One of the founding members of the almighty Wu-Tang Clan, the unrestrained, free-spirited energetic force that was Ol' Dirty Bastard (real name Russell Jones), died six years ago today. Surely, there's never been anybody like him before and there will never be another like him again (although many have capitalized from "borrowing" his style).
Nearly 20 years after their debut album, the Wu-Tang Clan continues to be a major cultural force throughout the whole planet. The entire crew (8 living members plus Cappadonna) will be present on a recently announced major concert tour that will begin in San Francisco and then come down to San Diego before going all around the country. I will definitely get myself over there for their show as I saw them perform here two years ago and it was an incredible experience. The feeling was close to what I imagine Nietzsche would call the "Dionysian" rapture.
ODB was the energetic flowing life force of the Clan, like a river of powerful energy rushing its tide through their albums. He added an element of griminess that was due not just to his raspy loud voice but even his so often off-key delivery ("the only choir member that sang offkey" as Gza says in one of the songs below). He barely ever delivered a traditional verse, it was almost always something new and original (what he called "singin' rappin") and always unexpected, sometimes hilarious. That was Dirty. Unadulterated, pure, free and explosive. In a group that was often extremely explicit (they were banned from New York radio stations in the '90s and, at one time, MTV) he was undoubtedly the most explicit. The dirtiest. It was this wild spirit of his that led to his untimely and tragic demise, he was only 36 years old when he died from a drug overdose.
In remembrance of this hip hop legend, here are some great tribute tracks from the last few years.
This is from the 2005 release by Think Differently, Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture. Produced by Bronze Nazareth with the scratches by DJ Noize.
Raekwon's elegiac tribute "Ason Jones" from his 2009 album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt 2.
"All in Together Now" was the name of the original trio of the three New York City cousins, Rza, Gza, and Ol' Dirty Bastard when they made music for fun in the 80s. This song is from Gza's album Grandmasters.
And the internet beat-making savant who I've drawn attention to once before, Lord Beatjitzu, made a lo-fi dusty-sounding cassette tape-recorded beat tape a few years ago that was a full tribute to ODB called "Ol' Dirty Kung Fu." Here are some sounds from it and you can download the full tape here.
Who can forget Dirt Dog's interruption of the Grammys in 1998? Puff Daddy's popcorn music had beaten Wu-Tang Forever (without a doubt, my favorite album of all time) for the Best Hip Hop Album award and ODB had to set the record straight. (Kanye West would later, perhaps more famously, do something similar but as a diehard Wu-Tang fan obsessor himself, he was surely emulating Ol' Dirty and doing so in order to, strangely, defend someone else's work instead of his own).
Some people tend to take the statement "Wu-Tang is for the children" as a joke but I beg to differ. Wu-Tang came out in 1993 when I was an eight year old kid and there has been no greater influence in my life, especially intellectually, than the Wu-Tang Clan. I would not be as voracious a reader and studier if not for the Wu-Tang influence. Their music and mythology have sparked the medulla oblongata of many, many young people around the world over the years and surely there are currently many fans that show up to their concerts, collect their albums, and study their lyrics who were toddlers when Ol' Dirty Bastard took to the national stage and told the world that "Wu-Tang is for the children."
As so often happens, the world is spinning faster than I can blog about it. The baseball season ended, basketball and hockey have begun, football is just starting to really heat up (as the temperature drops) and there's all kinds of cool and exciting stuff going on. While I'm definitely keeping track of it, I'm not finding the time to sit down and write about it all. In a perfect world, I'd have written an extensive season preview for the NHL and NBA seasons the same way I did for baseball, but unfortunately I've been too busy with work and other writing projects. That doesn't mean this blog will stay quiet about that stuff, though. Here's what's happening lately.
NBA
There's no doubt that the sport with the best writing and analysis on the internet is baseball, there are just so many great sites and great writers covering the game and unveiling new and interesting things almost daily. But, as I'm starting to notice (and am perhaps a bit late in realizing), the interwebs have been springing up more and more great NBA bloggers and writers these past few years. For me, John Hollinger at ESPN is a must-read everyday during the basketball season. I subscribe to ESPN Insider pretty much only because of his work (and also Rob Neyer's baseball blog, where yours truly was mentioned this past summer) and each year my productivity at work takes a nose dive when his in-depth NBA team previews come out before the season.
Well, we had a once-in-a-lifetime performance from the Indiana Pacers last night and Hollinger, an analyst in the Bill James mold of great writer/stats guy, broke it down perfectly. I'm not going to share it all here because, well, I'm paying for this stuff but here's the best part:
The Pacers made 20 straight shots in the third quarter, and I'm not sure people appreciate how remarkably unusual that was.
Using Indiana's 45.7 percent mark on the season, the probability of their making 20 straight shots is ... 1-in-6,333,970.
Calling it "unlikely" is the understatement of the century. In all probability, you'll never see anything like this again, ever ... and your children, grandchildren and several generations of descendants won't, either.
NBA teams play 328 quarters a season, meaning 9,840 quarters leaguewide. So if the league stays at or near a 30-team alignment, you would have to watch every quarter of every game for about 643 years, on average, before again seeing a team rip off 20 straight made shots to start a period. If you were one of the 11,122 people in Conseco Fieldhouse Tuesday night, consider yourself lucky.
There was also a pretty amazing finish to the Miami Heat-Utah Jazz game, with the Jazz trailing by 8 points and just 37 seconds to play they hit 4 consecutive three-pointers and then tied the game at the buzzer (on the road!) with a putback from Paul Millsap. Millsap had 46 points on the night and, after having made only 2 three-pointers in his whole career until that point, drilled three straight to help bring his team back. Unbelievable. This is why I love sports.
Getting back to the increasing number of great writers covering the game, today I discovered an awesome NBA blog that I've completely slept on called Free Darko. They put out a beautifully illustrated book last year called The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac that's received some gushing reviews on Amazon and just recently they released another book, The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History, both of which are now on my imaginary Christmas list.
