the original Crownsdown again and giving that another spin.

How About Just a Cool, New Record?

Not too long ago, I tweeted something to the effective how it was nice that - for the first time in a long time - there was so much good music coming out, it was getting a little hard to keep up with. Robbie from Unkut twittered back, "Really?! I must have missed it all, then." LOL But seriously, there's a lot, and I've been covering some of it, but there's still a lot more for me to get to. Like, for instance, this little 12" that just dropped.

Beneficence is a New Jersey MC who's been flying under the radar for a long time now. He put his first 12" out in 1994, and he's been quietly putting out stuff ever since then. This is his latest 12" single, which just came out on Undisputed Entertainment.

"Heavy Hitters" might get your attention because of who's on production - Diamond D (who he's worked with before). And this is a really nice effort from him, too. It's a simple, mellow track with matching piano and bell loops that are instant head-nodders; and Beneficence compliments it with a relaxed, confident flow and autobiographical raps. Ben's not an immediately impressive MC - there's no tongue-twisting flows, brilliant rhyme patterns or novelty-value punchlines. But he's the right kinda guy from a beat like this.

The B-side, "Royal Dynasty," isn't quite as compelling, but it's another solid track, produced by DJ LKB. The beat's a little harder, faster and definitely respectable, but it doesn't grab you like the A-side. And when the track isn't stealing the show, it does leave Ben feeling a little, well... boring.

So, pick this one up for the A-side, you'll definitely be feeling it... and just take the B-side as a little bonus. Both tracks come in vocal (they're labeled as "Clean," but I don't think there are any curses in the first place - in fact, he takes a stand against cursing in "Heavy Hitters"), instrumental and acapella versions. This is the lead single off his upcoming fourth album, which will presumably be CD and mp3 only. And this isn't one of those pricey limited deals, so if you're still buying hip-hop vinyl, it's an easy choice.

Update/correction 11/3/10 - I'm told that actually the full-length album will be released on vinyl, and we can expect it to drop around January, February 2011.