Killah Priest - View From Masada (2xLP, 2000)

The word on the street was that Killah Priest and the Wu had beef in the period between the release of his debut and this record, and apparently that's supposed to account for why this record isn't nearly as good as his first one.

I'll admit that the beats aren't up to snuff (which can almost be explained by breaking ties with the Wu camp), but it's more than that. Priest himself is responsible for the blandness that runs throughout this one; specifically, he seems to have devolved into what we all thought he despised: a typical rapper. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but given the high bar he set for himself with Heavy Mental, the subject matter here seems all the more low-brow. All of a sudden he's talking about thugs, bitches, and all the stuff that was wonderfully absent from his previous effort.

But that shit doesn't really kick in initially. The first few songs show promise, with the title track and "Hard Times" sounding like solid, but slightly watered-down versions of his usual jams. Things start to fall apart with "Maccabean Revolt," a two-part song that features some lackluster guest spots that completely miss the mark. "Gotta Eat" tries to pick it back up, but the beat is thin and Priest's lyrics aren't there. Never thought I'd hear him talking about "chicks in the club," but there it is.

Ras Kass shows up and so does Canibus, and they both just sound out of place, and Priest sounds out of place next to them, busting more raps about what a real thug he is. There are a few more decent tracks on this one, but it's tough to get the momentum back once the taste's been soured.

"Ladies in the spot looking hot"? Why, Priest, why?

"Whut Part of the Game?"

I Went to a Show: Busdriver at Rotture (August 29, 2009)

Two Saturday shows in a row. Big time stuff for an aging music snob like me.

The wife and I went to Rotture (in Portland's historic meat packing district) solely to see Busdriver, who has quickly become one of my favorite rappers on the planet. We knew there would be two opening acts, but because it's a hip hop show in Portland (maybe they're like this everywhere) there were actually five opening acts, if you count the DJ. I've been burned by padded bills like this before by shows being dragged out, but this time around it all ran smoothly.

First to hit the stage was Travis Wiggins, a Portlander who I was unfamiliar with. I'm glad we caught his set. It was just him and a female vocalist, and they did some fun electro-psych-pop stuff. Tope was second, another local. He sounded quite sincere slinking through a song about all the classic soul music he grew up on, though it was slightly marred by the fact that he's translucent white and looks about 23. But apparently Curtis Mayfield was his inspiration for copping an accent and dropping recycled hooks about twisting blunts. He did have some nice Air Trainers on though–I'll give him that.

(On a side note: he was one of those rappers–and if you've ever been to a hip hop show, you might know what I'm talking about–who kept urging people to come up to the front of the stage, and then badgering people when they didn't. I've never understood why it's my obligation to act like I'm interested in something that I'm only in the same room with by pure coincidence. Why someone on stage would want to draw attention to the fact that nobody is watching them is beyond me. This is such a huge pet peeve of mine.)

For what it's worth, I'm not trying to sound like a dick. It just wasn't my thing.

So that concluded the part of the show I didn't realize I was going to see. (Which is, by the way, probably my fault. I didn't really scope the listings too hard.) The touring acts were next, the first of which was Open Mike Eagle. Dude was fantastic. He had smart lyrics, a potent flow, and a solid attitude. But he clinched it for me when he sang a hook that was based on Frank Black's song "Thalassocracy." Such a bizarre moment, and one that had never even occurred to me. I approached Open Mike at the merch booth after his set and asked him about it, and he was so shocked that I knew what it was from that he gave me a copy of his CD. Seriously: a very cool guy. I'm going to keep an eye on him and see if he comes back to town.

Abstract Rude was next, and though he's a little too irie for me, he put together a fun set. The definite highlight for me was his full-on cover of Geto Boys' "Mind Playing Tricks On Me," complete with a decent Bushwick Bill impression. If I was into bong hits, like really into bong hits, Abstract Rude would probably be more up my alley.