To top off the NBA literature, today I purchased the 2010-11 season preview book by Basketball Prospectus after eyeing some samples and seeing that it's in the same exact format as the almighty Baseball Prospectus annual that I devour each year (I can't get enough of this stuff). Them Prospectus boys are really building a nice little empire.
Speaking of which...
NFL
From the 2010 Football Outsiders Almanac (formerly known as Pro Football Prospectus) comment on Philip Rivers:
It's not just that there's no comparable player for Rivers at quarterback; really there's not a similar player to Rivers in all of sports. There's no other player who performs so well while looking so ugly doing it, combining elite output with clearly suboptimal form...
Throw in that Rivers was playing with a mediocre defense, no running game, and an offensive line that caused that running game to collapse, and he probably deserved the MVP last year. Judging by how the voters normally work, that means he should actually win it this year.
As an outside, emotionally-unattached observer of the San Diego Chargers this season, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching their entertaining style of play: abysmally sloppy special teams gaffes and boinks that would make a great blooper compilation, tough defense, and the relentless, unstoppable energetic force that is Philip Rivers. It seems no matter what his teammates, coach, or general manager does to help this team lose, Rivers single-handedly wills them to victory.
This past Sunday, with 4 of the top 5 receivers on the team's depth chart not playing (Vincent Jackson, Malcolm Floyd, Legedu Naanee, and Buster Davis) and even his favorite target, the unstoppable tight end Antonio Gates sitting out as well, Rivers threw for 295 yards and 4 touchdowns while spreading the ball around an offense mostly populated by cast-offs and practice squad players. Through 9 games this season, Rivers has already thrown for almost 3,000 yards putting him on a relatively easy pace to shatter Dan Marino's single season passing record of 5,084.
While Peyton Manning and Tom Brady (and even Rivers' predecessor Drew Brees) are considered the top quarterbacks in the league, Rivers has put up the best numbers the past few years and I've never seen a quarterback who was such an easy bet to drag his team back into a game no matter what collapses they're encountering. When I moved here in 2008 I was disillusioned with the game of football and had pretty much given up on what I consider the most boring (and brainwashing) of the four major sports after my Jets lost 12 games the previous season. That year, the Chargers started out 4-8 and everybody wrote them off for dead but Philip effin Rivers somehow strung off a victory in each of the last four games and earned the team a spot in the playoffs where they came one win away from the Super Bowl and rejuvenated my dying love for the game of football.
(I'd also like to note how much I love that wonderful name: Rivers. Whenever I drive through Mission Valley parallel to the San Diego River that cuts through the valley from the Pacific, purling eastward past Qualcomm Stadium, I'm always reminded of Finnegans Wake and sure enough there's an apartment complex right near the stadium called "Riverrun." I'm not sure of it, but I'd really be surprised if that place wasn't named after the opening word in the Wake. [His favorite target has a great name as well; Gates. "Rivers to Gates" is one of those mellifluous sports phrases that seems to elevate the players to mythic stature. Even when I'm an old man I'll always remember "Rivers to Gates" and how amazing the two players were.])
MLB
The season is over but there have been some very satisfying developments in the Hot Stove thus far. The New York Mets have hired a new GM and, if I could have chosen anybody to run my favorite team, it would probably be this guy: Sandy Alderson. Alderson was the architect behind the late 80s-early 90s Oakland A's dynasty and was the first front office executive to bring the philosophies of Bill James and sabermetrics into the day-to-day operations of a baseball team. He's the one who mentored and passed the baton on to Billy Beane who then went on to have a little dynasty (of playoff appearances, at least) of his own with low-budget, statistically-savvy teams that competed with the high-payroll behemoths in the American League.
Alderson has already brought in some great minds like Paul DePodesta (the real star of the book Moneyball) and J.P. Ricciardi to help turn this disastrous franchise around and my latent Mets fanhood has exploded through the roof. I can't wait to see what Alderson does to this team and I will be closely following the Amazins and their machinations while blogging about them as much as possible.
In other good news, ESPN has finally gotten rid of Joe Morgan as color commentator for their Sunday Night Baseball telecasts. Morgan's outspoken stupidity led to perhaps the funniest website I've ever seen, FireJoeMorgan.com, in which a group of comedy writers (led by Michael Schur under his pen name "Ken Tremendous") dissected the many insanely dumb things Morgan (and, eventually, other ignorant sports writers) would say in his weekly ESPN.com chats and game telecasts. For years, I've had to watch the Sunday night games on mute because of the stuff Morgan tends to say otherwise I'd find myself yelling at the TV incredulously.
The FJM writers took over the popular sports website Deadspin for a day not too long ago and I suggest you check out some of the gallimaufry they engaged in over there because it's pretty hilarious.
NHL
Probably because I haven't played the sport myself in over four months after consistently playing in intramural men's leagues two days a week for years, I haven't really gotten into hockey yet. But today the NHL made an announcement that they are completely revamping the format for their All Star game this year and it sounds pretty damn cool. Just like a game in the street, the players will choose who they want on their team. First there will be two captains selected for each squad and those captains will then pick the players they want. The All Star games for all four sports have been in need of some revitalization for a while now and I'm proud of and very impressed with the NHL for their creativity and originality here and I look forward to seeing how they plan to actually do this whole thing. Should be fun.
Having already written prettyextensivelyaboutA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so far on this blog, I'd like to now share a bit about the environment and reception of James Joyce's first novel.
The book which Joyce had labored on (writing it, scrapping it, and then completely re-writing it) over a period of ten years (1904-1914) first appeared to the world in serialized fragments in a London literary magazine called The Egoist. In autumn of 1913 the magazine's literary editor, Ezra Pound, wrote a letter to Joyce and asked him to submit some of his writing to be printed in the "new and impecunious" magazine. Joyce sent his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the short-story collection Dubliners that he'd been trying, with gruesome results, to get published for almost ten years. Pound was highly impressed and organized to have Portrait published in serial form beginning with the issue on February 2nd, 1914 (Joyce's birthday).
