smokin that shit?

As I proclaimed yesterday, fanfare accompanied, white stallions parading the promenade of my blog castle, hip-hop is my newest passion. There was once a time where I would falter and crumble to my knees as soon as a wanderlusting beat of the PHAT variety slipped brashly into the curvaceous folds of an ear or two. I lived in fear of the everyday gambol down any main thoroughfare, in fear of those humming, buzzing trunks.

Perhaps it was the whiteness that my parents had imbued into my skin and bones by refusing to listen to anything without guitars and screeching vocals, nay, refusing to listen to anything that wasn't, gulp, BLACK. I attempted to remedy this as a young fledgling listener, but my surveys of the landscape of hip-hop music was misinformed and, eventually, kidnapped. The temptation: sweet succulent rock-and-roll-sample candy by diddys and Will Smiths.

Wu-tang descended from the sky with Enter The 36 Chambers, light emanating from around her strange dark cover. I understood. I wanted more.

What is the purpose of this foolish narrative that I spin for you as an eight legged she-devil might for her lover, and later, her prey?

It is merely to prepare you for the weeks to come, for I have been consuming Ice Cubes and Ice-T's and Public Enemy's and Pharcydes with the fervor of a man once starved of certain culture. It's as if I were neglected in my childhood and prohibited from drinking anything but coke, caffeine-free diet coke. The kind that comes in the languid brass colored label so you know that its contents are merely the base, rewardless skeletal structure of the potentially delicious liquid confection.

Anyway, I've been listening to KMD's Black Bastards, their notorious album that was scheduled in 1994 but was unreleased by Elektra because of the hanging Sambo character pictured above. It was later released in 2001 by Sub Verse Records.

MF DOOM, before he was MF DOOM, was Zev Luv X in KMD. His brother, DJ Subroc was the group's DJ and was struck by a car in 1993 and killed spinning his brother into a deep depression and causing him to go into hiding only to reemerge in 1998 when he began performing in the newyorican poets cafe with his trademark mask.

what a weirdo:


On the menu today is two songs that describe the connection between MF DOOM's current style and the similarities between that and one of my favorite tracks on KMD's black Bastards album.

KMD - Sweet Premium Wine

Notice the pseudo-dialogue that takes place in this track. "You're drinking too much of that wine of yours!" If you're at all a MF Doom fan, or even any of the tracks on Madvillan which was only a little bit produced by Doom but mostly produced by Madlib, you'll recognize the style. Thats not to say that no one else has done this before, but it's definitely one of DOOM's little idiosyncrasies to crate up a dialog from old television and radio samples.

MF Doom - Beef Rapp

granted I could use a better example of Doom's pastiche work, but I like this first song from 2004's MM...Food.

And here's another of my favorite track on KMD's black bastards:

KMD - Smokin' That Shit

that bass is fucking phat.