Vikings & Beekeepers

Last week Kanye West released the gajillion selling Graduation, humiliating raps mumbling bad guy, 50 Cent, and establishing himself as raps biggest star and most intriguing personality in the process (that is, until two years from now when some other guy comes along and knocks him off his throne - it happened to Em, it happened to Fiddy and it’ll happen to Ye). The new album is pretty stellar, if only for the fact that there are no skits (I know Ye bitches about Jay-Z on “Big Brother,” but he owes Jay for showing him that skits are an unnecessary feature on rap albums), but it also contains some of Kanye’s most curious sample choices to date. (more…)

By 1962, Ornette Coleman had pretty much mastered the world of jazz music. In 1958, he released a stunning debut in Something Else, wowing the hard-to-impress jazz community with his unhinged alto sax soloing. In 1959, he released The Shape Of Jazz To Come, the pre-eminent avant-garde jazz albums of the last 50 years. In 1961 he released the definitive long form improvisation album, Free Jazz. Oh, also in that three-year span, Coleman released about a half dozen other shockingly enjoyable jazz records that challenged people’s ideas and expectations of what a “jazz” record should and could sound like. So what do you do when, in just four years, you’ve redefined your art form and subsequently become the most prominent figure in a world where prominent figures are difficult to come by? Well, you quit your label (Atlantic), take a four-year sabbatical, learn the trumpet, learn the violin, join a new label (Blue Note) and release an album featuring your ten-year old son on drums. (more…)

My brother-in-law and I were recently discussing the fact that we can no longer bring ourselves to listen to most of the albums from the Definitive Jux label. Back in the early part of the decade, artists like Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox and El-P were the biggest names in underground hip hop with their complex lyrics and bleak production. Whenever a new album by any of the Def Jux crew was released, critics fell over themselves heaping praise on their albums and deriding commercial hip hop for being, well, too commercial. Nowadays, those “classics” are now collecting dust on our CD shelves, and likely on the CD shelves across the globe. The reason for the demise of the Def Jux posse? No hooks. (more…)

I’m setting up a new weekly feature to help me in what is a bit of a writer’s block at the moment. At the beginning of every week I will stream and discuss a single song. It’s a bit cheesy, seeing as how every time I make a post I both stream and discuss several songs. But this will be different in that I will focus on one single track and…well, okay, it’s just an excuse to add music and add content. (more…)