After appearing in The Egoist from February 1914 to September 1915, the book was rejected by every publisher in London to whom it was offered. They thought it was dirty and offensive. The Egoist's editor (and lifelong Joyce patron) Harriet Shaw Weaver then decided to help out by having it published in book form, setting up the Egoist Press on her own expense for this very purpose, but then the printers actually refused to print it. It was finally published in New York by B.W. Huebsch (later called Viking Press) in December 1916. The Egoist then imported printed sheets from America and, in February 1917, published the first English edition of 750 copies which was sold out within a few months as glowing reviews started trickling in from the likes of Ezra Pound and even H.G. Wells.
But, of course, one of the reasons Joyce had so much trouble getting the book published in the first place was because his work was so far ahead of its time and thus many of the critics and reviewers simply didn't get it. Today, I came across a comical collection of reviewer comments that was originally compiled by The Egoist in 1917, here are some of them exactly as they appeared in the magazine's June 1917 issue.
James Joyce and His Critics:
Some Classified Comments
Caution: It is very difficult to know quite what to say about this new book by Mr. Joyce. --Literary World
Drains: Mr. Joyce is a clever novelist, but we feel he would be really at his best in a treatise on drains. --Everyman
Cleanmindedness: This pseudo-autobiography of Stephen Dedalus, a weakling and a dreamer, makes fascinating reading... No clean-minded person could possibly allow it to remain within reach of his wife, his sons or daughters. --Irish Book Lover
Beauty: There is much in the book to offend a good many varieties of readers, and little compensating beauty. --New York Globe
The most obvious thing about the book is its beauty. --New Witness
Realism: It is a ruthless, relentless essay in realism. --Southport Guardian
To put the literary form of rude language in a book makes some authors feel realistic. --Manchester Weekly Times
Mr. Joyce aims at being realistic, but his method is too chaotic to produce the effect of realism. --Rochester (New York) Post-Express
Its realism will displease many. --Birmingham Post
Mr. Joyce is unsparing in his realism, and his violent contrasts--the brothel, the confessional--jar on one's finer feelings. --Irish Book Lover
Wisdom: Is it even wise, from a worldly point of view--mercenary, if you will--to dissipate one's talents on a book which can only attain a limited circulation? --Irish Book Lover
Imagination: He shows an astonishingly unCeltic absence of imagination and humour. --Bellman (U.S.A.)
Religion: The irreverent treatment of religion in the story must be condemned. --Rochester (New York) Express
Nowadays, the book is considered a classic and the consensus is that it's undeniably earth-shatteringly awesome. The Modern Library ranked it as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century (behind Joyce's Ulysses #1 and The Great Gatsby #2).
I came across this video on YouTube and I'm sharing it because I think, with all of its elements (the music, the lyrics, the message, the kung fu), it contains the whole essence of the Wu-Tang movement in a nutshell. There are two songs on it: "Shining Star" by Sunz of Man featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard (produced by Wyclef Jean) from their debut album The Last Shall Be First in 1998; and the second song is by Wu-Tang Clan's Masta Killa and is simply entitled "Masta Killa," the final song on his solo debut No Said Date that came out in 2004.
Supreme being, all eye seeing, radiant sun
imperishable absolute, y'all salute
Approximately three mil'
Just discovered an awesome (relatively new) website, one of the most impressive and coolest things I've seen on the interwebs in quite some time. A very talented graphic artist named Stephen Crowe is posting illustrations of pages from Finnegans Wake. The illustrations range in style just like the book does and the visuals hold multiple meanings and interpretations but so often he chose such stunningly perfect (and creative) ways to illustrate the puzzley dreambook's sentences like this one for Bygmester Finnegan's fall:
And then there's this beauty which I think perfectly captures the whole essence of the Wake:
This last one is my favorite and the most impressive one he's done so far, from page 7 of the Wake.
I recommend you check it out and if you've never heard or read about Finnegans Wake, check out his 'About' page as he very briefly sums it up pretty well.
I'm in love with this stuff and I hope he makes them available in purchasable prints soon.
* * *
Should also mention that I found another (relatively) new Joyce-focused blog with a cool name (taken from Ulysses). This post made me very happy; apparently there's a Finnegans Wake quote beautifully tiled into a wall in a Manhattan subway station.
* * *
And to conclude, a beautiful musical poem with Wake-esque elements:
For the last four years, there have been no contemporary musicians whose music I've enjoyed more than the newest and strongest branch of Wu-Tang's vast, evergrowing family tree, Bronze Nazareth and, more recently, his brother Kevlaar 7 along with their group The Wisemen. In 2006, Bronze's debut album The Great Migration left me permanently awestruck with its combination of melodic bombastic beats and cerebral-emotional, memorable rhymes and I was floored by the quality of his next release. In February 2007, Wisemen Approaching was released, an album on which Bronze introduced his own army of emcees to the world including his brother Kevlaar 7 who powerfully displayed his talents for production as well as pure lyrical slaughter. The rest of the cast is no different, these are emcees who approach writing a verse with the precision of a man building a miniature ship inside a bottle and deliver their words with the passion of a starving man singing for food.
Since then, they've put out a couple of mixtapes to try to satiate the hungry fans but it's been their next full-length album that we've all been waiting for. And, as of this past Tuesday, it's here. Their brand new sophomore LP Children of a Lesser God features a revamped team of Detroit emcees (Bronze & Kevlaar plus Phillie, Salute, Illah Dayz, and June Megalodon) rapping over beats that mix dulcet instruments with creative, cracking hip hop drums.
Bronze and Kevlaar (real names Justin and Kevin Cross) were gracious enough to bless A Building Roam with an interview discussing their new album, their group, and how they approach their art form. Enjoy.
I want to start off by saying congratulations on the release of your new album. It’s been a long time coming, over three years since the debut album Wisemen Approaching. Listening to Children of a Lesser God, it seems like you guys have really updated the sound while still maintaining the core of pure hip hop.
BRONZE: Thanks! Definitely feel like we had the people waiting but in this business there’s many politics that get in the way of real music and its outlet. We had a few obstacles and had to play a waiting game for a minute or we would have been to the rescue earlier. The whole squad is glad to be back on the verge, and we keep it updated because it’s all genuine, and real life. Authenticity never gets outdated.
