HIP HOP REMIX Countdown: #9 – Mary J Blige

Mary J. Blige is the undeniable Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. Her voice is the ingrained remix to a male dominated genre: she is the soul to hip-hop. Before Badu, Jill Scott, Floetry, and the crop of neo-soul crooners came along to balance out the scales, MJB was all we needed. In a career spanning two decades, when Blige blesses a track it remixes the whole genre. As with any true artist, to follow MJB’s discography and collaborations is to see a portfolio of snapshots capturing the urban identity exactly as it was within any brownstone and on any block.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Nia2C6JW4VU&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Mary J. Blige is an artist whose artistry supersedes the remix. Yes, the remix of “You Remind Me” featuring Nice and Smooth is solid, but when she blesses a hip hop recording with her voice, the track approaches the stratosphere. In fact, the synergy of many of Mary’s collaborations with hip hop’s finest have, and continue to be a standard for what remixers attempt but in many cases fall short of creating, and in one special case, is the sound none will ever encapsulate.

Before Jay-Z thanked the Roc Boys and customers, he called on Mary J to translate his unknockable hustle; “I’m takin out this time, to give you a piece of my mind (cause you can’t knock the hustle). Who do you think you are? Baby one day you’ll be a star.” Just as Hov is the block – that hard concrete that sits right above the streets – Mary J is the rose that creeps up through the cracks, highlighting the beauty behind the beats. Mary J’s soul transcends beefing battlegrounds and geographical barriers, and has remixed sounds from Brooklyn to the Island to Atlanta; her hustle: unknockable.

http://www.youtube.com/v/96sFW-3vGv4&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Blige’s bars dig deep – even in the midst of the assumed substanceless Capital of Crunk. Atlanta brought Gucci, Shawty Lo, Plies, Franchize, Youngbloodz, Lil’ Jon, yo patna n dem, and with them brought a variety of honeys and hofessionals. Mary remixed the female face of hip-hop with killer collaborations alongside two of Atlanta’s finest: Ludacris and T.I. For every one of Luda’s hoes gone low – regardless of area code – is a story behind how she got there; on Runaway Love, Blige and Bridges gave the voice behind the veneer of the “just any video vixen.”

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Mary’s collaborative magnum opus – the track that remixed true love’s tone:

http://www.youtube.com/v/xEfkdnx1zUs&hl=en_US&fs=1&

This is a remix, this is beyond explanation as to why – it brought the block back to basics, and brought the rawest grit of the New York City soul that pumps lifeblood through hip-hop. Mary is the voice of the down bottom don diva, ride or die royalty. Mary is the female soul of hip-hop, when Common came close: it was because he loves h.e.r. still.

LeninsTomb presents… Dubstep Dossier

Dubstep and drum-and-bass are kissing cousins, so it’s no surprise to see DnB producers slow down their breakbeats and get in on the subsonic fun. Both lend themselves to massive, enveloping tracks where bass, drums, and synths build and crash like the soundtrack for the Apocalypse, just at different tempos.

Mt Eden, a producer out of New Zealand, has successfully made the transition from DnB to dubstep by remixing and reworking a wide range of tracks. The key for Mt Eden (real name Jesse Cooper) is finding songs with a solid sense of atmosphere and melodrama, qualities that are accentuated by the addition of some wobble: Bat for Lashes’ “Daniel” and Imogen Heap’s “Let Go,” for example.

His track “Sierra Leone” relies on a sample from Freshlyground’s “I’d Like,” adding the original’s trademark ohhs and ahhs to an oscillating bassline and a jumpy backbeat:

Ludacris – How Low – CASPA REMIX by Mercury Records

ALBUM REVIEW: Ludacris – Battle of the Sexes

 

It’s hard to believe that we’re six albums, 13 films and one decade into the career of the greatest album selling Southern emcee in hip hop history, Ludacris. The Atlanta native has parlayed a quick wit and more than lyrically adept flow into a VERY successful mainstream career, in fact providing a blueprint for other southern rappers like T.I. and Lil Wayne to control the Southern game and create an indelible mark on the international hip hop consciousness. With his seventh release Battle of the Sexes due on March 9th, he doesn’t change a thing in his calculated style, putting out an album that doesn’t reinvent the wheel and feels expected, but in that expectation continues to direct and guide the party, aided by some of urban music’s rising talents and classic favorites at the art.

