EL-Producto Melkweg.05.04.2007

Two weeks previously Big Daddy Kane rocked the Melkweg with his classic MCing skillz; constantly in touch with the crowd, barrage of name checks and tributes to rap's past, inviting the crowd to beatbox, breakdance and battle rap. I expected a concert but got a very good value for money old skool party.

Coincidentally, Definitive Jux, an independent New York hip hop label whose rap style was decidedly left-field have just been working its way through my playlist with an impressive rate. Company Flow started the interest with their only album released on seminal indie rap label Rawkus, with their 3 MC's; Big Juss, Mr.Len and El-P deliver tight knit rhymes play packed with political views, social injustices, graffiti writing and population control. EL-P's production isn't any less variative with essentially minimalist beat work accompanied with querky sound effect and spacey scratch pieces. Ever since Rawkus started going mainstream, EL-P started his own label, Def Jux which now stands as the benchmark for New York underground hip hop harbouring artists from RJd2, Aesop Rock, Mr.Lif and El-Producto himself. All that was good enough to convince me to wonder down to the Melkweg to see the man himself.

Supporting an orange prison uniform, El-P was flanked by Mighty Quin and his DJ whose name I can't remember. The 3 piece crew recited El-p's critically acclaimed I'll Sleep When You're Dead pretty much from cover to cover. Admitedly, the album is a hard one to digest as its theme is dark to say the least as El-p takes the listener through the paranoia of a 20 something living in the post 9-11 western world. It doesn't get any lighter performed live as the amps boom out ambient beats and trippy scratching by the annonymous DJ but certainly isn't danceable. Amusingly El-p still manages to make the crowd form a mini mosh pit smack bang in front of the Brooklyn cat.



His skits and instrumental interludes are quite different to any I've heard before as the DJ pumps out sampled cuts of old breaks mixed with El-p's characteristic electronic synth work not to mention hypnotic sitar samples. The 1 hour gig ended after the encore which feature mainy work from El-p's debut solo LP, Fantastic Damage and thus bringing a close to this ear opening gig and the man certainly justifies the hype surrounding the album he released only 3 weeks prevoiusly.

For an advert riddled video check out http://dl.aol.com/index.html?date=2007-04-20&video=1

Last plak- Rotterdam

Yeah!

kamikaze beemer-Rotterdam

Delft Station-on way to work

This tag is actually an ad for a furniture maker made by local grafitti artists in Delft.

The Spectacular View

This is the view I'm presented with for most of my daytime during week days

Automate this

Having decided to do my office work from University due to my 'Placement Report' deadline, I've had the opportunity to listen to all the albums I have downlaoded/bought recently. Curiously, all of them were produced by Dan 'The Automator' Nakamura. You see, within 2 weeks of JK giving me a taste of Del The Funkee Homosapien and Deltron 3030, I have gone searching for all Automator produced records I could get my hands on. This is the list I have:

1. Deltron 3030: Automator produced with Del The Funkee Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala
2. Handsome Boy Modeling School: with Prince Paul (De La Soul's DJ)
3. Gorillaz: Automator produced with Damon Albarn, Del The Funkee Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala
4. Dr. Octagon: Automator produced with Kool Keith (from the Ultramagnetic MC's)

I haven’t had this excitement with listening to records since I started to listen to The Velvet Underground so I’m still grasping my words for right words to describe these albums not to mention the quannum projects crew (DJ Shadow, Blackalicious and Latyrx to name a few) which I explored not too long ago. Once I do though, The Ludovico is where you’ll find ‘em.

The Lessons

For anyone remotely interested in turntablism, these 3 tracks by Double Dee & Steinksi, one of the pioneers of the art is a must:

1. Lesson 1: The Payoff Mix
2. Lesson 2: The James Brown Mix
3. Lesson 3: History of Hip-Hop

2006 goes by

2006 saw me go into hyper drive with hip hop records. My last post expressed my fascination of Jurassic 5's live performance in Amsterdam which prompted me to take a trip to Munich to see The Roots play live on December 7.

My trip to Munich also opened many chapters as the city provided me with much more options when it comes to searching for rap records. So it happened I managed to bag Blackalicious’ debut album Melodica back in ’94 as well as DJ Shadow’s Pre-emptive Strike in the form of LP’s and RUN-DMC’s Raising Hell plus Hendrix’s The Band of Gypsies on CD.

The performance of the Roots on the 7^th provided me with another view of hip-hop’s musical boundaries. The Roots largely differ to J5 as there was no DJ present and the stage set-up looked pretty much like any other band with a drum set, keyboards, a couple of guitars, a bass and percussions. Where J5 had Nu-Mark providing the basic beats, ?uestlove did the same for The Roots with totally different effect to his LA counterpart. DJ Nu-Mark was a one man producing machine with the help of 4 MC’s whereas ?questlove was largely providing steady beats helped by The Legendary Roots Crew’s® funk crew together with the rapping of Black Thought. Yet their similarities also show heavily with The Roots playing almost their entire set medley mixing tracks from 2006’s Game Theory as well as previous albums.

I never thought in my life time I would be able to see solo performances by musicians in an actual concert. Almost right from the beginning, perhaps 15 minutes into the gig we were entertained to L. Ron Hubbard’s bass slapping solo followed by ?questlove and their percussionist’s 20 minute psychedelic percussion bonanza. Half-way through the gig my man Jan commented whilst the Roots were playing ‘You Got Me’ that the song didn’t quite have the same pezzas without Jill Scott’s vocals. Luckily for us Capn’ Kirk helped us out by letting rip a guitar solo straight out of Funkadelic’s guitar solo book. Yet the fascination doesn’t end there as The Roots paid homage to their musical influences by slipping quick live samples of artists from the Police, The Sugar Hill Gang to Led Zeppelin. These live samples were slipped between solos I mentioned earlier which added to the feeling that you were half-way between a Public Enemy concert with one of Funkadelic’s.

It was a shame that we picked a spot in the hall close to the toilet passage which annoyed me no end and when the band played music I wasn’t particularly aware of, the nuisance of the passing crowd overtook the fun. Yet I can’t complain as it was an eye opening performance, completely different to Jurassic 5 yet staying to the basic values of rap and hip-hop, fat funky beats and tons of creativity.

The evening was capped by us going to ?uestlove’s DJ spinning in the Registratur, a nice small club in the centre of Munich. We stayed till about 4am after boogie-ing all night long to tracks and breaks of Soul and Rap’s past. Felt like I was in 1984!