KEVLAAR 7: Appreciate all the love and support always; we worked HARD on this joint. It was our aim to update the sound, but at the same time keep the sound of that pure hip hop in the mix. We will never lose that.
There’s a lot of live instruments on the album, at time it reminds me a little bit of Jay-Z’s “Unplugged” album with The Roots, how did you incorporate these into the creative process? Was that the plan from the start or was it added in later on?
KEVLAAR 7: Bronze brought Project Lionheart into the mix, and really we just asked them to compliment whatever beats we sent them with live instrumentation, with Bronze suggesting what instruments to incorporate into a beat and blend it with the actual sample. That was the plan from jump. The live shit helped bring a bigger sound overall…
BRONZE: Exactly. Big shouts to Caleb Cunningham and the very talented Project Lionheart. I call Caleb the live instruments director. I basically knew what I wanted to add to each of the beats, some of them already had a lot going on, such as “Panic In Vision Park” so we left those alone. The ones I knew would sound good with instrumentation, I could hear it, I knew what Lionheart could do, so I asked for horns on this one or a bassline on this one or whatever whatever. Unlike many session musicians, PJL knows how to execute exactly what I asked for, and keep it hip hop. It all fit perfectly!
Have you given consideration to doing a live performance of the album with a live band providing all the instrumentation?
KEVLAAR 7: That’s crazy that you say that because me and Bronze was just talking about the possibility of doing a tour with Project Lionheart, and doing purely live shows, Roots style. That shit would be CRAZY, I would LOVE to pull that off…
BRONZE: Yeah I actually was able to perform live with the whole Lionheart Band on two show dates in Seattle, it was beautiful! Myself and June Mega had a blast on stage there. To have a tour with the band would be glorious! We’ve talked about it, but like K said we’d really have to pull some strings to pull it off.
What is the meaning behind that awesome title, "Children of a Lesser God." I saw on Wikipedia that there was a movie with that title about a speech teacher at a school for deaf students which reminds me of the title for the upcoming Bronze solo "School for the Blindman."
KEVLAAR 7: Phillie and Bronze really came up with that title. It was going to be the title for the first album, but it didn’t fit for a debut album title. What it means is that throughout the trials of life, at some points when shit is so fucked up, a lot of things come into question…The Wisemen have all asked themselves if our God was lesser at one time or another…It’s a reality in a lot more people’s minds than people would like to think…
BRONZE: Every man who has had trouble, setbacks, and trials so severe sometimes that he might question the higher power, not lose faith but have questions. This is nothing to doubt God or anything but the intro says it all really where the speaker is like ‘I been here before, asking for God’s help, a lot of times, okay? And my situation is not getting any sunnier’ he then suggests that ‘maybe God isn’t carrying his end of the weight’… You can sometimes look at someone who is prospering, and wonder why you haven’t been blessed as much, you might feel like you have a lesser or weaker god. That speaks to us, we’ve all been there - I know I’ve wondered sometimes why God has not answered my prayers, a lot of people get there. So we represent for those people who have questions and go astray from their faith.
You’ve got the legendary Wu-Tang dartsmith Raekwon featured on “Thirsty Fish” and I know you guys just filmed a video for the song with him. What’s it like working with the Chef?
BRONZE: Yeah we ended up getting some footage of Rae to add to the video, so it should look pretty dope. He was nothing but gracious, and him and his people showed a lot of love to me, Kev and June Mega. Ever since my relationship with Raekwon developed, he has been the realest nigga! Much respect and appreciation towards him and his camp!
KEVLAAR 7: Word, hopefully everything goes how it should go for that video, but we also shot one for “Faith Doctrine” which will drop b4 “Thirsty fish”. We met up with Rae in Chicago and he showed nothing but love, blessings on the song. He said the beat was on some back-in-the-day hardcore Wu shit. Real Genuine brother, for real.
Might we see more collaborations with Rae in the near future?
KEVLAAR 7: I would love to work with Rae more, no doubt. He’s a legend, and brings a lot of experience and wisdom to the table; so if you have a co-sign from Shallah Rae, you doing something RIGHT…I truly appreciate Bronze for making that happen, and allowing Rae to bless some of my production, he could have kept that in the vault for his own shit if he so desired.
BRONZE: Yeah Rae will end up on a few more beats of mine, I’m not gonna speak on exactly what - but it’s definitely more coming. He hit me today and told me the pre video for Thirsty Fish looks like crack, so I’ma continue to nurture our relationship and keep sending him this heat, and we gonna keep it right!
The first album, Wisemen Approaching, had a pretty dark sound overall. On this one it seems like you guys were having a little more fun (like the old men chattering on “Get U Shot” or the Richard Pryor samples). Is it because you’re more established now?
BRONZE: I can’t even say this was done purposely, it was really just the way we were feeling when those joints were made. All of us were in a certain place when Wisemen Approaching was constructed. Fresh off the block, or still in the streets, escaping tragedy narrowly, Phillie and I had our first babies on the way at the same time (that birthed ‘up there beyond’). Those days we just happened to let it all out over super rough dark beats. This new album, was more like a sigh than a hostile reaction. Instead of ‘Founder of Pain’, we said this shit ‘makes me want a shot’ of liquor!. It is a bit lighter though I agree, perhaps it’s our expansion.
KEVLAAR 7: I wouldn’t say that us having more fun on this record really has anything to do with being more established, because nothing is “more established” except the Wisemen name, and our individual titles. We’re still going through the same trials and tribulations we were going through before Wisemen Approaching came out. But that’s life. Long story short, we wanted to show our range a little more with this album, and I also would say this album shows our growth as artists. True artists grow from project to project. I feel we still haven’t reached our pinnacle though.
Who is doing the talking on “Get U Shot”?
