REVIEWS HIP-HOP
Q
QUICKIES
UICKIES
Craze 24 effect with the irreverence
NEIL KULKARNI, You Don’t Have To Be and clumsiness it’s crying
American out for. Down with finesse
myspace.com/craze24 in the use of current
True ‘nuff, you don’t have recording technology!
to be an American to be a Here’s to the cak-handed!
new rap star. You do have
8
1 Cr to be a mediocre MC,
*****
osbie R
backed with unfocussed Devin Tha
music of little impact — Dude
oad, Co
something that Craze Yo Mind
effectively showcases on Razor & Tie
the title track here. Kudos. Still a funny fucker, still
v
entr
y
*****
dressing his madness
MONE
Y
down in threadbare Skreintax SHO
T!
, CV5 8FX
Crooked 1 arrangements, still Breath
Swagger Like Crook sounding uncannily like an Dented
Dynasty off-cut from Ice-T’s ‘Breath’ itself feels like an album
Are the ‘80s references in ‘Power’! Diggit. track. Graziella’s meandering soul
hip-hop actually getting vocal would ordinarily piss me off
cool again? This blends
*****
but it’s put amidst such a
classic Mt guitar textures B.O.B sweltering, simmering quiet storm
with a bumptious groove I’ll Be In The Sky backdrop it works. This is a track
and some natty Grand Hustle that takes its title seriously,
verbollocks from Crooked I Very very Outkast but suffuses the space around your
(Harry Allen references! crucially lacking the kind speakers with exhalation and
Fuck yeah!). Cool. of melodic wierdness that suggestion. ‘Reach’, on the flip, is
*****
makes Kast’s hits so even better, sounding like Mogwai in a spare epiphany-laden afternoon: Illa J
unforgettable. In a re-rubbed by Timbaland, guitars just a beat, three loops (some We Here
Busta Rhymes month’s time this will slip shorn of the usual hip-hop gorgeous Satie-esque piano, a piercing Delicious Vinyl
feat Ron out of your consciousness politeness and distorting-up sped-up vocal shard, some ultra- Jay Dee’s kid bro John Vancey drops
Brown completely but for now it’s nicely. Seek out. echoed b-vox) and JMC swapping this 12” produced by his late sibling.
Arab Money in like Flynn. Don’t fight it,
*****
rhymes with Cassidy in the spaces in Nothing here disinclines me from the
Flipmode feel it. between. Intriguing throughout, the suspicion that the veneration for
At last — someone using B-side ‘Silver Shark’ mixes the rugged anything Dilla ever touched is kinda
that goddamn auto-tune
*****
Baby J and raw with the lush and spacey to misplaced (the A-side barely makes an
Lies great effect. Keep an eye on these impact) but my god, Guilty Simpson is
Abstract Urban guys. in heaven on the flip ‘R U Listening?’
Ace, and what’s ace here is the — a brilliantly lo-end slung dubbed-out
shamelessness — the way ‘Lies’ has no
*****
crawl you don’t wanna surface from.
compunction in swinging in with its Dead Residents Submission, one more time, seems like
heavily harmonised chorus, latching Scum Bongo a reasonable option.
itself to your brainstem like some kind Dial Up
of synapse-leeching candiru, and then A couple of previews from the
*****
hanging around all day whilst you hum soon-come ‘Triple Crown’ LP and the DR Supastar Quamillah
it in shops, in the street, in your head, boys are on typically twisted form. California Dreaming
in your heart. As such, you can’t call ‘Scum Bongo’ is the kind of seething Cotter Records
the thumptious undertow retro but the squelchy electro groove the likes of Hot Nice Quannum-style jazzed-out
way this gets under your skin Chip would kill to call their own, riven psych-hop from SQ — on the title track
permanent-like is definitely from a with voices nigh-on submerged in the he layers up the textures into a
different age. Bravo. murkage. On the flip, ‘Number Wang’ peach-perfect hit of pure sunshine and
*****
takes that ol’ Sesame Street 12-count sea-breeze. On ‘Love Has Madeus’ he
groove and slathers it with mentalist loses his bearings in a vortex of ‘70s
Dap-C & Dirty Sweet verbiage of the highest order. soul lushness, and on closer ‘Son Of A
Music Game Recommended. Jazz Legend’ he pays homage to his
NGU heritage (he’s the son of Blue Note’s
Well, it depends what you want your
*****
John Patton) over snappy, Pharcyde-
hip-hop to do. If you want it to stay Danny Spice style jazz-hop. Sweet.
Dancefloor destroyer!
indoors, soundtrack your inner chaos, Down & Out
push your mind into strange new Cog Records
*****
BABY J
places then move along, nothing to see Great stuff from Mr Spice, thanks in no Murs
here. If you want hip-hop to come out small part to production from that Can It Be (Half A Million
ABSTRACT URBAN
of your car in big phat bass waves, Lewis Parker loon. ‘Down And Out’ Dollars . . .)
saunter your chassis round your ‘hood, hinges on a beautifully measured slab Warners
attract favourable looks from the local of heavy-assed jazzbo funk, sparse in Two shots from the new album and the
TI feat Jay Z, Kanye & Lil’ Wayne scrunchie-wearing trakkied-up detail and pulling back to bass’n’drums sheer sample quality steals these into
Swagga Like Us hoi-polloi then this is just about at all the right moments, percussion your heart with irresistible force. On
Grand Hustle/Atlantic perfect. Not a criticism. Enjoy it. adding extra frictive detail you can run ‘Can It Be’ it’s The Jacksons’ ‘I Want To
“Right now this is what it’s all about. The track takes your tongue around deliciously. On the Be Where You Are’, on ‘Me & This Jawn’
some of the biggest names in hip-hop right now and puts
*****
flip ‘’ is even freakier, even more it’s The Isley Brothers’ ‘For The Love Of
them back-to-back on one of the hottest joints in the JMC feat Cassidy cartoonish, frantic with xylophone, You’, and in both cases Murs isn’t just
clubs. It’s started a debate about whose verse is the They MC scratches and a chorus that drops on content to ride the loops and wait for
hottest (I’m backing Weezy), which has taken it back to
myspace.com/JMCVault your head like boulders. Enormously the chorus. If only other mainstream
hip-hop lyrical skills being important (something that’s I’m actually digging the way this enjoyable. US rap could try this hard. Excellent.
been missing from the scene). Fire!” sounds like it might’ve been cooked up
***** *****
www.djmag.com 209
DJ467.hip_hop.indd 209 8/10/08 14:07:39
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