Metal Lungies

So I feel like an old lady *nh* watching Tom Petty (is that really the best you could do, NFL?) at half time and watching the whole event for the commercials. This is mostly due to the fact I would be most happy with an outcome of an asteroid wiping out the game and both teams, resulting in no winner. It’s good to see Busta smiling, despite those legal issues in his life. On the office place watercooler tip: If you watched, what were you’re favorite commercials?

Breaking Atoms is on my list of top 5 hip hop albums. And a very unappreciated classic. Hell, it’s even technically a Canadian album! Go read up at Oh Word if you don’t know. And I recently discovered that the group filmed videos for all 4 of the singles from the album, all thanks to John Q at Lyrics to Go.

Here are the videos for all four singles off Breaking Atoms, in order of release:

“Looking At The Front Door”:

“Watch Roger Do His Thing”:

“Just Hangin’ Out” (look for the Nas cameo, back when he was the lil’ homey)

“Peace Is Not The Word To Play” (my favourite song off the album)

I’m out for the rest of the weekend, so let me ramble a little.

I’ve been writing for Metal Lungies for about 3 months or so now, and I just want to take a moment to thank a few people. My fellow ML contributor DJo1 for reaching out to me about writing for the site. Ivan at Hip Hop Is Read , Jesse from TSOYA  & Gretch at Bounce/oz for giving me an opportunity to write. Anyone who reads the site and especially anyone who cares enough to leave a comment, I do read them and always appreciate them. People who wrote to me after I posted about something they’re involved in (what up Jeff Jank?). Anyone who linked to the site. Artists who’ve reached out to me specifically as opposed to mass email promos. All the sites I read on the regular (too many to name, but check the increasingly long blog roll) and everyone who is contributing to the next Beat Drop post, it’s going to be amazing. Have a good rest of the weekend!

I’ll always have a soft spot for N.E.R.D. & Pharrell’s “solo” musical efforts (I’ll even forget about In My Mind if we ever see ?uestlove’s re-work). All 3 or so versions of the 1st N.E.R.D.  album were pure gold.

In case you somehow missed the mp3 floating around here it is:

MP3: N.E.R.D.-Everybody Nose.

So the idea behind these posts is to highlight unsigned artists or artists on independent labels who deserve more exposure.

Today I’m profiling Poizunus, a vocal DJ and beatboxer from my hometown of Toronto. Here’s a little bit of the bio from his site:

As a child, Poizunus struggled with a speech impediment but after speech therapy, he learned to control his voice while speaking. Overcoming this obstacle has been a great achievement for this talented MC who is now mastering beats and creating all types of sound effects with his voice.

Amalgamating the new and old world of beatboxing, Poizunus has been spitting beats ever since he was a curious young boy who stumbled upon his cousin’s hip-hop tape collection. Music has always inspired this Toronto native who is influenced by his parents collections of soulful music.

Last year Poizunus won first place in Scribble Jam Beatbox Battle. I saw him perform at the Frosh concert at my university with Bedouin Soundclash and the Stills, among others. He did some very dope routines, including vocal beat juggling, completely stole the show.

He also recorded an “beatbox instrumental album”, called A.ctive D.reaming D.isorder, that’s he selling online. The tracks I’ve heard on his MySpace are dope. He’s basically recording his beatboxing and sequencing it on an MPC. Some of the tracks are instrumental while others have some decent MCs whom I wasn’t too familiar with. You can listen to some tracks at Poizunus’ MySpace or stream it from CD Baby (where you can also buy a physical/digital copy of the album).

You can see some video of his routines on YouTube here. Here’s one of my favourite routines, Poizunus doing the sound effects for the NES version of Donkey Kong:

Hey, he’s on “the Tweeter” as well (what up Travis?) as PoizunusLive.

Just like last Tuesdays’ post on the Alkaholiks, I had some trouble finding a decent-sized cover of the single for this post. Plus this cover for the Lovesick 12′ is the closest I could find to a cover for this release of this particular remix of Gang Starr’s “Lovesick”.

This remix is done by someone named John Waddell, whose Discogs profile is pretty sparse; I think his Gang Starr remix might be his earliest release but in the field of hip hop, he did some work for Monie Love & Queen Latifah, among others. Educate me, ML readers, if you have any more info.

With that out of the way, let’s break down the two versions I’m comparing today: The first is the original “Lovesick”, produced by DJ Premier. The remix is “Lovesick (Upbeat Mix)”, produced by the aforementioned Waddell.

The Premier original floats by on a jaunty horn stab, a slow piano line and an understated bass line. Guru ends every verse with some variation of “I’m lovesick” which leads into Premo’s now trademarked scratch chorus: “Love…” “Sick, sick, sick…” I think the “sick” scratch is of Shock G of Digital Underground but I’m not totally sure. Anyone know?

The instrumental is pretty, understated and a lot slower in this version, as compared to Waddell’s remix indicated by the “Upbeat” tag applied to his version. The Upbeat Mix has a kind of 1920s-40s jazz feel to it, oddly enough seeming to foreshadow Premier’s work with Christina Aguilera in 2006 (for comparison’s sake, listen to Aguilera’s “Ain’t No Other Man“). It features a catchy piano line that runs throughout the song, the bass line is a lot bouncier, and a trumpet enters the mix every few lines. Enhancing the jazz feel of the song is the fact that each of the aforementioned instruments solos at the end of each of Guru’s verses. The chorus has changed as well; Guru says “And now I’m lovesick”, the trumpets from the verses blare loudly and there is a little call-and-response that occurs twice per chorus:

Guru: ‘And now I’m lovesick.’