KEVLAAR 7: That’s JB and Cleveland just shooting the shit about the Wisemen crew! [Laughter] I knew that question would come eventually. That’s me and Break Bred FOOLIN’! Trying to get my Oscar nod, you feel me? LOL! We’re imitating old cats we been around or are related to…Old cats be HYSTERICAL yo…like Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence in Life…HILARIOUS…JB and Cleveland will be recurring characters in the future.
Tell me about Illah Dayz, his absence from the first album, and his big contribution to Children of a Lesser God.
KEVLAAR 7: Illah was absent from Wisemen Approaching album because of his unfortunate car accident where he was left paralyzed from the waist down…That brother has more strength than almost anyone I’ve ever had the privilege to know. The accident happened on a night after probably the first recording session for Wisemen Approaching. Illah’s contribution to Children of a Lesser God was huge, because he comes with such visual verses, and on top of that his style of word play…I’ve never heard word play like his. It’s ill, and ORIGINAL.
BRONZE: Yeah we actually recorded “Super Bowl Cipher” that night. That was the last time he was walking. The accident happened right around the corner from our spot on Ward Street in Detroit, maybe five minutes after the session ended. He was in the hospital, unconscious, laid up for quite awhile, so we had to keep rocking in his honor. I feel horribly bad about it, and somewhat feel responsible for that because we shouldn’t have let him leave so late, it was like 5 AM. But I only live with the guilt, he lives with the chair. Soon though with stem cells we’ll rock live with him stalking the stage like he should be. He is the strongest brother I’ve met, maybe ever. He did a 4 or 5 year bid then a few years later, he gets hit in the car. It’s unbelievable the trials he’s been through and is able to keep his head up, where some of us would crumble.
One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Lucy,” the drums are so powerful, the tempo is fast, and the verses are amazing. I wonder, though, is it just bad relationships with women you’re talking about or is there a double-meaning to it?
BRONZE: My verse is really about a relationship yet with a twist. I speak on all the sinful shit me and this woman have done, been through our negative routines, how we enjoyed the devilishness but at the very end the twist comes, I’m saying ‘yeah we did all this wild shit, but now we got kids, so it’s time to slow down and live right!’ So at the end I say ‘now we got seeds/ proceed to slow the leaves / Lucy straighten your bottle / the club closed at three!” Then the hook come and sums my verse up: love ain’t what it used to be!
KEVLAAR 7: On my verse I can tell you that it is about bad relationships with certain women in my life, and how my or our relationship with hip hop has been over the course of time, with all the ups and downs, and shit…
[Here's a snippet from "Lucy"]
I'm really impressed with the track from Big Rube where he's speaking poetry over a beautiful Bronze beat. I had never heard of Big Rube before, didn't know he was this good. What led to his great contribution to the album?
KEVLAAR 7: You never heard of Big Rube?! Wow! I have always been a HUGE Outkast/Goodie Mob/ Dungeon family fan ever since 1993 and Southernplayalistic…I first heard Big Rube on that album and he made an appearance on all of Outkasts and Goodie Mob albums, spitting CLASSIC poetry that would uplift and teach. He was also a member of the group Society of Soul, and yo, that album is CLASSIC too. What led to him getting on the album was, me being a big fan, I hit him on twitter; I said my piece, and asked if he had a contact so I could get at him. Rube hit me with his email contact and from there it was ON. Bronze and I sent him a few beats a piece to choose from, and he laid a BEAUTIFUL verse for us, much respect to Big Rube and the whole Dungeon family…
BRONZE: You’ve definitely heard of Big Rube bro! My favorite piece by him was on ATLiens just before 13th Floor, he is gifted with words and wisdom, so only right that he joined forces with the WISEMEN.
Okay, I remember that ATLiens track now. So, Kevlaar you've got a bigger contribution of beats to this album than the last and your beat batting average has been superb these last few years. What is your history as a producer? And what equipment do you guys make beats on, the ASR-10?
KEVLAAR 7: Thanks I appreciate the props on my production. I’ve worked VERY hard to perfect it since Bronze laid the blueprint out for me. I still haven’t perfected it, but I’m going to keep smashing the production out. I try to keep my batting average like my man Miguel Cabrera, WORD! Of course, my production history starts with The Wisemen, and Bronze Nazareth. Me and Bronze produced “Fragments” together on Think Differently. Then I did 4 tracks on Wisemen Approaching, our debut album. I’ve done joints on the Almighty album, I did a couple tracks on Cilvaringz “I” dvd, a joint for Inspectah Deck called “Get down wit me” off of his album Resident Patient; a couple of upcoming tracks for Cappadonna, and most recently me and Bronze did the joint “Medical Kush” off of the brother Hell Razah’s album Heaven Razah…as far as equipment I use Cool Edit Pro and Pro tools.
[Here's one of Kevlaar's instrumentals that was featured on the aforementioned Cilvaringz DVD. This is a personal classic.]
One thing we didn’t hear too much of on Wisemen Approaching or even The Great Migration is all the quotes and interludes from films or other sources. You guys used them to great effect on mixtapes in the past and now there are a few very good ones on this album (especially the intro). How do you choose these and what effect do you hope to achieve with them?
KEVLAAR 7: Basically we just look for movie clips or excerpts from speeches or what have you that would fit or enhance what the concept of a certain joint is, or the feeling we’re looking for… eloquent type shit.
BRONZE: I really use them to connect things. I might search for hours, for instance the clips on Faith Doctrine….about how he didn’t read it or witness it, he ‘lived it’. That’s us! We don’t portray ourselves falsely, you will not hear me say I’m a gangster or thug, but I will get by. I call myself a survivor, cause you can put me anywhere and I will survive. At the end of the song the speaker mentions something about, hard work and faith – so that’s our faith doctrine, it connected to the hook and we’re all rhyming about making it. I like to connect all elements, so it’s easily cohesive.
That opening exchange is so potent and perfectly leads into the album's cinematic opening track. Are you willing to divulge where that's from?
KEVLAAR 7: Yeah, Bronze is a MASTER with placing the movie clips on a song or an album. All of the skits tie the album together too, there is a vision for everything on our projects.
BRONZE: I won’t say where it’s from but it’s an easy find….
