Oh man I've been slippin'. No hot tracks listed for a long time...
Anyway, the Terror Squad track is ridiculously hot, and the only real challenge for Nina Sky's summertime song domination. We don't dance we just pull up our pants and do the rockaway. Lean back. Lean back. And so on. This is my favorite Scott Storch beat yet - the tremelo (correct use of the term?) strings give it this exotic quality, like it's an Egyptian version of "In Da Club." And of course in a way it is this year's "In Da Club," so the hint of an exotic/international sound is probably appropriate, as dancehall continues the Takeover. The United States may have rejected the post-disco dance movement in the early 80s and allowed Europe to take that flag, but we've picked up on dancehall in a big way - screw discopunk "teaching the indie kids to dance," dancehall is teaching america to dance, one Sean Paul, Nina Sky and Kevin Lyttle at a time. Vybz Kartel could break through at any minute (he's as big as Michael Jackson in Jamaica. Early 80s MJ that is.)
More international music - thanks to some press exposure (Fader, Mass Appeal magazines) and DJ crew Hollertronix, we've got some explosive DJ/party-driven music out of Brazil that's washing up on hipster shores - the "Favela Funk" of Rio. Essentially the gangsta rap of Brazil, it combines dance, miami bass, hip-hop, funk, and even American pop music (one track I heard sampled Linkin Park) into this dirty, lo-fi gumbo of dance musics.
You can find a bunch of samples of this stuff by browsing around this blog: http://www.evil-wire.org/~ampere/nootrome/ I'd link directly to the directory but I don't want to screw up his bandwith without giving him the credit for this stuff. Just look in the left column - there's a link to the directory there. But better yet - SUPPORT the musicians who made it. This may be an impossible task, considering how impossible it is to track down who made what in the chaotic gang-infested favelas of Rio, but the next best thing is to buy Diplo's compilation, which you can get by emailing diplo1978@yahoo.com 10 dollars via paypal. Make sure to request the "Favela on Blast" mixtape. Mine's already on the way.
Anyway back to hot tracks/albums:
The new Mis-Teeq single
Everything "Dip it Low" wants to be, but better.
Ragga Ragga Ragga 2004
There is a video of me dancing with some beautiful women to this album out there on the internet somewhere. Contact me if you want more information. Incidently, I look absolutely ridiculous. This album, anyway, is incredible - a compilation of jamaica's best, which in this instance means 6 (SIX!!!) Vybz Kartel tracks, cuz bwoy is running tings. The best is "Picture This" over the Blackout riddim, which I've alluded to previously. It's great stuff. "Picture me and you, you and me... F-U-C-K-I-N-G." Smoove. "In Your Eyes" is another highlight - if someone can tell me how much a vocoder costs, I'd be hella interested.
Prince Po - The Slickness
I'm gonna review this for stylus, so I'm not sayin too much right now - just that Prince Po is BACK, I miss Pharaohe Monch, it's great to hear Raekwon over a Madlib cut, and I'm kinda sick of J-Zone's one beat trick.
Crunk Classics
A bit imperfect, already reviewed in Stylus, and I gave it an 8. Look for my "Playing God" feature wherein I make Crunk Classics into a 10.0 compilation. It'll be hot.
Favorite tracks: "Shut Up," "Bia' Bia' 2," "No Mo Play in GA," "Where Dem Dollas At" among others.
Masta Ace, Jean Grae, Brand Nubian
I haven't had a chance to hear the three of these, but they are extremely promising. I can't believe what a huge impact The Blueprint has had on hip-hop. Everybody's still soul-samplin', and I'm not really getting sick of it...yet.
Junior Boys
So I'm thinking about how overrated this album is. I still like it a lot, but the singer's voice is so fey and indistinct and its easy for me to just phase out the music at points because of it. "High Come Down" is still a great song though.
Akufen - Fabric 17
I need to get my hands on this. Check out the awesome cover:
Ying Yang Twins - "What's Happen'n!"
I love how the title of this song has an exclamation point instead of a question mark. The chorus is what blows this song out of the water - "BOOOOM! It's oWWWWWn!" "I treat the hummer like a Tonka Toy." Awww jyeah.
Trillville/Lil Scrappy
Lil Scrappy's single "No Problem" is on some Training Day ish in the video. The song is more low-key than most Lil Jon tracks, sort of a subdued malice that threatens to explode but never quite ignites (in a good way). This album stays strong at the top of my list. The three-track build-up of "Neva Eva" --> "Get Some Crunk in Yo System" --> "Weakest Link" is untouchable.
Kompakt 100
This is pretty hot, although I skip a few too many tracks to get to the heart of it. The "Frei/Hot Love" track is one of the best of the year, no question. This is my favorite in microhouse until we see M Mayer's album, due out in the fall. (And of course Blind Behaviour).
