Saturday, March 13, 2004
Remember back in '96, when NYC hiphop was all plush and loaded with keybs from '70s jazz fusion records? You're damned right I do, and you'd be best off if you did, too. So let's reminisce together (mp3s are to your right, under "downloads"), starting with a spin of The Jay Dee Other Shit Remix of Busta Rhymes' classic solo debut, "WOO-HAH!! Got You All In Check." "Other Shit" is right; this, musically, isn't even in the same ballpark as hardcore, or what mainstream hiphop sounded like at the time - though its sound immediately pegs it as New York. The way Jay Dee offsets Busta's utterly individual flow and syntax with this spaced-out, moody accompaniment is superb. And fuck, I love that minor-key keyboard sound. It always, contextually, takes me to mid-'90s hiphop from NYC - which was hard to beat in its day.
Along the same lines is "Faith," from Lords of the Underground. This self-produced track from their '96 full-length Keepers of the Funk samples Deniece Williams's "Free" so heavily they actually gave her a "featured" credit; it's a very good thing. Besides the fact that "Faith" was a bit of an anamoly of its time, an underground cut with both street cred and a ridiculously positive message ("I place all my faith in God/'cause God'll never leave me, He won't deceive me/Believe me"), it's so wondrously produced as to fit in with nothing much from '96. Which is likely why it never broke out of said underground, apart from a few spins on NYC's Hot 97 (which, back then, truly represented).
From the same epoch, but with a slightly different sound, was Redman's "Funkorama." My all-time fave Red cut, this single was taken from Insomnia: The Erick Sermon Compilation, and never received the promo love it deserved from Sermon's then-new label, Interscope. That's a shame and a half, 'cause this shit is deep. It's got some of the classic EPMD sound to it, especially in the jacked-up snare alongside its deep bassline. But there's also the au courant-for-its-time keyb chord progression - the sound of late nights with Frankie Crocker rockin' the quiet storm on WBLS in the early '80s - which results in "Funkorama" having a much more entirely relaxed feel than anything Red's done before or since.
Along the same lines is "Faith," from Lords of the Underground. This self-produced track from their '96 full-length Keepers of the Funk samples Deniece Williams's "Free" so heavily they actually gave her a "featured" credit; it's a very good thing. Besides the fact that "Faith" was a bit of an anamoly of its time, an underground cut with both street cred and a ridiculously positive message ("I place all my faith in God/'cause God'll never leave me, He won't deceive me/Believe me"), it's so wondrously produced as to fit in with nothing much from '96. Which is likely why it never broke out of said underground, apart from a few spins on NYC's Hot 97 (which, back then, truly represented).
From the same epoch, but with a slightly different sound, was Redman's "Funkorama." My all-time fave Red cut, this single was taken from Insomnia: The Erick Sermon Compilation, and never received the promo love it deserved from Sermon's then-new label, Interscope. That's a shame and a half, 'cause this shit is deep. It's got some of the classic EPMD sound to it, especially in the jacked-up snare alongside its deep bassline. But there's also the au courant-for-its-time keyb chord progression - the sound of late nights with Frankie Crocker rockin' the quiet storm on WBLS in the early '80s - which results in "Funkorama" having a much more entirely relaxed feel than anything Red's done before or since.
# posted by Thomas : 5:03 AM
