Don't Make Me Switch Flows And Get Dark

Dennis Norden once said, “Versatility is the key to success”. Despite the fact that I made this up – Norden has never, to my knowledge, said that – he still makes a good point, and nowhere is it more profound than in music. The artists that demonstrate the ability to switch between different styles, emotions, personas and sounds are, more often than not, the ones that are the most captivating. David Bowie, Captain Beefheart, Michael Jackson and Ween are all good examples of acts that have consistently chopped and changed the way they sound, although the real benchmark for musical versatility was undoubtedly set by The Yin Yang Twins, who have written lyrics about both strippers AND pole-dancers.

In this post, I will be examining two very different artists who I think display the greatest breadth in terms of emotional and sonic variety: Sizzla Kalonji – the turban-toting, Babylon-scorning Bobo Ashanti figurehead – and Nico – the sad-eyed, flaxen-haired friend of the Velvet Underground.

SIZZLA


Anyone who knows anything about reggae (if you bought beads in Thailand before beginning your BA in Social Anthropology at Sussex, I'm talking to you) knows that the genre is split roughly into two categories. On one side, there's the peaceful, melodic roots music championed by Bob Marley, Johnny Clarke, The Mighty Diamonds, Cornel Campbell et al. The guys on this side are primarily concerned with spreading love, praising Jah, staying away from barber shops and promoting marijuana. On the other, there's the furious, bass-driven bastard child of the Sleng-Teng Riddim: dancehall. The stars of this movement (Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Cutty Ranks etc) concentrate their worries around the destruction of Babylon, the destruction of chi-chi men, the destruction of rival MCs, destruction in general and promoting marijuana. While you could certainly argue that there is a need for a third, slightly smaller, category to encapsulate the deejay stylings (and marijuana promotion) of U Roy, I Roy, Roy Hattersley and all the other Roys that many would claim helped give birth to rap music, generally speaking, reggae can usually be split into two very simple sections: violent and non-violent.

There are very few artists who can produce songs that fit neatly into both these categories and Sizzla is by far the best of them. On tracks like 'Be Strong' and 'Just One Of Those Days', his voice fluctuates between broken falsetto and sweet, heavy sorrow; his lyrics carry concious messages of warning and love. On 'Clean Up Your Heart', he pleads, “Be not hypocrite amongst yourselves, African daughters and sons”, and on 'Thank You Mama' he marvels at his own mother's bravery, claiming “no-one knows the pressure you bear, just only you”.

These songs are so brilliant; so raw and sad and spiritual that you can hardly believe it is the same person when you hear Sizzla over a dancehall riddim. Any trace of love or beauty is pushed swiftly aside as his voice becomes almost incomprehensible; a guttural, hate-fuelled growl. Similarly, the positive, concious thoughts expressed on tunes like 'Where Are You Running To' and 'Thank You Mama' make way for the kind of mindless violence that would make Ice Cube blush. On 'To The Point', Kalonji talks of chopping Pope Paul's head off and “bunning out” Queen Elizabeth in the same verse. This is the same person who, on 'Be Strong', expresses hope that his friend is “behaving himself like a good-behaving citizen”; this is hypocrisy at its most ridiculous, but it sounds fucking incredible. While the signals that Sizzla is sending out on these, his more rowdy tracks, are almost comical in their vicious negativity, they are consistently compelling; when he you hear him promise, on 'Ready Fi Di Road', to “buss up them head and kick them with me Clark's Wallabys”, it is almost impossible to resist a gun finger, even on public transport.

So, despite his hypocrisy, homophobia, and burning desire to “bun” old Lizzie the Second, Sizzla is by far and away the most versatile (and, in my humble opinion, best) reggae artist ever. There is, I think, only one other performer who matches his musical breadth and variety and that is the Chelsea Girl herself: Nico.

NICO


Nico's versatility is easily demonstrated using just two albums: 'Chelsea Girl' and 'The End'. These albums are, without wanting to sound at all melodramatic, literally like listening to life and death recorded and spread over 10 and 8 tracks respectively. 'Chelsea Girl' is - despite what 'Winter Song' might lead you to believe - an album that sounds like Spring; breezy acoustic guitars flutter in and out of lazy violins, while Nico's voice – fresh and alert – wanders wide-eyed through the strings taking everything in. While there is constantly a darker side present throughout the record (on 'These Days' she claims, “I had a lover/I don't think I risk another these days”), both her vocal tone and her musical backing are never anything but happy, innocent and pure.

'The End' is a different matter altogether. While 'Winter Song' may have warned us against judging a book by its cover, both the title of this album and the Nico we see on the front of the sleeve (moody with black hair rather than moody and blonde on 'Chelsea...') hint correctly that the new-born feeling present throughout 'Chelsea Girl' may not be making an appearance here at all. This album sounds like the end of the world; the cheerful guitars and violins replaced by ghostly organs, skeletal percussion and even - on 'Innocent and Vain' - screaming feedback. Nico's voice, so wondrous and curious on 'Chelsea Girl', seems now to rise out of a chasm; cold, metallic and alien. The difference is astounding.

So, there you have it. Two artists: one fluent in both love and hate, the other capable of capturing both life and death. Surely, with the obvious exception of the Yin Yangs, you cannot get more versatile than this?

Thomas FB Troubledoubledoubledouble.

Caught, Can I Get a Witness?