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Strong lead singles have always been a forte of the artist, dating back to his 2000 release Back for the First Time, whose asskicking club anthem “Southern Hospitality” still resonates as clear and fresh as it did a decade ago, the bow throwin’, slang talkin’ rapper setting a precedent and blueprint by which he’s guided his entire career. Battle of the Sexes “How Low,” a fun party starter that zipped to #6 on the Billboard pop charts keeps Canada winning as well, as Drake’s producer T-Minus supplies a poppy synth track that is handled well. Classic Chi-town mastermind for Twista, Traxter goes in big with follow up “My Chick Bad” featuring Queens femcee of the moment Nicki Minaj. The track is solid, but on a conceptual level feels just like Gucci Mane’s “5 Star Chick,” another southern hip hop track aggrandizing beautiful and independent women, both ironically featuring the salacious Head Barbie.

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Trey Songz’s appearance on “Sex Room,” as well as Bangladesh’s production on the Gucci Mane assisted “Party No Mo” are fantastic. “Feelin’ So Sexy” and the Swizz Beatz produced Ne-Yo duet “Tell Me A Secret” as expected give the album the “Hotel” vibe of the “show, afterparty and hotel” vibe of the record. Bonus track “Sexting,” with it’s bouncy Neptunes production and Trey Songz “LOL :)” feel is a ready made single, and a mystery as to why it is not included on the album proper, and the “My Chick Bad” remix, featuring Trina, formerly of Crime Mob, Diamond, and yes, “the illest pitbull in a skirt” Eve’s return to hip hop may be the feel good posse cut of the year, as between Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Kim both being on the same album, Luda more than meets the expectation of the “battle of the sexes” theme, and may have also single-handedly saved the concept of women in hip hop.

Don’t listen to this album expecting the answer to the woes of the record industry. Instead, this album doesn’t deviate from form, and merely provides an hour long diversion and party in the club. In all reality, given the nature of the universe right now, that’s not a bad look at all.

3.5 STARS OUT OF FIVE

Unforgettable, Vol. 1: Lily Allen: My First Mixtape

Good Morning. What’s so special about Saturday morning? Depends on whether the Friday night before it was memorably forgotten… Art is said to imitate life, but it is an amazing moment when the imitation collapses in the presence of life as art. Much like that one strikingly familiar stranger from an otherwise forgettable Friday night, Lily Allen is that one perfectly imperfect artist — person — in an otherwise forgettable genre of overproduced pop stars — personas. Her understated introduction to the world, My First Mixtape, was that Saturday morning wake up from the flashy Friday night of Top 40 puffery. Fear not, all isn’t lost in the MySpace generation; for the ten thousand Tila Tequilas there is Lily Allen: the reason, that just so happens to rhyme with silly. Now be polite and allow me to reintroduce herself…

My First Mixtape is a taste of why Rolling Stone said “Lily Allen is not just a pop star. She’s a genre.” Vis a vis, Allen’s albums don’t call for reviews; they call for dissertations.

The Sound: At the most basic level, MFM is a most sonically pleasing journey through music. Allen seamlessly moves from Cutty Ranks to Kenny Roberts, from More Fire Crew to the Specials; but like Bjork and basketball, I’m not sure how it works, but damn if it doesn’t work well — who knew ODB and CCR could be the new PB&J? Lily — that’s who. My First Mixtape is music that can be thoroughly enjoyed for music’s sake. It isn’t rushed, it isn’t laborious or over done; it is what it is. The sonic journey is an eclectic one, and even at the most surface level it leads the listener to believe there is so much more beneath that shell.

