Talented beatmaker Elaquent has new music coming soon on the mighty Mello Music Group. Here’s a taste.
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Listen to a new PRhyme track from Primo and Royce Da 5’9″
Its been a good few weeks for us DJ Premier heads. A crazy interview with Snoop Dogg, where he dropped teasers about that future Nas album, new music from M.O.P. coming soon, and of course, PRhyme, his latest collaboration with Royce Da 5’9″.
We’ve had some clips of the music already, but now we’ve been blessed with the title track too. Primo is assisted on the beat with samples by Adrian Young, who adds some extra little flourishes to the mix.
It’s another impressive sign of the quality that is no doubt set to come when the album is fully released next month. Listen to the new track here, courtesy of our friends at the always-entertaining EgoTripland.
PRhyme is already available for pre-order in some areas. Look out for our review when it drops.
Why we miss the classic hip-hop breakdown
Hip-hop production has changed and evolved many times since the late 80s, swaying back and forth between old styles and futuristic ones.
The basics don’t change much though, with most tracks roughly sticking to the classic structure of the first two golden eras: Short into with ad-libs, or cuts and scratches. Verse 1, hook. Verse 2, hook. Verse 3, hook. More hook, shout outs, extended cuts and scratches. Fade out.
We are know it well, not just from hip-hop but also most other popular music genres. Classic rap tracks sometimes had an extra special treat though, between the second hook and the start of verse 3. It was known as a breakdown, and we miss them like crazy.
A breakdown tended to include extra cutting and scratches, variations on the beat, extended use of the main samples, and various other types of niceness.
They provided a chance for the listener to pause for reflection, to take in the meaning of the first two verses, and get ready for the third, which was often the most powerful. They also gave the producer time to showcase their abilities, and flex their cutting skills if they also happened to be a deejay.
We’re not necessarily saying we need them back, and in fact producers like DJ Premier and Pete Rock still tend to produce beats in this way. Other modern hip-hop tracks still have them too.
Lest we forget how fucking dope they were though, so here’s a few of our personal favorites. The breakdowns all appear after the first couple of verses.
Nas, The World Is Yours. Produced by Pete Rock.
Lords of the Underground, What I’m After. Produced by K-Def.
LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out. Produced by Marley Marl.
Elmo and Ice Cube: Together at last
You’re a fool if you think Elmo is just for the kids. The furry red monster has been meeting the biggest names in showbiz and music for decades, and each time the writers and puppeteers make things entertaining for the little ones, while also making sure there are lots of clever references that only adults would understand.
Elmo’s latest guest is Ice Cube. Ice. Cube. Mr NWA and AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. On Elmo. As you can imagine, the outcome is pretty special. Cube is there to teach Sesame Street’s finest what the word ‘astound’ means, and does so with some magic tricks that make Elmo lose his shit.
It’s one of the funniest clips we’ve seen in a long, long time, and just shows how incredible Ice Cube’s career has been. Being down for the kids is a great look for the West Coast legend, and good for hip-hop too. Watch the madness below.
Watch Pyramid Vritra on Rhythm Roulette
Rhythm Roulette is one of the best hip-hop video series we’ve ever seen, and we can’t get enough of the rush of new episodes that have arrived in the past few weeks. The latest producer to don the bandana and try their luck is Pyramid Vritra (aka Hal Williams, one half of Odd Future affiliates The Jet Age of Tomorrow), who’s impressive debut album Indra dropped on Stones Throw Records earlier this year.
As always, the trip to the record store throws some curve balls, but Pyramid just about manages to make it work. Watch below to find out how it turned out.
Pyramid Vritra’s Indra is out now.
Nas previews new J Dilla track at Run the Jewels press event
Just when we thought the hype around Run the Jewels 2 couldn’t get any hyper, a special press conference in New York City last night took the situation into overdrive. El-P and Killer Mike were joined on stage by none other than Nas, who seems to be taking his role as Mass Appeal boss seriously.
The legend gave some supportive words to the label’s hottest act, before then giving us all one hell of a treat: a preview of a track from his next album. New music from Nas is always exciting, but when it turns out the track uses a J Dilla beat, that excitement reaches a whole new plain.
Rabid Dilla Dawg fans will instantly recognize the beat as Gobstopper from Donuts. To now have Nas drop vocals over it is an incredible look.
Watch the full video below, and check out our review of the incredible RTJ2.
Run the Jewels 2 is out now on Mass Appeal.
Listen to a Time is Illmatic mix from Pete Rock
Time is Illmatic is showing in cinemas around the world right now, and to celebrate, Pete Rock has blessed up with a new Nas mixtape.
