It's been raining off and on in NYC ever since Election Day - hopefully not some kind of bad omen for the next four years. Still giddy from this week's wave of optimism, I'm gonna say it's simply Tha Mystery God shedding tears of joy. (Awww, what a softy you are, Mystery God.)
Anyways, here's a few precipitation-themed joints to enjoy while waiting for things to clear up (tomorrow, says Doppler). From the recent acquisitions file/pile: the Jewel Bass is on the lovely femme modern soul tip - mid-tempo heat complete with cool spacey synth accents, quiet stormy sound FX and mildly risqué lyrics ("I can feel the moisture dampening my skin/ I'm ready for this cloudburst that's about to begin"). Okay, not exactly Smokey Robinson-level poetry. But still more subtle than what passes for R&B song-writing these days. (It's all hip-hop's fucking fault - but that's a discussion for another time.)
The Rae and Ghost is one of those great Loud heyday promo 12s - same era as Mobb Deep's "Temperature's Rising (Remix)" (which reminds me - gotta remember to digitize that one too). Back then for myself and many others, Wu-Tang could absolutely do no wrong. Just when you thought you had them pegged (or as pegged as was possible given the sonic mold-shredding of stuff like Cuban Linx...) they came with something unexpected like this - the grimiest dudes out the group spitting over a straight lift from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes." Wu-Tang gone Bad Boy - sans Puff's annoyingly saccharine, sanitized aural sheen. Plus - Biggie's affection for "Hey Love" notwithstanding - who else was showing love to Thom Bell and company lyrically like Ghostdini? ("Beware - I'm hittin' like a snare from the Delfonics/ Crushin' n*ggas I be blowin' like economics...")
The things is, the snares on Delfonics records were fuckin' hard as hell. I can just imagine the conversation in the studio that precipitated that line being written. Those dudes were just doing their thing in their own isolated weird world and we were just lucky enough to be privy to it for a little while.
0 comments:
Post a Comment