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REVIEW: Yeezus – Kanye West

Yeezus - Kanye WestKanye West
Yeezus
Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam; 2013

Score: Recommended (with sweet and sour sauce)

Buried at the end of “Last Call”, the final track on The College Dropout, is a nine minute long interview-style recording of Kanye West recounting the crowning events that lead to his eventual signing to Roc-A-Fella Records. In retrospect this segment is probably the most captivating part of the rapper-producer’s debut album. Here was a measured, sane, Kanye speaking in endearingly giddy tones about meeting his idols — Jay, Dame, Cam, Kweli — for the first time ever. This moment symbolized the Spring of West’s pop career, a season in which his only crises were ones of the physical world: stacking enough paper to cop a Pelle Pelle and some J’s; moving sight unseen from Chicago to an apartment in Newark, New Jersey; finding enough time in his rapidly increasing work schedule to finish mundane tasks like assembling Ikea furniture. “Last Call” was Kanye at his most relatable. His most normal. His most likeable.

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DOWNLOAD: Indigo Children: Tales From The Other Side – Kung Foo Grip

Click album cover to D/L.

New shit from Kung Foo Grip. The six-track EP, Indigo Children Tales From The Other Side, was produced entirely by Giorgio Momurda. It’s available now at KFG’s Bandcamp page for whatever you’ve got in your pocket.

UPDATE (3:51 pm): Here’s what I wrote (or will write) in my weekly column over at SSG Music tomorrow:

Kung Foo Grip is comprised of MCs Greg Cypher and F is H (or, FisH — see what he did there?). Hailing from the pristine land of suburbia known as Kirkland (that’s on the east side of Lake Washington, across the pond from Seattle for those that don’t know), this duo is on the come-up quick in the Pacific Northwest rap scene. On their latest release, Indigo Children Tales From The Otha Side (get it here), they invite producer Giorgio Momurda into their circle who quickly uses the EP’s six tracks to push the crew’s sound into the swirl of ambiguity that is hip-hop’s current fashion.

The video for “FVCKV9TA5″ above is a good example. Over Momurda’s controlled chaos of muted harmony, screwed vocals and video game explosions, KFG show off the lyrical dexterity first honed in many a Seattle cypher while bringing a dose of much needed energy and (ahem) color to their town’s otherwise dozy, monochromatic cul-de-sacs. “Esrever Ni” (or, “In Reverse”) meanwhile slides in somewhere between cloud-rap and dubstep. With a glut of rap currently coming out of the Puget Sound, Kung Foo Grip is on the shortlist of groups worth paying close attention to.

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REVIEW: Take Care – Drake

The neighborhood of Forest Hill is a quiet, idyllic enclave in the central section of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. The district’s broad streets and leafy sidewalks are bordered by expansive single-family homes and an impressive collection of stately mansions that trend more toward Sotheby’s auctions than the pedestrian listings of Century 21. It was on these well-maintained municipal arteries that a young Aubrey Drake Graham presumably rehearsed a very early form of his now widely recognized helium-pitched MC flow, a style that has earned him various musical accolades and an equal number of less shiny endorsements from skeptics earnestly questioning the validity of dude’s lofty position in the rap game…

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VIDEO: “Black Up (Official Album Video)” – Shabazz Palaces

Another “Oh…Damn,” moment from SP. I wonder if Black Up will make 206UP.COM’s Best-Of 2011 list? (Gee, ya think?) Read more of my thoughts on this video, here.

And also this:

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REVIEW: Relax – Das Racist

The primary goal of those truly astute comedians who center their acts around observations on on race and racism is to extract some degree of deeper understanding from their audiences. For them, there is no greater offense than crowd ambivalence. The disappointment in audiences’ failings is the reason Dave Chappelle divorced a fifty million dollar contract and fled to Africa to save his sanity. It’s the reason Chris Rock’s early stand-up routines were philosophically based in a contemptuous rage for the world and many of the people sitting before him. And it’s the same reason Das Racist (composed of three well-educated men of color) allow themselves to fall into lackadaisical stage performances at shows where, it’s important to add, the audience is typically composed of white, college-aged males who are all too eager to repeatedly chant the chorus to “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” but not consider why the song is so devastatingly funny. If Das Racist concerts were frequented in the majority by folks of color, it’s certain you would see an entirely different display of the trio’s very substantial rap skills rather than the lampooning they derive from the attendant status quo.

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REVIEW: NoYork! – Blu

As far as underground rappers go, Blu represents near perfection. Ever since Below The Heavens, his 2007 collaboration with producer Exile, West Coast kids rocking Jansports and Vans have used the MC’s albums like warm blankets, Golden Era-type soundscapes perfect for draping over themselves during chilly winter nights on the Pacific Ocean. Blu has been at the center of the next wave of the underground Cali rap tradition, the same one that celebrated crews like The Pharcyde and Hieroglyphics have carried since the early 1990s…

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DOWNLOAD: Quality of Living – Brothers From Another

Click album cover to D/L.

Hip-hop is a young man’s game and, as an aging (and concerned) fan of the music, it’s hard for an old geezer like myself to put easy trust in kid rappers who are often more than ten years my junior. I want to hope that my beloved genre will be left in good hands that foster and advance the movement rather than retard and hinder. Much of the sh-t that’s really popping nowadays is more of a portent of things to come rather than a reason to be optimistic.

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REVIEW: Black Up – Shabazz Palaces

Click album cover to purchase at Sub Pop Records.

Two years ago…

An unsolicited email from a stranger. An exchange of contact information. The arrival of a mysterious package containing two enigmatic CD’s, the contents of which were bafflingly abstruse then, and continue to be now. This is one story, in brief, of how Shabazz Palaces came to exist in this writer’s musical conscious. There are other stories, too, but they are immaterial to the individual experience. As Palaceer Lazaro, the lead creative voice of SP says explicitly on Black Up, the group’s debut full-length album: “It’s a feeling.” These are words worth paying attention to. Do you remember how you felt the first time you heard Shabazz Palaces? If so, put all of your questions about the music and perceived answers to the side, for feeling Black Up is really all that matters.

(Click here to continue reading at SSG Music.)

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