It’s been a while since I’ve spoken to my old buddy Chad. Last I heard he was sailing his 100-footer catamaran Morgengruss X around the South Pacific while teleconferencing TED Talks about possible cultivation of hemp and Multipulciano grapes on the dark side of the moon. Then suddenly one day with no warning and envelope was delivered to my door. Its contents were the polaroid you see above and this collection of instrumentals. I don’t know what he had in mind exactly, maybe it was meant as a sequel to his original Yacht Rap compilation. Just hit play and imagine the breeze blowing through your hair as the sun sets over the ocean and supermodels douse each other in Dom Pérignon’52 just to make you laugh. It’s music for helping you think warm thoughts.
As mentioned previously, my confidence in Frankie P’s talents won over my general skepticism about these kinds of mashups, so I was looking forward to this project. After a one listen I’d say the end product rewarded my optimism. Not all of it works, but when Frankie P succeeds he manages to re-contextualize Clipse’s material with a new and different sound that is appealing on its own terms, beyond the novelty of this vs that. And that’s really the best thing you can hope for when remixing something that was already good to begin with.
I had a feeling this Clipse Vs Doors project Frankie P is putting together would be good, the first leak confirms my optimism. You can see the full track list for it below the jump.
I’m generally VERY VERY skeptical of all manner of this vs that mashups, especially ones where you have iconic and/or highly notable artists on both sides of the equation. But Frankie P’s album remains one of my favorites from 2011, and the snippets in video sound do sound intriguing… so I’m willing to give this the benefit of the doubt with an open mind. Hopefully it will be more like AZ’s Memphis Sessions then any of the recent high- conceptmashupabortions.
Very very cool video for one of the many great tracks from Frankie P’s Hazy Night In The Heights, which remains one of the best and most instrumental underrated albums of this year. Gotta give a lot of credit to Emmanuel “Dj Boy” Abreu here, who shot/directed/edited this and did a whole lot with obviously a very small budget. The split screens combined with the propulsive nature of the song itself do a good job of creating tension, and there’s a surprising minor self contained plot that takes the video a notch above the usual.
Some of the best instrumental hiphop released this year, part 2.
Actually it might be unfair to call this instrumental hiphop, it’s more like soul jazz with some vague elements of hiphop-ish production. You could consider it as a Harlem noir counterpart to the exemplary swamp funk of Burn One’s The Ashtray, meant for lonely 1am subway rides instead of sunset low-rider cruises (see the video above). I’m honestly blown away by how good this is.
