unpiano: music

Yep.. ‘I can’t make it home’ is probably the title of my life story. Leave it to Devin to lay it all out for me on his newest album. I don’t have a car anymore but if I did you know I would be playing this as I drove home from the bar every night.

Devin The Dude - I Can’t Make It Home

Bjork and A Tribe Called Quest go together like chocolate and peanut butter. She produced these remixes of ‘Stressed Out’ back in the nineties and those horns just kill it every time. The whole thing just seems so genuine.

A Tribe Called Quest - Stressed Out (Bjork’s Say Dip Remix)
A Tribe Called Quest - Stressed Out (Bjork’s Married To The Mob Remix)

//photo by Arthur Leipzig

This is from that Big L/Jay-Z freestyle I posted last week. Makes me think of New York on a weekday in the rain. Smoking a cigarette and watching the rain fall while the piano loops in the background. You can check the version with lyrics if you want, but I just put it up there for reference.

Miilkbone - Keep It Real (instrumental)
Miilkbone - Keep It Real

Lamont Coleman came straight out of Harlem with some of the sickest murder raps I have heard to this day. Sometimes he talked about other stuff too (see ‘Put It On’), but he was always at his best when he got real dark. The best part was that he hated everybody; best friends, women, Jesus, cops, gay dudes, infants, his mom.. they all got caught a bad one. Sometimes you just gotta take what you’re good at and stick with it (Are you listening Mobb Deep and Beatnuts?). He also killed every freestyle I have ever heard, including the one below where he made Jay-Z sound like a stuttering idiot in comparison. Unfortunately, it seemed like all that gun talk finally caught up with him and he got dropped on a corner in Harlem back 1999. Luckily before he left he recorded the amazing Lifestylez Ov Da Poor And Dangerous (another one of about 10 cassettes I still own) which can be best enjoyed at night cruising around with tinted windows, letting the streetlights wash over the hood as you go by.

Big L - Devil’s Son
Big L - Put It On
Big L - Street Struck
Big L - Lifestylez Ov da Poor and Dangerous
Big L - Da Graveyard
Big L - Platinum Plus (w/ Big Daddy Kane)

Bonus:
Freestyle with Jay-Z (over ‘Keep It Real’)
Freestyle from 1995 (over ‘Who Shot Ya?’)
Freestyle from WKCR (Stretch and Bobbito)

I’ve been listening to Xzibit’s first album At The Speed of Life a lot lately. I remember seeing the video for Paparazzi on Rap City when I was younger and and then buying the tape the very next day. Actually I think it’s one of maybe 10 tapes that I still own to this day. Pretty much a solid album from front to back, he’s talking about relatable shit on a level that most rappers are never able to reach. I’m a big fan of loose drug raps and all that other stuff too, but I’ve always thought that best hip hop album (i.e. the ones that could stand the test of time) were always the ones that were starkly personal. Granted Xzibit moved on to some different styles later on in his career (sort of like the west coast Nas) but this album will always stand up strong on it’s own.

Xzibit - Paparazzi
Xzibit - At The Speed of Life
Xzibit - The Foundation
Xzibit - Carry The Weight
Xzibit - Bird’s Eye View

Bonus:
Xzibit - Paparazzi (video)
Xzibit - The Foundation (video)

Heard one of these newish Premier tracks the other day on KUSF’s BeatSauce show. Premier seems to be stuck in that same beat formula he has had for the last six years or so, but check out Queen’s Blaq Poet. Sort of sick right? I don’t have time for a detailed post right now, but look up him and his crew Screwball. I bet you won’t be disapointed.

Blaq Poet - We Gon Ill
Blaq Poet - Watch Your Back

I have no idea where I first heard this record but it blew my mind that members of Souls of Mischief and The Pharcyde had cut something together. Not only that, but the whole concept had a porn theme complete with fake porn star names and photos. I expected it to be joke but the beats were sick and they talked about “burning down the burbs” and rhymed words like vicodin. What? Exactly. I haven’t seen this anywhere since I bought it and I could hardly find out anything else about it so I had to use my terrible needle again to do a vinyl transfer. It’s such a good pressing that it blew the whole sound out.. sorry. Someone send me $60 so I can buy an new one. Please?

Almyghty Myghty Pythons - Curb Your Nerve
Almyghty Myghty Pythons - Amp

After Del made No Need For Alarm in 1993 he went on to record his third album Future Development which he planned to release on Elektra. Unfortunately they sent him a letter right before it was supposed to come out and told him they were dropping him from the label. Hiero made an attempt to release it and featured a downloadable version from their website, but for while it was a Japan-only cassette meaning that essentially it was lost to the public. I was lucky to get a dubbed copy made for me back in the nineties and found out that the unreleased album was tight as hell. My tape has long since worn through but luckily Hiero gave it a full release in 2002 and I picked it up on vinyl. This is really the last Del album that contains that nineties style of production and his ‘everyday rhymes’ since most material to come out after this seems to feature that “weirdo” version of Del (i.e. Deltron 2020). All of that aside, Future Development has a really good feeling to it and is one of those albums you can just have on repeat for the afternoon. I couldn’t find it anywhere online so I had to make some vinyl transfers. I noticed that I need a new needle so please excuse the sound quality.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Why Ya Want To Get Funkee..
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Love Is Worth
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Corner Story
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Stress The World

Bonus:
I feel like if I’m going to make a Del post I have to include the video for ‘Catch A Bad One’. If somehow you have never heard one of his songs before, this one will convince you right off the bat. It’s so good, it even inspired me to name a zine after the title.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Catch A Bad One (video)

I don’t know what took me so long, but I’ve started tracking down all my favorite music from the show Samurai Champloo that was on television a while back. Most of the stuff used on the show was written by Nujabes and Fat Jon (of Five Deez fame) who both have a very cool-out jazz influenced style of making beats. I’ve also noticed that there is a very distinctly Japanese version of hip hop that producers hailing from there see to adapt to (see DJ Honda, DJ Krush, etc..). Very clean, very subtle, but always with content. Anyways, this could have been a much more comprehensive blog since both of those guys have extensive catalogs, but I’ll let you dig that stuff out for yourself. And go watch that show if you haven’t seen it already. You girlfriend will probably hate it, but what does she know anyways (ps.. you know you’re a total geek right?)

Nujabes - Latitude Remix (ft. Five Deez)
Nujabes - The Final View
Nujabes - Kumomi
Nujabes - Feather (ft. Cise Starr & Akin)
Nujabes - Next View (ft. Uyama Hiroto)

Bonus:
Samurai Champloo Opening (video)
Samurai Champloo Closing (video)

I don’t think I really have to talk too much about Lil’ Wayne at this point. So I won’t. The new album is ridiculous and it’s been number one for like a month now. The singles (which I threw down into the bonus area) are great but the real gems are the Kayne produced tracks that are listed below.

Lil’ Wayne - Shoot Me Down
Lil’ Wayne - Let The Beat Build

Bonus:
Lil’ Wayne - Mr. Carter
Lil’ Wayne - Comfortable