Do you have a personal favorite track on the new album? Or at least a favorite beat or verse...
KEVLAAR 7: Wow…that’s hard for me…it may change, but my favorite track would be “Victorious Hoods” as of right now…my favorite beat is easy to me; “Panic in Vision Park”…and my favorite verse is Bronze’s clip on “Makes me want a shot”…CLASSIC.
BRONZE: Favorite track is probably Faith Doctrine, it came together so well, and I found the clips that fit our ‘righteous survival’ feel on that joint. Favorite beat is tied between Faith Doctrine & Corn Liquor Thoughts….my favorite verse right now is…Phillie on Faith Doctrine or me on makes me Want a Shot…can’t really decide lol
When I’m listening to some of these songs I detect that there’s just an insane amount of thought and craftsmanship. For example, the verses often seem to have connecting threads to one another or identical patterns. Tell me about the creative process of a song. Who does the “directing”? How do you decide who will spit on a track and in what order?
KEVLAAR 7: I can say that every line is carefully written and thought over several times before its final. Lyrics can be subject to change all the way up until it’s time to mix the joint. With me there are a lot of abstract words or lines that I use, that may just describe how I am feeling emotionally at the time; a verbally descriptive picture of the colors in my mind, I guess…This is an art. Anyone of us can do some directing of a song at any given time because we are a team like that, and everyone has come with an idea or concept that we’ve incorporated into the album. It is usually the producer of the joint we’re recording that does most or all of the “directing” of a song. As far as who ends up on a final track it would be whoever was present during the crafting of the song, and who pens the illest verses…period…Or there have been times that a certain song we felt called for 1 of us specifically. But we’ve all been cut from a song at one time or another.
BRONZE: The process is an attempt to perfect the art we’ve placed on the song. Many times, a verse will get cut, if I feel like the verse didn’t do the beat justice, it’s gotta go! Or sometimes it might even be a nice verse but it may not fit the theme of the song. We’ll use that verse elsewhere. As far as directing, I do handle a lot of that, but it’s just that – direction. For instance, Lucy...I came with the beat and Illah pulled out this verse about his ex who he wrote that message to. The hook had the exact line he ended his verse with ‘Love ain’t what it used to be Lucy….’ He laid it, and then I asked everyone to write a verse about their “Lucy” and we laced it. Regarding lyrics, we will pick out each other’s weak lines and say ‘yo you can come better than that!’ As captain I may have to do that more than anyone else, but that’s my job to get everyone to display their best art, or we fail as a team.
Bronze Nazareth and Kevlaar 7. You’ve both got interesting names and I know there’s a lot of meaning behind them. Tell me about the genesis of and the meaning behind your names.
BRONZE: My name is from, you know the Wu era where you might name yourself after a kung fu movie. Cilvaringz actually gave me the Nazareth additive, and they wanted me to call myself that. I added the Bronze to represent the extreme fight by the Monks in the movie The 18 Bronzemen. In it, they had to fight 18 Bronzemen to be able to leave the Shaolin temple and live normal. I adapted Nazareth to link it to the Prophet Jesus, who had his own fights and struggles, but also healed many.
KEVLAAR 7: My name is impenetrable. It represents perseverance, determination and resolve through the journey of life…The 7 is the number of completion. God’s number. It was also my jersey number when I played football hahahahaaa…
I also find it interesting the connection between the “Nazareth” and the “7” with your actual last name, which is Cross.
KEVLAAR 7: That is kind of ill, huh? It just happened like that, but I would say that is a representation of the natural connections that continually occur within our art…
BRONZE: Sometimes things connect without attempting, this is one of them. Hopefully that means we will stay blessed!
Synchronicity. How did the Wisemen come together originally? Have you all known each other for a long time?
KEVLAAR 7: Back in 2002, shortly after Bronze showed me the ropes on production and shit, he hit me and said yo…We should form a new group called “The 7 Wisemen”. The 7 crew members hadn’t come to fruition by the time we were ready to record and release the first album, so we went ahead and dropped “Approaching” anyway. Bronze met Salute and Phillie and brought them into the fold and shit was ALWAYS brotherly so it was only right. I met Illah in passing, and we didn’t even know each other was into the music until my girl told his girl that I fuck with the rap shit, LOL! Before that we was always looking at each other like, “who the fuck is this nigga” type attitudes, LOL! June Mega and Bronze grew up together and me and him was always fam too, and he been with us since the “Unknown” days.
Yeah I remember hearing him on the Unknown album, is that him on "This Thing of Undying Love"? How did he get that name June Megaladon?
KEVLAAR 7: I would have to go back and listen, LOL! I don’t remember but Big June did have a couple of speaking parts on the Unknown album.
BRONZE: Yeah that’s him for sure! Back then he was named Immortal….he also is on "Everything’s So Deep," speaking in the middle of the verses I believe. We been running together for years!
Tell me about “Black Day in July."
KEVLAAR 7: Black day in July is the name of the label myself and Bronze have formed. It’s named after the 1967 riots that were caused by a police raid of a blind pig joint in Detroit (basically an illegal after hours bar). The shit went haywire and the army was called in and all that, mad arsons, snipers, and looting; people basically tore the city of Detroit apart. It really hasn’t recovered since then, so what we’re trying to do is at least mentally resurrect the city, and people going through struggle all over the world by touching them through the music.
BRONZE: Black Day had been coming together since 2003, when we built our first studio. It was just the name, and a dream for a while. After some success I was able to get it registered as a true business, and the dream began turning to a reality. We dropped a couple releases with other labels until we could build our name enough to get some looks by distribution companies. I had to endure a couple shitty deals in order to build that name, but a man who doesn’t sacrifice, earns nothing of value! Currently we are an official label with distribution, both digital and physical, and I’m proud to say we had five or six different suitors for distribution. You will most likely see our future projects come through several different pipelines, as we will go with whichever distributor is the best fit for each project.
