Hot Black Renegade Soul

Let it never be said I'm a bleeding-edge cat, especially in the area of hip hop. I actually know so little about hip hop, I usually get turned off by the big ballin MCs, I like the Ca$h Money and Too $hort types more b/c they're just ridiculous (...big bawlin is hobayyyy), and the psudo-intellectual artists like Tribe, Digable, etc have either had their time or lay buried deep in the streets of Oakland. (There’s a rumor in SF that there's ton's of conscious hip hop artists in Oakland, but they'd rather be set on fire before they'd let their rhymes cross the Bay Bridge.)

That being said, one of the things I do appreciate about hip hop are some of the beats these hot producers-of-the-moment churn out. There's some really hot talent behind some of these really simple beats....that lil bit of magic that’s the fine line between hot as hell and just sad. Last year, Jay Z dropped the Black album announcing Hova's retirement, brah, brah, brah. Anyway, shortly after the album dropped, the entire kit of samples used to put the album together surfaces on the web; kits, acapellas, samples, breaks...the works. Basically enough to completely remix the album. Danger Mouse made a lot of waves with his grey album, which, honestly, I was sorta into from an ingenuity perspective, but I give him more credit for having the rocks to sample the Beatles. (BTW, he's about the feel the heat from that, but it's arguable that it took his whole game to a new level, so it might have been worth it....better that the Verve sampling that Stones track and losing the profits for the song album and every related royalty for it...ouch).

So I'm trapped on BART this past Wednesday...yes trapped, the train was held during a "mandatory security check" in the middle of Castro Valley...and for those of you not from the area, Castro Valley isn't the same place as that fabulous gulch known for its fresh flowers and sensational antiques. Anyway, I'm surfing the old iPod and I come across this Jay Z mashup from a guy named MC ScottD. I copped the Jay Z construction set when everyone was all hot about it, just to check it out. I wasn't quite at the point of having free time to heat up the studio I don't have in the first place, but the construction set was appealing because it had 5-6 other remixes of the Black album. For the record I wasn't so on the Black album, the fact that it's one of the major hip hop albums of last year prolly had something to do with it.

Anyway, I was just interested to see what some other people had done with the beats. So I'm checking it out and this one album mashup from this Scott D guy is the fire! The guy took all kinds of samples from everywhere and put em behind Hova's accapellas. From Bjork's "So Quiet" to Beenie Man's "Bookshelf"...this, IMHO (disclaimed always, I can't be responsible for my own opinion, cummon)...this mashup is one of the more ingenious things I've heard in a while. I did some poking around on the interwob and found out that this guy is some college kid @ U Dub in Seattle and did the whole remix on some outdate copy of Acid Pro...which, for those non-software nerds in the audience is a pretty assed-out software considering some of the options illegally available on the interwob. I mean the remixes aren't really something you'd rock in the club, it take on more of an old school soul feel, but the point of the construction set project was to see just how ingenious people could get with it.

I realized that this album may be sorta hard to get your hands on given the fact that I got it from downloading the whole construction set and it would be something that lived completely on the underbelly of the internet. So, I figured I'd put the tracks up here for a couple of days so you guys could hear it. The Dirt Off Your Shoulder remix is the current fav, backed with the aforementioned Beenie Man track, the subs are a little blown out but it holds that hot Jamaican dancehall feel of some smoked out rasta toting around old-ass subs just to rock the party.

Anyway, check it out, it'll prolly be gone by Monday or so...have a good weekend. If you're hot for more after checking out those bits, MC Scott D has a page with different bits on it...some are really hot.

mcscottd-1-intro.mp3
mcscottd-2-december 4th (pushaman mix).mp3
mcscottd-3-what more can i say (correct mix).mp3
mcscottd-4-encore (soul power remix).mp3
mcscottd-5-dirt off your shoulder (deported remix).mp3
mcscottd-6-threat (in the company of issac mix).mp3
mcscottd-7-moment of clarity (introverted remix).mp3
mcscottd-8-my name is hov ( sittin on top of the world remix).mp3
>mcscottd-9-allure (sihnged remix).mp3

Posted by colin at September 17, 2004 08:50 AM