Backing vocals: ‘Hey hey hey!’

Sampled female vocal: ‘Lovesick!’

Backing vocals: ‘Ho ho ho!’

The whole package works really well, and actually manages to be about 50 seconds longer than the original, mostly from the new chorus. A nice addition to your Gang Starr collection (speaking of which, don’t sleep on Know The Ledge’s massive collection of Gang Starr rarities and treats. Here’s a link to pick up part 1 of their 5 part collection.)

I couldn’t find a video with the original version but they made a video for the Upbeat Mix, which I’ve embedded below. I won’t get into too much description for it, but it features Premo on the turntables, Guru walking around with some girls, a jazz band and um, dancers in baggy pants. It’s kinda cool to see Premier & Guru so young though. Listen to both versions below:

Gang Starr- Lovesick

Gang Starr- Lovesick (Upbeat Mix)

Gang Starr – Lovesick (John Waddell Upbeat Mix)

Bonus Beats: While I was searching for the video for “Lovesick”, I found this bizarre video of a bald German man lipsyncing to “Lovesick” wearing an unbuttoned shirt. He actually imitates Guru pretty well. I’m not going to embed it for your own sake but this amused the hell out of me. You can watch it here.

Via Wu-Tang Mountain Via Bang The Box 

I had no idea this existed. Mostly covers Ol’ Dirty’s release from prison while on parole. He sings old R&B with his mom, eats his first meal outside and comes on to a reporter at his press conference. Russell looks afflicted with the “bloat” in these clips, and seems kinda out of it the whole time. Still a must-see, period.

Best line of the whole thing:

“I thought that was a really nice gift for him to give me.”-ODB’s manager (I won’t reveal the context.)

RIP Osirus.

Today is a very special Remix Tuesday because the remix I’m covering was NEVER pressed to wax. It’s a very dope remix of one of my favourite songs, “Whateva Man” by Redman. Here’s the catch: this is a radio rip off of a radio show. You know what makes that alright? It’s a Pete Rock beat!

Yes, the Chocolate Boy Wonder laces this remix, live on his Future Flavas show with Marley Marl. So let’s get to the breakdown of the original and the remix.

The original beat is propelled by a low bass line and light drum hits, occasionally punctuated with a distorted vocal sample. It gives enough room for Redman to flex and deliver some of the funniest lines of his career. Here’s my favourite quotable:

I smoked with a lot of college students
Most of ’em wasn’t graduatin’ and they knew it

The Pete Rock mix of the song has neck snapping drums and warm keys and vibes backing the Funk Doctor Spock’s punchlines. The rip is unfortunately censored with dropouts, with Red’s objectionable words replaced by static. But it’s still a pleasant surprise for any PR or Redman fan who’s never heard it before. For those who enjoyed Pete & Red’s chemistry on “How To Roll A Blunt” and “Gimme One” (Buhizzle knows what’s up), this is a must-hear.

Redman – Whateva Man (Pete Rock Remix)

Here’s the awesome video for the original version, which has Red & Method Man dressed as the Blues Brothers, and the unforgettable image of Redman dancing with an umbrella.

Bonus beats: Read Jeff Weiss’s brilliant writeup of Muddy Waters, the album “Whateva Man” is from.

ML commentator Dart Adams recently had a superb write up about the Lyricist Lounge Show that aired on MTV about 7 years ago. Needless to say it was my favorite thing on TV in middle school. So I did some digging in my dusty archives to bring out some rare audio clips of some of the sketches & freestyles from the show for our 2 readers to enjoy. Reflecting back on it, MTV needs to step up and release this series on DVD. Although, clearing all the music/artist is probably much more trouble than they are willing to deal with, can you imagine tracking down Master Fuol?

Zip File: Lyricist Lounge Show Mp3s.

End of episode freestyle Ft. Krazyie Bone, Big Boy, Wordsworth, Master Fuol, and Baby Power:

Reminisce with some more video footage after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh off having  a top 10 album of the year, Talib Kweli is the ‘coach’ (Jean Grae chips in as well) on this Made episode where yet another white kid, Colin, aspires to become a rapper. Colin’s ancestor is Samuel Colt (yea, the founder of the Colt .45), we <3 the irony.  The entertainment factor  is very close but not quite up to par (written battle rhymes!!) to C Rayz Walz/Nile ‘The Blizzard’  Made episode (which is classic, esp. the Ghostface cameo). We wonder if this guy is featured on Talib’s next LP ala C Rayz Walz & Nile on The Dropping? We pray not. Bonus: catch all of the 3429842843 additional mispronunciations of Talib Kweli’s name and the Craig G (!) cameo.

The rest of the show after the Jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

Travis Barker does it again, making a song we would probably never mention on the site, noteworthy. This time he adds his drum work to the inescapable sounds of Flo Rida & T-Pain’s Low.

Thanks to TJ for the heads up! (Of course NR, had this eons ago (in Internet time)).