I've already mentioned the two newest albums to sprout from the branches of the nutrient-rich Wu-Tang family tree, Children of a Lesser God and Heaven Razah, but there's been plenty more pieces of music leaking up from the underground. Here, we'll go a little bit deeper into the subterranean tunnels of independent, unpromoted, relatively unheard ingenious hip hop music.
These are folks who practice hip hop as an art form in a society that has moved increasingly far away from appreciation for aesthetics towards materialistic commercialism. As such, they are like many other starving artists: extremely talented, diligent in their craft, but not economically wealthy. And not getting nearly enough exposure since the masses aren't led towards true art anymore (except for in the field of cinema).
Aside from the thinkers and writers I enjoy and study the most like James Joyce, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche who are all long-since dead, these are my favorite writers, poets, musicians that are living. Since it seems to me they don't get nearly the attention or appreciation they deserve, perhaps they are for posterity to realize and appreciate just like we've seen happen for folks like Nietzsche and Joyce.
These are a few of my favorite artists who might be ahead of their time, or perhaps stuck in an unfortunately brainwashed time.
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Lord Beatjitzu is one of many names used by a highly talented musician who makes beats primarily on a Roland sampler, one of those technological supertoys that helped hip hop music explode. It's a little console, really not much bigger than an iPad or small laptop and it stores sounds on each of its 12 button pads that can then be played live and turned into a melody over drums. Sounds can also be distorted and tweaked in all sorts of ways and so Roland samplers are often favorites of DJs. Much of Madlib's best work has been on Roland sampling machines and The Rza, along with his students known as the Wu-Elements (Mathematics, 4th Disciple, True Master), relied primarily on a more advanced sampler called the ASR-10 made by Ensoniq.
Beatjitzu has made a name for himself releasing free beat tapes featuring mind-bogglingly polished and melodic beats with a heavy Wu-Tang influence. These tapes usually feature deep or hilarious track names and tons of kung fu film quotes, sounds, themes, and samples weaved in and out and sometimes heavily distorted DJ-style to create a full experience of sound (an example is the moving of sounds from one ear to the next to create depth). He has been known to make such tapes during a span of a single night.
Here's an example of his early work (from about three years ago) that first turned me on to his music:
After not coming out with anything new for a few months, he recently put out two brand new tapes of 9 tracks each and it may be his best work yet.
His sound consists of extremely heavy hard drums played at neck-snapping, head-cracking tempos and mixed with unbelievably mellifluous smooth-sounding sample music.
Here's a taste of the new stuff, this beat is called "Shaolin Dragon," beware of heavy sound effects:
And here's another one of my favorites, this one named "Smoke Bomb Specialist." Notice the diametrically opposed tempos of the drums and the sample music and yet he's brought them together into a perfect harmonious piece of musical art:
One of these days, soon, I will present a post exploring the works of this young master more closely but for now I will share with you his two newest tapes which are completely free. You can download them here and here. Consider it a double-feature of classic kung fu flicks. Only it's music.
I will continue to heavily endorse this gifted producer and his unheralded art work until he is properly recognized as one of the best recent artists to spring from the Wu-Tang influence (even though his is an indirect and unofficial influence) because he has been carrying this style on into the future as well as anybody else currently making music. Better than most, in fact.
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Another highly talented music maker has released a new mixtape of great material for free.
I first heard of Purpose and his group Tragic Allies a few years ago when I came across some astounding sounds off of the "Soul Purpose Mixtape" (hosted by Wu-Tang legend Killah Priest) which I subsequently acquired and listened to repeatedly for months. If you enjoy rap music, I urge you to seek that mixtape and absorb it.
Here's one of that tape's best songs, probably one of the best rap songs of the last five years and probably only a couple thousand people (max) have even heard it:
Well the same guy, Purpose, released another new mixtape entitled "Better Than Your Album," a title which seems excessively smug until you realize that it really is probably better than 95% of the cds in the "Hip Hop/Rap" section of your nearest Best Buy. You can download the album here and I'll share with you a few of its best tracks:
"City of Sin"
"Hypnotize"
(if your brain cells don't tingle on this one then you shouldn't be wasting your time on this post)
And here's a personal classic; for me, this is a modern embodiment of the tragic emotion as Stephen Dedalus discusses in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. By Tragic Allies (Estee Nack and Purpose) it's called "Visual":
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A Man Called Relik is a young spoken-word poet/hip hop emcee I've recently discovered and been amazed by. I had first heard him on a mixtape compilation for a group out of Indiana called Ironworkers Guild. This was one of A Man Called Relik's solo tracks that appeared on that mixtape:
"The Darkest Hour" produced by Kevlaar 7
This guy is overflowing with talent. I'm drawing attention to these artists because I believe they, despite their lack of any sort of mass attention, are among the great artists of our time. They practice a craft (pure hip hop) that is condemned and suppressed, not only by mainstream society but even by the music industry, and especially the hip hop music industry. The executives and suits in charge of big record labels don't want to give people intelligent material, especially not through the cries of oppressed poor people, however poetically eloquent and musically gifted they may be.
We are in age in which the disparity between the rich and the poor is greater than it's ever been in recorded history. And so it follows that the ones on the bottom, especially the artists of that segment of society, will be the ones speaking most passionately as a cry for change and with a condemnation of this decrepit era. Our society and our nation has evolved towards an unrelenting reach for material wealth, an attitude which even seeped into our arts (example: The Decline of Rap Music), and now the edifice of Material Greed (aka Capitalism) is collapsing, we're in recession, and the ones at the bottom are the first to be struck by the crumples of "shattered glass and toppling masonry." And this is the kind of art they're creating:
That track is called "Fire (Reprise)" and is produced by the resident gifted beatsmith of the Ironworkers Guild, Woodenchainz.
Here's another track from this camp, very creative writing here, each verse is written in sequences using the letters B & C. The track is called "BC 2 Me" and, since they've just released a video I'll share that with you. Observe closely the 2nd verse, that's A Man Called Relik. Apprehend the absurd combination of intellect and emotion:
A Man Called Relik recently released a full album of spoken-word poetry rap over some very good beats and, if you like what you've heard from him here I highly recommend it; Stone Messiah, who produced the track in the video above, recently released an album; and Woodenchainz has just released his first real album, an EP entitled "A Beautiful View" which has some very good stuff on it. You can listen to a sampler of free tracks featuring all of these guys here on YouTube.