Busdriver finally hit the stage around midnight, accompanied by Antimc, who was set up with a drum machine, a guitar, and some sampling gear. Busdriver also had a sampler and some other knob-twiddling goodies. He wasted no time, and went nuts from the first beat.
Because I'm a sad fanboy (and because it wasn't very crowded), I was front-row center. The Driver played a wide mix of old and new, and did some great fuckery with his sampler and sweet vocal manipulations with this foot pedal thingy he had rigged to one of his mics. He made my wife happy by playing "Casting Agents and Cowgirls" (that's her favorite song of his) and made me happy by playing "Unemployed Black Astronaut." He also knocked out "Sun Shower" somewhere in there and "Scoliosis Jones."

He played a bunch of songs, and went full bore on all of them. He was flicking sweat on us by about the third song, and when at one point he put his hand on my head, it was what I would consider "mad damp." He was working for it. He was cool enough to do an encore after the blistering performance of "Me-Time (With the Pulmonary Palimpsest)" and I was cool enough to buy a t-shirt from him.

So we're all winners.

Killah Priest - Heavy Mental (2xLP, 1998)

Arms too short to box with God. Indeed.

I hadn't listened to this record in a long time, but I've been rocking it fairly hard for the past few days and I gotta tell you: it's awesome. Killah Priest was one of the first Wu-Affiliates to release a solo record (maybe the first–this came out two weeks before Cappadonna's The Pillage), and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Priest managed to take the (by this time) well-known Wu philosophies and dig even deeper, shooting off some of the densest rhymes anyone had probably ever heard. While a lot of MCs claim to drop knowledge, KP was bringing shit that was so over everyone's head that you almost had to take his word that it all meant something. The thing was, it all fit together too well for it to be random bullshit.

Priest is clearly a scholar of both African history and religion, and the themes on this record reflect that. Like I said, the rhymes are dense as all get-out. But here's the thing: they're not bogged-down or boring. I have never understood how this record could be so serious and so filled with brutal truths that shouldn't make for casual listening, and so fucking good all at the same time. I've been bumping this (cassette style) in my car for the last half-week, and it makes for some great driving music. I've also been listening to it while dicking around on the computer, and it works for that, too. It's that sort of great.

The key here is the quality of the beats and Priest's knack for writing compelling hooks. Right off the bat with "One Step," he locks in on a solid chorus and uses it brilliantly to bridge the gaps between his streams of wordplay. He uses the same approach on the majority of the remaining tracks, but doesn't fall into a pattern with this approaches.

This is made abundantly clear on the abstractly awesome title track, on which KP drills out line after line over a backing track that isn't much more than swirling loops of buzzy distortion. It really shouldn't work. But it does. His team-up with ODB on "If You Don't Know" shouldn't work either, but it does. And in the end, this whole thing works, front to back. It's not a party record, but if you're looking for some intelligent hip hop with tinges of the glory days of the Wu, it's tough to beat this one.

'98: a good year to be a hip hop fan. What happened?

"Cross My Heart"

The Kids of Widney High - Let's Get Busy (CD, 1999)

When Mike Patton started the Ipecac label in 1999, I was excited. So excited, in fact, that I decided to collect every album the label released. Of course, I didn't count on their prolific output or their tendency to put out records by bands I couldn't care less about. So, I got through IPC-6, at which time they released a Kid606 record as IPC-7 and I promptly gave up. I'm usually not defeated so easy, but I had looked ahead to their scheduled releases and it wasn't going to get any better.

This is relevant to the album at hand because this CD is IPC-5, sandwiched neatly between the final two parts of the Melvins Trilogy that was released around the same time. If you're not familiar with The Kids of Widney High, you can read about them here. The condensed version for the lazy amongst you: they're a group of mentally challenged students from a special education school in L.A. who write and record songs they have written, with assistance from their educators, who are well-trained musicians.

Mike Patton has long been a fan of the group; in fact, I remember him mentioning them in the late 80's, in a year-end list he put together for Spin (I think) magazine. It's worth mentioning that his adoration for the group appeared devoid of irony - lest you be thinking he's poking fun at them in some way. So, anyone familiar with Patton wasn't too surprised when this was slated as being one of the early Ipecac releases.

The album is, of course, a bit of a novelty, but it makes for a fun listen. Songs like "Pretty Girls" and "Every Girl's My Girlfriend" are the highlights, with their brutally honest assessment of love from afar. There's also some dance-y synth numbers, and even a Christmas track.

