Genre Archive » Rap

Dudley Perkins - Holy Smokes

Holy SmokesOn “E&R,” left-field rapper — and that’s deep left-field — Dudley Perkins looks around the room and notices “We gotta lotta fake people here this evening.” “We gonna expose and remove” he continues, and then proceeds to chant down the walls of Babylon by calling out John McCain, Louis Farrakhan, Miss Cleo, and many others, all over a broken version of the George Clinton beat courtesy of the album’s sole producer, Georgia Anne Muldrow. Besides these ghosts that the track exorcises Lee “Scratch” Perry-style, there isn’t a lick of “fake” on Holy Smokes, an album that shares its release date with Muldrow’s own Umsindo.

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Good Times, Great Oldies: Summer of ‘91 Hip Hop Jamz

You could probably go back to just about any year to find some totally hott summertime hip-hop jamz, but 1991 was home to some true classics. Tracks perfect for hot days with nothing to do but kick back, and in the immortal words of the bard Humpty Hump, doowutchyalike. And saywutchyalike about Will Smith, but DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince’s “Summertime” is the perfect jam to kick off this hot & humid nostalgia trip.

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Hot Damn Jamz: The Big One Five

Phenomenal Handclap BandSo here we are, at the fifteenth posting of Hot Damn Jamz. You could call it a milestone. Whoever thought we’d make it this long? We laughed along with the good times. We weathered the bad times. We’ve endured so much together. Sigh. It was a different game way back when, in January. Remember when we were just discovering Fever Ray and Spider and the Flies? Boy, how they’ve grown. Whew. Fifteen posts. Fifteen. What’s the traditional gift for a fifteenth anniversary. Silver? Oh right, crystal. I guess for the occasion we could do a list of crystal bands: Antlers, Castles, Stilts…We could even put Crystal Method on there. Nah, why try to get fancy at this point? Let’s just keep pumping out Jamz.

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Video Jamz of the Day - Old School Flava in Ya Ear

For some reason it seemed like a good idea to go old-school this morning. Maybe it was the hint of spring in the air, I don’t know. More likely it’s because I spent most of last night listening to various mixes by the Avalanches. (Go to their site, sign up and you can do it too!), and it made me want to go digging back into their source material. I’m not sure that’s quite where I ended, but I did manage to unearth some truly amazing video jamz.

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Diego Bernal - For Corners

For CornersNot too proud to pay tribute to his most evident inspiration, Diego Bernal opens his absorbing beat suite For Corners with “Diego’s Donut (RIP Dilla),” a track that is modestly regal and mournful at once, anchored by an uncomplicated but effective break and draped in stately horns, accented with several subtle touches and tricks that poke through with each play. Instead of a Jadakiss cackle or siren to signal the next track, there’s sampled dialogue, stitched together and heavily reverbed: “What you got down there, Diego?” “Dust…” Only Bernal could know how many particles were inhaled while pulling up the material repurposed throughout this set. While the San Antonio, TX-based producer, a civil rights attorney, has the wistfulness-tinged warmth down, the lesson Dilla impressed upon him the most could be the drive to dig as deep, far, and wide as possible while reshaping it all in a way that reflects his own life. The format here — sample-based instrumental hip-hop vignettes — is not new, but it has never been given this Southwest touch, certainly not by a producer who can whip up an astonishing, Latin-flavored synthesis of disparate elements. Startling synth drones, hurtling dustbowl-psych guitars, jubilant flutes, and rhythms for the hammock and dancefloor only scratch the surface. All of it is streaked across a shrewdly paced sequence of tracks, 40 minutes of soul-soaked beats that feel like 20. (The Exponential label offers the album as a free download.)