"If hip hop's deceased, then show me the body bag" - Bronze Nazareth
The skies and the vast air waves of this oceanic multimedia storm we constantly live in have recently produced a small flurry of extremely high quality hip hop music. You'd have to really be paying attention to the wavelengths of the underground in order to catch it but if you attempt to tune into it, trust me, it's there.
Superb, pure, artistic and intellectually rich hip hop music still exists. It really never died when its so-called "Golden Era" faded, instead it has burrowed deep into the underground to save itself from extinction during this growing catastrophe that is the violent spreading of brain-numbing, simple-minded, McDonalds Happy Meal, commercially-skewed cheap pop music branding itself as "hip hop" or "rap".
Music that was made simply to tap into someone's baser emotions (greed, instant gratification) so that they become practically hypnotized by a simple, repetitive two-note computer fart and crave its noise to the point of making it one's ringtone is not hip hop.
I will eventually write an argument of mine in which I posit that the highest version of what we call "hip hop" (basically, poetry over rhythmic beats), a version which I believe reached its height of popularity in the mid-90s, just might be the greatest art form ever. This version, which has for a while now persisted in the underground sphere of hip hop, continues to produce incredible artists but so few people know about them.
A suffocating, freshly-tarred pavement slab has covered over the monuments of hip hop's Golden Era like a new set of condos being placed on top of an enormous old art museum. The mainstream of society stopped hearing from and seeing (real) hip hop and gave up on it ever coming back again but that heart still beats. I'll show you some examples of it here. You'll be surprised how well it's doing.
Just over the last 6 months or so, but especially these last few weeks, we've been seeing the skies rain delicious jams and great albums. I'll start with the one I have been anticipating the most.
The Wisemen
"Children of a Lesser God"
The blossoming Wu-Tang farm system prospect, the musical and lyrical mastermind known as Bronze Nazareth, along with his similarly multi-talented brother Kevlaar 7, and their crew the Wisemen are about to release their second album, resonantly entitled Children of a Lesser God. Their first album in 2007 (Wisemen Approaching) and Bronze's solo album in '06 (The Great Migration) together with multiple top notch beats produced for Wu-Tang brethren the last few years, have solidified the Detroit group's reputation for consistent, extremely high quality music. Over the last few years, Bronze and Kevlaar 7 have ascended to the top of my personal list of emcees and beat-makers and so I've eagerly awaited this new material ever since it was announced in the spring of last year.
Their new album comes out in stores October 26th but I've managed to secure an early copy. And, somehow, my extremely high expectations have been met. Perhaps exceeded. This album's integration of live instrumentation and almost perfect ratio of quality-to-quantity have built towers above their previous catalogue of craftsmanship. The songs resonate loudly right from the opening title track with pattering live drums and crashed high hats lifting up passionate and eloquent lyrics, and from there the audible satisfaction doesn't fade. It's maintained like an oxygen-fed flame. These guys make albums. Not randomly smattered singles but meaningfully organized songs and themes. There is something good about every track on this album, the two or three interludes included, and on most songs the beat and lyrics are a perfect mix of dopeness.
Here is a snippet of one of my favorite tracks called "Corn Liquor Thoughts":
The album features verses from The Wisemen (Bronze and Kevlaar, plus Salute the Kid, Phillie, Illa Dayz, and June Megaladon), Raekwon, Planet Asia, Big Rube of The Dungeon Family, and Beace. It's produced by Bronze Nazareth and Kevlaar 7 with some live instruments thrown in for emphasis by Project Lionheart (and one beat produced by a producer I've never heard of named Supaa Maine).
Here's another snippet, this one from "Faith Doctrine" produced by Kevlaar 7 (and this is K7's verse):
I can't recommend this album highly enough. Take a glimpse at what's great about hip hop right now.
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Sunz of Man member and longtime Wu-Tang affiliate Hell Razah also released his second LP (Heaven Razah) recently, interestingly enough he had dropped his first album right around the same time the Wisemen did in '07. Their two new albums go very well together; similar sounds (even a Bronze/Kevlaar beat on the Hell Razah album), themes, great quality, great hip hop music.
Razah's album takes a very deep journey, in fact, I would definitely call it a mystical album. He makes great use of symbols, stories and themes from Biblical stories while (somehow) fusing them with angelic alien abduction references and cosmic visuals, all juxtaposed with the streets and all delivered through the medium of melodic hip hop music. It's quite an effort, trust me. What makes it all the more interesting is that, shortly after completing the album, Hell Razah suffered a brain aneurysm that put him into a coma from which he is now still recovering.
It has to be one of the best albums of 2010 and maybe one of the best hip hop albums of the last couple years. Here is one of the best tracks, "Return of the Renaissance" featuring R.A. the Rugged Man:
Don't be confused by what might appear to be strange subject matter, this is some of the best hip hop being made right now and it's definitely worth checking out. Yes there's mystic flights here but when he comes down to earth there are other creative themes like a song entirely devoted to 70s blaxploitation flicks, using characters and scenes from famous films to lyrically display his own movie in a track called "Cinematic" produced by legendary Wu producer 4th Disciple.
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More to come...let's consider this part one of a much longer post.
With the ALCS about to begin in the next 10 minutes or so, I don't have any sort of in-depth or even surface-scratching preview because (sadly) I didn't devote the necessary time to do some research and writing on the series.
So, for your ALCS preview fix, I point you towards the boys at Pinstriped Bible where a trio of three of my favorite baseball writers have recently joined forces to write about the team I hate most. Cliff Corcoran has broken the matchup down thoroughly and decided that the Rangers have the edge in their rotation, bullpen, and bench while the Yanks have the better lineup and fielding. They're all picking the Yankees to win in six games.
This is more a hopeful prayer than a prediction but I'll say Texas Rangers in 7. Cliff Lee pitches his new team into the World Series to face his old team.