The Story: MFM’s tracklisting tells a story about the artist, as well as her social canvas. Take the first six tracks: Allen’s own LDN, Dizzee Rascal’s Fix Up Look Sharp, Beats Int’l’s Dub Be Good to Me, Allen’s Smile, Ludacris’ The Potion, and DJ Premier’s Pop Shots ft. ODB. LDN takes you on a stroll around London town through the eyes of Lily. The premise of the song, “When you look with your eyes, everything looks nice/But when you look twice, you can see it’s all lies.” In London, no matter how sheisty, shady, or downtrodden you are, always maintain face — so do like Dizzee and “Fix Up, Look Sharp.” Mr. Rascal speaks from first-hand experience; he knows that in public — but especially in personal relationships — you have to save face. Perception breaks from reality, but when it does you only answer to those that matter. The ones that matter, don’t mind what you do to the others — so long as you just be good to them. Still, break-ups happen; when they do, sure you’ll shed a few tears — and vinyls — feel bad for awhile, then you’ll just smile. Though, Lily’s road to recovery from a broken heart leans more towards killing than kindness. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn; and Lily’s potion must’ve been exactly what Miles Davis was eluding to when he created Bitches Brew. Like Luda, Lily grew a bit of a backbone over the years, “when I was little ain’t nobody like me so they wanna fight me fight me; try to step to me now but it ain’t likely.” Since those days, she’s learned to pop shots. So it is, and here we are.

The Social Relevance: Port O’Brien once said we’re “the 21st century rendition of 1969. It’s one thing to act uncertain, it’s another to imitate. They’re closing down the music, and the music it has to wait.” We are a digitized, abridged, artificial remake of American creative culture’s capstone year. In the midst of uncertainty as to how to brand ourselves — seeing as brand loyalty and consumerism are at the crux of any possible cultural identity — or what it is about our generation that is authentic, we use that uncertainty to imitate instead of innovate. Our music is our voice, it is the most primal and basic human expression; at the heart of our humanity is an auto-tuning vocoder machine. Technology is to blame for hyper-commodofied music, and an artificial “renaissance;” but Lily and her First Mixtape hold technology to credit for her hustle and come-up, thanks MySpace. For better and worse we are the 21st century rendition of 1969 and Allen is pop music’s angel of our better nature — she waits for no one, except the music.

All of this is to say “Ello there.” What better way to introduce myself to this music blog than with my idea of an ideal musical introduction. Like Allen’s point with My First Mixtape, my point of view is that it isn’t about me — it’s about my mindset of, and in the midst of, music completely.

But really My First Mixtape is a plug for the site. As true genius requires insanity Lily wishes she “had qualities like sympathy, fidelity, sobriety, sincerity, humility; Instead I got lunacy.” Incredible.

Lily Allen – My First Mixtape

Tracklist: LDN – Lily Allen Fix up Look sharp – Dizzee Rascal Dub be Good to Me – Beats International Smile – Lily Allen The Potion – Ludacris Pop Shots – DJ Premier Taxi Fare – Mr Vegas Who Say Meh Dun – Cutty Ranks She Taught me How to Yodel – Kenny Roberts Born on the Bayou – Creedance Clearwater Revival Get Out my Life Woman – Lee Dorsey Stay with Me – Rod Stewart Up the Junction – Squeeze Knock em Out – Lily Allen Go DJ – Jammin (zinc) Drifting – Jammin (zinc) OI -More Fire Crewwwwww Friday Night Saturday Morning – The Specials Who’s the Bad Man – Dee Patten Joe Le Taxi – Vanessa Paradis (sorry) Silly Games – Janet Kay Cheryl Tweedy – Lily Allen Incredible – M Beat ft General Levy