Showing posts with label justin k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justin k. Show all posts
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The G-Funk Era Pat II


In November 1999, Dr. Dre released Dr. Dre 2001, the sequel to his influential debut The Chronic, an album that brought gangsta rap to the suburbs of white America. The CD was emblazoned with a chromatic pot leaf, and behind it was a picture of Dre hunched over a studio soundboard inhaling a fat bag of weed. It set off the second-coming of West Coast gangsta rap releases. I bought the album at a Circuit City the day it came out. The next day in middle school, a teacher saw what was on the CD and confiscated it. Regardless, I went back and bought another copy, locking myself in my room, and blaring the album and over again. Even though I was a sheltered kid at the time who lived on the opposite coast and couldn’t relate to most of the shit that was being talked about, I was obsessed.

 The album spawned a series of funked-out, sun-baked albums, including a newly West Coast resurgent Snoop Dogg (he had been on No Limit Records until then and was making shitty down south tracks with Master P), Dogg Pound members Daz & Kurupt, Warren G, Xzibit, DJ Quik and Ice Cube. Following the East Coast-West Coast feud between 2Pac and Biggie that ended in their deaths, hip hop fell into a gray area. All we really had then was Puff Daddy dressed up in blown-out gold sparkle jumpsuits.

 But then came the West Coast’s return. I’m not including the period when the Game came on the scene, because that came later. In contrast to today’s region-less West Coast come up of Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment, this music was still strictly localized, referencing bouncing six-fours, swap meets and gang banging at Long Beach barbecues. The period I’m talking about, roughly the very end of 1999 through around 2003, had some albums that have been forgotten, or maybe never really remembered in the first place. This included albums like Snoop Dogg’s Top Dogg, Kurupt’s The Streetz iz a Mutha, Xzibit’s Restless and the Dogg Pound’s Dillinger and Young Gotti.

 Each of these albums featured iced-out fonts and of course, a parental advisory sticker. They continued what the West Coast was known for: buoyant, Parliament Funkadelic-influenced basslines, police siren-synths, and rappers that basically bragged about how much weed they smoked and how much head they got. But it was awesome. The production holds up especially well today. And if you can get past the dated shout outs to what year it is (19 muthafuckin’ 99), then there is a lot to like about this period  What follows is a playlist I made of some songs from this forgotten era. As Snoop would say, “blaze a fat sack to this.”



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Zomby: So-So Music That Comes With A Kanye-Sized Ego


Sunday night. I’m catching up on my Twitter feed, when in between links to mysterious planes vanishing in the sky and political uprisings in the Ukraine, I see that British beat maker and brain-dead rave veteran Zomby got into a fight at a London club over the weekend with another DJ/producer, Hudson Mohawke, claiming the inoffensive looking guy about half his age “caught 3 in the face” in a now-deleted tweet. 

 Now, in simply reading these exchanges on Twitter, a reasonable human would think these were two decorated G'z putting hits on each other’s roofs over some longstanding beef, except when you look at their pictures one guy looks like he’s wearing a mask from Avatar and the other looks like Michael Cera, or that sheltered kid you know who probably spends most of his time in the free world trolling 4chan threads.

 I mean, for all we know, it’s McLovin’ that’s behind that Zomby mask. The dude has a fade tighter than Vanilla Ice or Justin Bieber and probably weighs just as much. I actually like a few of Zomby’s beats, but knowing about this guy’s public persona--an ego the size of Kanye West without having the skill-level to back it up, then my immediate reaction was to say, “Fuck this guy.”

 As for those tweets, here you go: “Some ppl say to me how do u know so much about fashion if u don't work in fashion and the answer is I do just u can hear my collections,” and “@hudmo My sweater worth more than your life but let’s not go into that u don’t know givenchy unless i wore it first.”

 What, really? Please don't tell me this guy actually talks like this?

Mohawke chimed back too, keeping the bar low:

 “Poor @ZombyMusic thought i should apologise in his face after wearing socks worth more than his entire outfit. but apparently non :/ Poor fellow. On the edge :/ @zomby music w 20 dudes on stage n no gals but to each his own I guess.”

 These two brats then proceed to go on a spoiled rant of white-boy privilege on Twitter for the whole planet to see their embarrassingly impressive level of knowledge about high-end fashion. Someone drop these two pussies in the middle of Compton so they could experience some real pain for once, aside from scuffing up their Givenchy shirt or actually having to work hard a day in their lives.

 We don’t really know who started what, but it doesn't matter. Zomby says he slapped the shit out of Mohawke. He took a picture of what he claimed to be his bloody knuckles, and then turned to the safe confines of Twitter to talk shit to the dude. We do know that Zomby gets pissed at people who merely tweet at him and/or come to his shows. Just last month he flipped out on some kid who looked half his age because the kid referred to him as “Zomboy” in a tweet. Zomby lost it and threatened to beat the poor kid’s ass back stage. He also has a well-documented history of loitering dubstep message boards and not showing up to shows he's been flown out to.  

 What we have here is a serious example of overblown egos in the 21st century, a misplaced sense of importance, and probably lots of time spend not getting laid. Zomby, well over 30 by now--someone who spends so much time hiding behind a mask and Twitter--started a fight with a kid much younger than him. Man, that’s some gangster shit dude. You rock. Maybe keeps that mask on, bro.



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Album Review: St. Vincent - St. Vincent


St. Vincent has described her fourth solo record as party music that you would throw on at a funeral. There’s a definite spooked quality to her music, and it’s a bit more in focus on the new album. The singer, who formerly backed Sufjan Stevens, is now sporting a shock of white hair, like she’d recently been electrocuted and is presenting herself as a changed woman on the album’s cover for everyone to wonder what the heck’s going on. 

On her last album Strange Mercy, Annie Clark sang about spending “the summer on my back,” making you wonder if she talking about being bedridden with depression or just getting laid a lot. On her latest self-titled album,  there’s more suggestive and devastating one liners, synths, and fuzzed out guitar shredding, but this time her songs exhibit more electronic-based rhythms. 

The album reminds me of the dinner party scene in the movie Beetlejuice, exhibiting moments of elegance, and zany, scatterbrain behaviors mixed in with an almost emotionally-absent appeal that’s hard to pin down. Her music sounds like Manhattan to me, busy but alone; something you can disappear into. 

“Oh what an ordinary day, take out the garbage masturbate,” she starts on “Birth in Reverse.” Other lines, like “No one around so I take off my clothes” on “Rattlesnake,” are more direct references, like the time she stripped naked on a friend’s ranch in Texas only to be freaked out by a snake. 

But the standout song here is “Prince Johnny,” an overture to a male acquaintance with vague references to snorting drugs. “Remember the time went and snorted the piece of the Berlin Wall that you’d extorted,” and “You traced the Andes with your index.” A man who prays to bathroom stalls, and keeps similar company, she sings.  

Clark also flirts with a more wider appeal, exhibiting Madonna circa “Like a Prayer” or “Erotica” with songs like “Bring Me Your Loves,” which may be the catchiest and forward hook she’s written yet.

Other songs, like “I Prefer Your Love to Jesus,” seem like trite and obvious statements these days, but Clark sings in earnest and with grandeur. 

Grade: B



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