Ultimately, I will always remember The Kids of Widney High as the people my brother and I rung in the new millennium with. We had taken a trip to San Francisco to celebrate New Year's Eve 1999 at a show featuring Fantômas, NoMeansNo, the Melvins, and Mr. Bungle. The Kids opened the show, and it was fantastic to watch. Most of the crowd didn't know what to make of it, and the group really had their performance down. It elicited an odd response from the crowd, but nothing rude, thankfully.

After they were done, The Kids ended up out in the audience, milling about as a large group. When Mr. Bungle took the stage as the clock approached midnight, The Kids and their band were all grouped right around my brother and I. The lights went down, we counted in the new year, balloons descended from the rafters, and we spent the first moments of the year 2000 in downtown San Francisco watching The Kids of Widney High blowing on noisemakers and hollering in celebration.

I could have never predicted it in a million years, but it was a great way to usher in the 2000s.

"Pretty Girls"

Kid 'N Play - 2 Hype (CD, 1988)

Sometimes you find a CD in the dollar section at the local store, and there's no point in passing it up. It's a measly buck, and you know you're going to rock it at least three times. That's getting your money's worth, right there.

I might actually argue that this CD was a steal for a dollar. I don't remember if I actually had any Kid 'N Play albums when I was a kid (I would have been 12 when this was released), but I know I had some of their tracks on my notorious K-Tel mixtapes. And I dug the shit. Their back-and-forths are fun, the beats are by Hurby Luv Bug (so you know they just scream '88 style in the best way), and the songs usually aren't about much more than how they dope they are, which is the way to do it.

When they stray from the self-aggrandizing, shit gets a bit spotty. "Last Night" is full of forced story raps, and "Soul Man" is majorly embarrassing. As is "Undercover," the slow jam-ish cut with The Real Roxanne. Luckily they make up for it with the fast-dancing-ready "Do the Kid 'N Play Kick Step" and "Do This My Way."

Yeah, none of it's aged particularly well, but it's an interesting reminder that shit like this doesn't exist anymore. And maybe that's why I always get a kick out of listening to these guys try to start a party for 45 minutes straight. If nothing else, their persistence is legendary.

"2 Hype"

K-Solo - Time's Up (CD, 1992)

K to the Solo. I have been meaning to buy his debut album for years, but that shit is hard to come up on. Actually, I just looked on eBay and apparently it's not as rare as I thought. Still, I've never seen it in a store. This one, on the other hand, I found for a buck a few years ago. And it was (and still is) well worth it.

K-Solo is what great early-90's hip hop was all about: mad skills laced with intelligence. Does anyone remember when it was cool to be smart in hip hop? That's a whole 'nother discussion, so I won't start on that tangent. But while I'm sitting here listening to lyrically dense and vocally gymnastic "Letterman," it's making me, as I often do, yearn for the glory days. Luckily records like this are still around (even if you have to dig a little to find 'em).

K-Solo doesn't have the most distinct voice, but his flow is rock solid and his intentions are always crystal clear. Dude doesn't waste words, and while he's not over-the-top thuggish, he's got a stiff upper lip that makes it clear he's not to be fucked with. He also holds true the 90's tradition of social commentary in tracks like "Who's Killin' Who?" and "Premonition of a Black Prisoner."

Damn, the more I listen to this record, the more I release how dope it is. Time to scope out that debut.

"Letterman"

k-os - Joyful Rebellion (CD, 2004)

Man, I haven't listened to this one since it came out.

I remember what happened: My brother got me this CD on promo from the record store he was working at. I was already a bit shaky on the whole k-os thing because of the R&B tracks on his first record. But, this disc was free, so I couldn't pass it up. The first song heads in the right direction: some easy-flowing hip hop with an uncharacteristically raw title ("Emcee Murdah," surely a bit ironic). Then "Crucial" kicks in, and it's so rastafied that I couldn't take it. Just full on reggae. Well, there went the option of me listening to this when there's anyone else around.

Of course, the rest of the record contains some solid hip hop tracks. But, there's some more R&B bullshit. One thing is becoming clear: I need to feed these discs into iTunes, filter out the crap, and a make a solid mix of just the rap songs.

Maybe I'll do that sometime.

"Crabbuckit"