*
Here's something out of the ordinary for this place. I first heard this track playing in the defunct and missed Record Service in Campustown almost 20 years ago. I bought the album without hesitation. Being out of touch with emerging pop music styles back then, I wasn't really sure what the hell I was listening to. The kid in the store told me.The Digable Planets made liberal use of samples from jazz classics, which was what immediately caught my ear in juxtaposition to the rap setting. But throughout the album the Planets repeatedly profess their adoration of Jimi Hendrix... and yet, no Hendrix samples are used anywhere. Their lyrics were readily intelligible to me, which has been a relative rarity throughout my entire life when listening to rock, blues, or soul (ear dyslexia?).
On every track, the lyrics present vivid impressions of black urban life; not always pretty (but, then, often they are), and there's not one word dedicated to misogyny or glorified violence. The difficulties of urban life come through loud and clear, though, without sweetening.
The trio delivers psychedelic hiphop poetry in mellow rap cadences, with some kind of backstory involving extraplanetary aliens, bugs (or alien bugs), and Hendrix. (Yes, the album has many amusing facets, too.) The horn sample used on this featured song was lifted with permission from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers; other tracks borrow from Sonny Rollins, Curtis Mayfield, and the Crusaders among others.
There is one problem with this otherwise-tight video, though. Someone in postproduction seems to have overdubbed highly "stereoized" synth fills in places, and they sound kind of ridiculous and out of place. I can listen through that, though, because before tonight I'd never seen a video of this group. I think they're cool. I hope you like it.
Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat), Digable Planets (1993, from "reachin' [a new refutation of time and space], Pendulum Records 61414-2), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.
Quite a coincidence that you should post this and this morning I hear that gil scott heron has gone to meet his maker. I caught up with his music years after "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", even after 30 odd years it sounded and felt extremely edgy.
ReplyDeleteregular terms in prison (and a diet of drugs) clearly are not good for your health. My hero Arthur Lee died in his sixties, after spending many years in and out of prison.
Little Willie John died in prison.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqY1gpfvL_0
Nicely funky. Perhaps a bit too smooth and precise. No "grit" (Janis Joplin) or "gravel" (Bob Dylan) but then again laying down tracks isn't always like paving a road. Reminds me of other hook sort of tunes (e.g., Sheryl Crow "All I Wanna Do"). If brain science ever gets to the point where music can induce identical functioning as addiction then we may be in trouble - or heaven.
ReplyDeleteThe Tone Deaf Critic
And now some happy news...(from a straight shootin' source):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/3/seymour_hersh_despite_intelligence_rejecting_iran
Perhaps a creative political conjecture sort of writing contest could be started. The judging criteria would be to imagine and "realize" in your fiction an even more screwed up situation...
Ghost of Mitternich (with the dry heaves)