As the producer of one of the classic album’s finest tracks (The World is Yours), there’s few people more qualified than Pete, and he does a fine job reminding us of just how groundbreaking Illmatic was. Not that we’d forgotten of course.
Check below for the full stream, and see here for our review of the Time is Illmatic documentary.
Visit the Time is Illmatic website to find out if the film is showing in your town. It is also available from iTunes in some regions.
Watch: Snoop Dogg interviewing DJ Premier
Snoop Dogg’s online TV show is usually too smoked out and crazy for us, but on the latest episode his guest is the one and only DJ Premier. It starts off with Snoop paying homage to the early Gang Starr records, before Primo moves on to talk about PRhyme, his new project with Royce Da 5’9″.
Also up for discussion is the tracks they have collaborated on together. It’s easy to think of Primo as a producer who only works with boom-bap artists from New York, but he’s mixed it up with Snoop, MC Eight and plenty of other West Coast rappers over the years.
Premier also drops in a little teaser about that long-awaited Nas collaboration, which hopefully will see the light of day at some point after Nas finishes his duties with Def Jam. Amazingly, Snoop claims not to have known that Primo has worked with Nas since Illmatic, but that may have just been the weed talking. Watch the full clip below.
The PRhyme album is set to be released in the next few weeks.
Album Review: Blasphemy – a record of two halves from Ras Kass & Apollo Brown
Ah, Ras Kass. He started off so well with his first solo records, the Golden State Warriors projects and all those other great features. Then came all the legal drama, and those promising albums that never saw the light of day.
All that seems to be in the past now though, with Rassy back making good music. Blasphemy sees his team up with Apollo Brown, a talented producer who’s released a steady run of quality material over the last few years, collaborating with Guilty Simpson, OC and others.
Unfortunately, Blasphemy is an album of two different halves: one good, the other a bit boring. The first half is the good one, with impressive beats from Brown, and some sharp observations from Ras, plus features from always reliable artists like Pharoahe Monch, Rakaa and Xzibit.
Then we get to the second half. The way most people listen to music these days means albums don’t tend to flow in a sequence like they used to. But some thought still needs to go into how tracks are ordered. With Blasphemy, all the good stuff has been put up front, with the lesser tracks dumped in the back.
There isn’t anything badly wrong with those lesser tracks, they just lack the same punch and urgency of the first few. Apollo’s beats also tend to sound the same after more than a handful of tracks, and the cross-over attempt Too Much of a Good Thing doesnt suit Ras’ style one bit.
Not a bad project overall then, but unlikely to be bothering the top spot come album of the year retrospectives in a couple of months time.
Blasphemy it out now on Mello Music Group.
Album Review: Why RTJ2 is the Godfather Part II of hip-hop
That old line about how movie sequels rarely live up to the original has always applied to music too. The so-called sophomore jinx has ruined the career of many an artist, never quite hitting the same heights as a classic debut.
With Run the Jewels 2, El-P and Killer Mike have gone and pulled a Godfather Part II. If last year’s debut album was a modern classic, then Run the Jewels 2 is even better. It’s darker, dirtier and way more fucked-up than the original, and all the better for it.
What we have here is two artists high as a kite on confidence from just how well their music is being received. For lesser acts, this can lead to complacency. For others, it brings out the best in them. Jamie and Mike know how good they are, and they know we know how good they are.
That’s why RTJ2 is almost the perfect album, with virtually every track the kind you want to listen to again and again. Standouts include Jeopardy, Oh My Darling Don’t Cry, and Close Your Eyes with Zack de la Rocha, who reminds us all that while he may not make rap music, he can rap with the best of them. El-P’s production work is impeccable; weird enough to be his own signature sound, but accessible and head-nodding enough to keep it grounded. As for the lyrics, both rappers are angry as hell, and it works like a charm.
The true genius of Run the Jewels, still one of the most unlikely collaborations in hip-hop, is that both artists have approached it as blank canvas, despite each one having a huge backlog of music to their name. It doesnt matter if you know everything that has come before (the classic Company Flow and Def Jux material from El-P, the Outkast features from Mike), or if this is the first time you’ve come across them. We are all on the the same page at this point, and by discarding any preconceptions of the music we expect them to release, Run the Jewels are making exactly the type of music they want to.
On those rare occasions where a movie sequel does live up to the original, the one after that is usually garbage. Watch Godfather Part III if you don’t believe us. Run the Jewels is a saga we want to see rolling on forever, and judging by the new album, things are only going to keep getting better.
Don’t forget that RTJ2 being out means we are also one step closer to getting Meow the Jewels, potentially the most incredible album in the history of music ever. Or maybe not. Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy what’s probably the best work that either of these two guys have ever produced. And when you do consider the music they have been involved in before now, that’s some accolade.
RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal.