The first time I heard Curren$y was his Welcome to the Winner’s Circle mixtape in 2008. The first time I heard Alchemist was probably 1998 or 1999 when he was doin beats for Dilated Peoples and Defari. I feel like these guys make an interesting pair because they’re both getting love from the underground, as well as the mainstream. There are not many artists that can say that, especially ones that are reasonably successful. But, these guys both have a trusted formula: stick to what you know, and it’s carried them both from relative obscurity to international acclaim.
Covert Coup is all about sticking to what you know. This is unarguably hip hop, you aren’t gonna hear any Lex Luger styled 64th note hi hats, blasé crossover guest vocalists, or autotune. There isn’t any pandering to trends, it’s chilled out classic boom bap beats hip hop from the front to the back. Spitta is just talking about what he does in the time when he’s no in the studio, and he does it well. And Alchemist is just chopping the same kinds of breaks that have always worked. I think this music really speaks to the difference that perspective makes. Neither of these guys are looking to rise to unattainable heights, or maintain a tenuous hold on overwrought success. This is two dudes making music, and it sounds like two dudes making music.
In a time when music seems to be entering another golden age, and hip hop seems to be fracturing into those focused on music and those focused on success it’s clear where these guys stand. There is nothing outrageous on here, nothing that stands so starkly against the current backdrop of music that I’m shocked, but I’m certainly engage by the music. Nothing on here is going to be a massive success on the radio, but these songs will probably catch rotation for a few years at least. There’s no song with 20 incredible guests but, there are a few features (most notably Prodigy and Freddie Gibbs). This project was probably done in the interstices of several other project judging by how much both of these guys work. And that comes through in the execution/sound, but the record doesn’t suffer at all for it. To put it simply this record refrains from being overambitious, which is an emerging Achilles’ Heel in hip hop. They just made some music, that’s all. And it’s good.
Whenever they show a post-apocalyptic world in which children are the last people remaining it’s always so dark. The kids have either turned on each other, resorting to cannibalism or some such things, or perhaps have enslaved any adult hangers-on, or have somehow stratified themselves into tribal hierarchies that usually end with the nice kid with glasses getting killed. That’s definitely not how it would go down.
I imagine kids would just skate around and throw water balloons at each other. And smoke mad weed and eat animal-style Double Double’s from In-N-Out before they expired then download a shitload of music from torrents without fear of legal repercussion because young kids are fucking good at technology these days. Anyway, check out this video that one of our streetwear affiliates in Malaysia, The Push, sent over of their skate team (fitted out with Mishka pom-pom hats) having a mounted water balloon fight. Now I am become water balloons, destroyer of hairstyles and temporary tattoos.
“Shook Ones pt. II.” The Infamous. “Quiet Storm.” “Give Up The Goods.” Hell On Earth. Mobb Deep really need no introduction. Havoc and Prodigy are as essential to NY hip hop as Timbs, dice games, grimy beats and tales of shit getting real fucked up, real fast, in the outer boroughs. We had a chance to sit down with dudes and discuss their place in music, Prodigy’s new book, people getting thrown on train tracks and one of the unsolved mysteries of rap…
You guys dropped your classic The Infamous 16 years ago as of this month, and the album is like a time capsule of the NY circa ’95. Talk about the difference between NY in 1995 vs NY in 2011.
Prodigy: I just dropped a book called My Infamous Life, it’s an autobiography. My life story, Mobb Depp and all that. Part of that book touches on that. It’s a big difference from NY back when we was growing up to now. NY was real loose before. On the trains, the graffiti, it was a dangerous place. You didn’t have as much of a safety net as you got now. I feel we was blessed to grow up in that era in NY, cause I got to see things how it used to be on the streets. Back then, you ride the train you better have your hammer on you — Bernhard Goetz shit goin’ on, you know.
Me and Hav went to high school in Manhattan, we were in school with all the five boroughs, we’d get on the train after school, there’d be madness. There’d be fights on the subway platform, people getting thrown on the train tracks. All types of gangs — the Decepticons — they’d come up to the school and try and cut people in they face. It was crazy back then. It’s a lot better now. Less crime and less of a threat to your safety.
Going off of that, in ’95 NY was the epicenter of rap, but, now other regions have become more prevalent, power is more spread out. To be honest the importance of NY rappers isn’t what it once was. How do you guys see the current landscape of rap music?
Havoc: To look at it in a positive aspect, it’s just evolving. Rap music evolves like everything else evolves. You spin the wheel and shit just ended up in Atlanta. Its all good, there’s no problem with that. We just proud to be in the forefront of it all. We’re NY rappers, nothing could ever top that, I don’t give a fuck whats hot whats not, nothing will ever beat being a NY emcee. Our position is solidified. I definitely condone it — shit spreading out — because if it was just over here, it’d be corny. We’d be complaining about that.
It’s interesting that you take that angle, because dudes from NY, from your generation specifically, kinda have a stigma of being elitist. A lot of your peers have been critical of cats that don’t sound like them. Why do you think that’s been a widespread attitude?
Havoc: See that’s the thing that made the music shift to other places, in my opinion. It’s just closed-mindedness that gave other people the opportunity to creep up, because you so busy ignoring what’s going on around you, that you’re not even realizing other music out there. That mind state alone, is a negative for NY music. These are just other young brothers coming up making music. It ain’t gotta be my kind of music, but that don’t mean I’m gonna shit on it.
Prodigy: It got a lot to do with just growing up and maturing mentally. You gotta respect other people that’s doing their thing and just do your thing. I think also, with all the new rappers that’s out right now flooding the game, I think it’s a good thing for rap music period. It forces you to be more creative. You got all these people and it’s like “whats so special about you?” it forces you to stand out of the crowd.
Speaking of the crowd, is there anyone who stands out to you that you’re digging right now?
Prodigy: Oh man, I like Odd Future. They’re crazy right now.
It’s wild that you say that, because it sounds to me that Odd Future pulled the dark atmosphere in their production from The Neptunes work with Clipse. Yet, I always felt that The Neptunes work with the Clipse, when it worked best, was them doing their take on Mobb Deep style production.
Prodigy: Yeah, we meet a lot of artist who are like “Yo man, I grew up off of Mobb Deep. Y’all music is all we bang around our way” and it’s all love. It’s the same way with us, when we came up doing our thing, there was a lot of people – Big Daddy kane, Rakim, Jungle Brothers, Nas – we were like man, son is nice.
Talking about your production and sound, the sample (Herbie Hancock’s “Jessica) for “Shook Ones Pt. II” for a long time has remained one of the unknowable mysteries of rap. But just recently someone cracked it and figured out the source of it. How do you feel about that?
Havoc: Somebody cracked the Davinci Code! That’s crazy. Everywhere I used to go, people used to ask me what the sample was, and I never used to tell them. The truth of the matter is, I forgot what I had sampled. But, a part of me was kinda happy that somebody had finally figured it out, because it just brought to light the relevancy of that song and it’s importance to hip hop — and the meaning it had for other people. So, I was happy about that, and glad to find out what it was.
Prodigy, I was checking out your book and at one point you talk about your recent stint in prison and how you looked at it as sort of an extended period of meditation. You also in the book talk about having enlightenment and likening it to Roddy Piper in They Live, when he puts on the shades and sees the hidden messages all around him. When you put on the shades now or think back after having years of meditation, what do you see when you reflect on the Prodigy of ’95?
Prodigy: I just see a lot of recklessness, wildin’, having fun. We was just having fun, being us, the music came out naturally. When I look back at it, I just think “wow,” a lot of it is a blur. There was just so much drinking and fucking, all kinds of weed – just a lot of wild times and fun. But, at the same time, we were ahead of our time s far as the subject matter of our songs and how we carried ourselves in a lot of ways.
We were definitely ahead of our time and I definitely see that also, but, now I look back at it and I see we been through that and we don’t gotta prove nothing. We can just kick back and continue to make this music and do what we do. Just check our track record. This is where we at now, life is a learning process.
You also speak about your grandfather being big in the jazz scene in your book, playing with dudes like Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones. As well you mention your grandmother having a really successful dance school and her working with dudes like Ben Vereen. Considering jazz and dance being such prominent black art forms, how do you think this musical pedigree shaped you becoming a rapper?
Prodigy: When I was going through the book, reading it after I wrote it, it was bugged out to me because, we go through mad generations of music in the book. We go through my grandfather’s time with the jazz and my mothers era with the doo-wop, she had the group The Crystals. Then you go through the beginning stages of rap. When I first started hearing rap. We start Mobb Deep and we get into the music ourselves, all through the different stages of current popular rap music. To see that from then to now — to see it all come together, it’s crazy. I was able to keep my family’s legacy of music going like that; it’s kind of bugged out. It’s different generations of black music metamorphosing through the years.
The dragon tattoos you guys have on your hands, are the same as the logo of NY hardcore band Sick Of It All. Is there a connection between Mobb Deep and Sick Of It All?
Prodigy: Basically, when I was 14 or 15, there was this tattoo parlor in Elmart off Hemstead turnpike and I had walked in there to get my first tattoo. There was this dragon on the wall and I didn’t know what it was, I just thought it looked ill, I was mad young and I had always wanted something on my hand. I prolly seen it on some of those L.A. gang movies like Colors. I thought’d be cool, it’d look like some tough shit. So I told the dude put that on my hand. When me and Hav started Mobb Deep, we turned it into the lil clique thing.
We wanted to turn it into the logo for Mobb Deep, but, then we got a cease and desist letter in the mail. It was like “yo, you using our logo” from Sick Of It All’s lawyer and we was like what the fuck? Niggas was like “P, where you get that?” And I was like, that was just some random shit! We didn’t even know, we was just young kids.
Yeah, I looked it up and they actually covered “Survival of the Fittest.”
Havoc: Oh for real? that’s dope.
Prodigy: Yeah they did the rock version. Prolly cause they seen we was using the logo.
Havoc: They was like “Oh yeah, we’re gonna do one of their songs”
Prodigy: “You take our shit, were gonna take your shit!”
Grab Prodigy’s new autobiography My Infamous Life to get more stories of the formation and early years of Mobb Deep, growing up in pre-Guiliani NY and more than a few rappers getting smacked in their mouths. The book turns out to be a compelling autobio whether or not you’re a Mobb Deep stan, as dude has had a crazy life — also, there’s cameos from the likes of Mary J. Blige, Lindsay Lohan and possibly aliens. A retread of of the classic “birthdays was the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thirsty” story, this is clearly not.
Pitchfork’s been toying recently with making their own 3D videos. They started with Deerhunter’s “Primitive” a and are following that up with Wavves’ “Post-Acid.” But if you catually wanna experience it all in 3D you’ll need to either have a par of 3D glasses handy or be willing to buy some on Amazon like some goddamn Negative Dad!
Watch the video here since Pitchfork’s embedding features just aren’t really working that great. :/
Didn’t seem possible for //TENSE// to get more wasteland-ish, but here we are. This five-song stormer borrows a vibe from all the dystopian greats (most obv: Blade Runner, Escape from New York) while somehow stripping everything to its barest bones. We’re talking dangerously sexy, minimal EBM: a slinky bass line, some metal-clang drums and perfectly timed (read: terrifying and sometimes totally unexpected) vocal effects running at you like an enemy with a scrapyard knife.
The name says it all. If last year’s Consume was an all-encompassing monster, this EP that could’ve eaten you alive had it teeth, Escape is…you know, the escape from that. It’s a lateral move—//TENSE// still sound like themselves, i.e. pretty much the only new band able to announce a tour with Nitzer Ebb and have people go “Well, obviously.”—but it deepens their narrative ten-fold. Over their relatively short span of releases, the Houston duo (sometimes trio) have proven themselves masters of atmospheric storytelling, and this one’s no exception. ‘Cause even though Escape evokes a time first and foremost, its place is equally striking. Wax Trax-era Chicago gone awry: a retro-futuristic, kill-or-be-killed void.
And the songwriting’s deepened too, thanks partially to all that minimalism. From the sinister dance of “Body Conscious” to the pulsing repetition of “Pull The Strings”, Escape focuses solely on what works. Even the most vast and cinematic of the bunch, closer “Unmanned Cars” with its crushing death-march build, feels stripped to the most essential elements: a doomed and plodding beat, vocals screaming into an echo. Sounds and rhythms that convey the depraved atmosphere with nothing weighing them down. Welcome to the deserted //TENSE// wasteland. Grab a jagged blade; it’s hell out here.
Some of my personal favourite blog posts that I’ve written are on bands or artists that I didn’t know all to much about. I had to do bit of Google sleuthing to find them and/or any information about them. After some protracted searches and second guessing I’m usually able to mine a small wealth of information from the faceless myriad of internet static. The subject of this week’s Sounds From the Other Side is one such artist… and so I present to you, MR 666.
Some time ago (maybe nine months or so back), I played a rather interesting mp3 that at the time, I had no clue who it was from, who it was of and that was labeled very oddly. So I went on Last.fm to do a little digging. All I had to go on was “Inerstate” was listed as the band’s name, “A2 Esteban” as the track title, which seemed odd and the contributing artist tag was filled with some random filename characters. I figured that I’d just have to settle with being forever shrouded in darkness over the track and the identity of artist behind it. But I couldn’t leave well enough alone and kept digging. After a bit of time I found more information hidden like gold in internet seams of chalcedony stone. And I eventually tracked it all back to the artist know as MR666. The germ of this search, track “A2 Esteban,” was an awesome doomy Krautrock/Italiano synth masterpiece, riffing along like John Carpenter on speed sailing the seas of an analogue interweb.
MR 666 hails from the current home of modern death synth, the always productive Chicago. An artist working with sounds dredged from the same underworld of 1980’s horror soundtracks, MR 666 utilizes the same droning synths to create moods and environments in a way similar to Gatekeeper, Zombi or Oneohtrix Point Never. However waht sets MR 666 apart from his contemporaries is that his dirges are relatively upbeat, a neon illuminated flag on the darkened dance floor. Soaring synth organ and string parts lift you from the darkness of the city, up through the smog layer to a world of drifting clouds into and angelic synth based orgasm.
MR 666 has been playing a few gigs here an dthere n and around the Chicago area for a few years it would seem, notably supporting Gatekeeper in the summer of 2009. But it seems he’s starting to play out more frequently as of late. Most recently MR 666 turned in a set this past Friday as part of Chicago’s Version 11 festival.
The MR 666 Myspace is a sparse and hardly attended to affair, but has some interesting tracks on it only found there. There are covers of the Doctor Who and A Clockwork Orange theme along with “Esteban” and another brilliant track called “Faustas.” Digging deeper I managed to find MR 666’s Soundcloud, which was sadly a totally empty affair. No followers and it was following no one itself. No links, No image but it did have tracks and damn, if you couldn’t recognize from the sounds that both MR 666s were one and the same. All the tracks there have been uploaded within the last two months, which also coincides with MR 666’s re-engagement with performing live.
Feeling quite pleased with my sleuthing I was about to start writing this entry when I found this video on YouTube, and damn if some of my assumptions weren’t warped a little! Up until this point I had thought this was a solo bedroom project but in this live video of MR 666 from 2010, if you look carefully you can see there are three band members rocking the synth stands. For me this takes the band up a level to become something altogether more brilliant, this is a proper line up, a proper band with live potential and by the looks of it some great live visuals.
Then the final dawning recognition struck my mind like an Easter nail through my temporal palm and the source of the “Esteban” mp3 was revealed to me, of course 20JazzFunkGreats! What other blog would have been as privy to such a tune as this. Their post from just over nine months ago still has the track available to download which is a great thing as there is nothing else to download anywhere else… that is as of yet. record label Ghost Arcade seems to imply there is a release by MR 666 coming soon.
While some of you may be celebrating Jesus’ resurrection today, devotees of the inverted triangle are getting their own rave resurrection. This past November, ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ dropped what was rumored to be the final Zombie Rave for Mater Suspiria Vision. I suppose rumors of it’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Thank God… or Satan, whichever applies here.
Since ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ first introduced the concept of Zombie Raves early in 2010 there have been countless copycats. Some good, some bad, but none were ever able to rival the original from those necromancers at Mater Suspiria Vision and it’s always a thrill to get a new Zombie Rave from the camp.
No videos for this Zombie Rave, just two hours of dragged down bliss for all the wicked heathens in the world. Only 100 official download slots but I’m sure as always spawns will begin appearing via rapidshare, mediafire and megaupload. Feel free to post those links in the comments section for those who missed out on the Soundcloud download. Here’s to 40 days on Earth with your newest undead messiah.
Another Check Yo Pony Tail has come and gone and I’d be willing to bet once again that you missed it because you are just too cool for fun things in LA. I’m not exactly sure why but for some reason we keep offering you the chance of seeing solid bands for a solid price and you just won’t go. Don’t sweat it because we have proof that this awesomeness went on without you.
Futurecop! brought their electro sounds, Chairlift did as well, before Holy Ghost! (no not Jesus) blew all of California’s minds with their dual action set that had all the fine ladies sitting on each others laps while wearing leather jackets. Check the gallery below courtesy of The Hollow Eyed.
Hey look y’all! It’s Los Angeles’ Tearist looking all awesome and shit in our 350 Broadway Store! Welcome to Brooklyn homies, it really is the glorious utopia you’ve always pictured. We were seriously jazzed (yeah, that’s right. I said it. I said jazzed.) to have these two roll through. They were particular fans of our M65 style jackets, Psychic TV for him, War Ensemble for her.
Yasmine Kittles looks particularly fetching in that all black number with her swooping hair and whatnot. You’ll also remember she’s part of the Jamie Smith and Zola Jesus started supergroup Former Ghosts, as well as the star of this particularly humorous video with Eric Wareheim. You can get Tearist’s S/T debut album of dark down disco right here. Thanks for stopping by, but please, no more tears. Because we have Street Fighter II.
A few weeks back Com Truise was kind enough to lug his knobs and pads and keys and whatnot (I’m not a musician, so sue me) over to 350 Broadway to hang out, shake hands, play some SFII and, oh yeah, bust the fucking roof off the sucka! He more than maintained the flawless record we have with our In-Store performances, chillwaving all over the goddamn place.
Luckily, for those of you who weren’t crammed into the store, our very own Matthew Caron (AKA The Vidiot) was there with his magical camera machine to capture the whole shebang. Send your eyes and ears to a chilled out future as you absorb the wonderful sights and sounds of Com Truise. The Vidiot also took it upon himself to throw some funky SFX on that bitch. Nah actually, I’m just kiddin’. It really looked like that in the store. Behold the power of music motherfuckers! Watch the rest on our Vimeo!