A good sample makes a good hip hop track - an easy rule that is almost always accurate (although how Will Smith managed to butcher ‘Rock the Casbah’ for ‘Willenium’ is beyond me…). Another good rule is that 95% of good hip hop is sample based. So basically without a great musical past to pilfer from hip hop is fucked - proper fucked, like the big rabbit. With this in mind, I would like to share with you what I consider are the most important/creative/best sample based albums of all time. I think you only really need to consider three – you could argue that there are more, and there are, but these three were milestones for the art and nowt else can really touch them…so in chronological order here are the beautiful plates of wax –


1. 3 Feet High and Rising – De La Soul



Probably the first album on any list milestones in sampling, simply because it was the first REAL milestone. I mean you could argue that Grand Master Flash’s Adventures on the Wheel’s of Steel was the first milestone, and you’d have a reasonable point, but loads of DJ’s were doing that shit at the time (maybe not quite as well). That album was more of a summation of block party DJing and an advert for the scratching…not real loop digga shit.

The story of 3 ft is certainly well told so I might aswell tell it again…but with less focus on the songs and more the records used to make them.

Prince Paul, DJ with pioneering hip hop band Stetasonic, hooks up with two and emcees and one DJ that bounced to a slightly different beat than the then crop of rap groups – they called themselves De La Soul. Rough demo’s of tracks such as ‘Potholes…’ were already in the bag but the Prince Among Thieves holed up with De La in their Amityville basement and caned their parents’ record collections, Paul’s records, Disney soundtracks, comedy records, TV shows, basically anything they could nick… It must have been quite exciting because nobody had really strayed too far away from you basic James Brown/funk/jazz sample stock before. The results were bad ass. It’s a cliché but the album is psychedelic. Samples triggered at every turn; killer sampled, not programmed, drums; and just a different sonic feel due to the amount of pop and rock samples thrown into the mix.

This album basically made it ok for everybody to start sampling anything. This was mainly down to the naivety of the De La and, probably more so, the fucking genius of the older and wiser Prince Paul. It was also a hit which made it even more influential as C.R.E.A.M and record companies now had proof that there was more to the music side of hip hop than James Brown. There was another big influence on sampling however – law suits… The Turtles got pissed off when they heard one of their tracks used and so sample law was created and would be a constant thorn in hip hops side from that day on.

There is loads more I could write about this album but to be honest it’s all been said before, so there are its basic achievements which are pretty fucking massive.


2. Paul’s Boutique – Beastie Boys



Straight up fucking funky white boy shit!

I went threw a phase about six years ago of trying to collect every sample used on this album and I must have achieved about 90% of my goal. This meant only one thing – I was fucking broke! There are so many samples used on this record its untrue. I bloody love it man, I really do.

Paul’s Boutique has to be one of the funkiest albums of all time. If 3 ft was a naïve, fresh use of sampling then this was it older (even though they were released in the same year), cooler, slicker brother who was really down with the funk. Musically created by the Dust Brothers for the Beastie Boys to have fun over, this album is a straight up lesson in how use samples with style. Classic funk breaks mixed with some quality crate finds give the album a huge sense of fun…although it isn’t all funk – ‘Sounds of Science’ is built entirely on Beatles samples with some cracking scratching from DJ Hurricane (‘Hurricane, got clout, other DJs, he put ya head out…’) and is still as funky as fuck. Couple all these seamless funky ass beats with three emcees that fired rhymes off each other for fun and you’ve got one hell of an album, which is quite simply essential.

Oh and I haven’t even mentioned the mighty 9 part, near 20 minute hip hop tour de force that is ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’. Built on drum machine beats and killer samples like The Isley Brothers ‘That Lady’, it beautifully rounds of the albums amazingly funky, fun mix of beats and rhymes.


3. Endtroducing… - DJ Shadow



Trip hop is a dirty word, and this album single handedly created and destroyed it in one fell swoop. Created it was probably the first instrumental hip hop album of any real quality and destroyed it because it was also by so far the best, that nothing before or since can even sniff its farts without having to ask permission.

Shadow really schooled suckers with his debut long player. As with Paul’s Boutique this album contains an absolute ton of samples, but they are used in a far more subtle manner than that employed by the Dust Brothers - they flow in and out of each other in beautifully layered loops. This album really destroys the stupid ‘sampling is stealing’ line, as Shadow really does create something aesthetically wondrous and new. The album could be described as ‘progressive instrumental hip hop’ but it is best described with the title of another DJ Shadow track – ‘Hardcore hip hop’, for that is quite simply what it is.

It’s not only the way the samples are woven together so well, it’s the crate depth needed to make the album. Put it this way, Mr. Davis owns more than a couple of records and he also makes a point of only sampling from original source vinyl – no reissues or comps, bitches! The samples used cover a vast time period too. Aswell as the obscure funk, jazz and psychedelia you’d expect from such an album, there is also room for snatches of Bjork and even U2 drums. It’s not only this huge open minded palette of source material that makes the album work. It’s also the respect Shadow has for the records and artists he uses – he describes the basement of his favourite record shop as a ‘graveyard of broken dreams’ (or similar words to that effect anyway), and it really shows in the astonishing album he created with them.



So there they are, three milestones in sample based hip hop albums. One innocent, naïve and utterly fun; one funkier than three day old shit and slicker than the Exxon Valdez; and one more beautiful Salma Hayek’s fresh shaven fanny! There are other leaps in sampling out there though, like Double Dee and Steinski’s Lesson series of seminal singles and remixes; or Coldcut’s Journey’s by DJ which was a great mix album. But it’s the three gems above that that showed their producers to be real masters of their art. Enjoy.

STYLEZ OUT

Behind The Scenes: Indie

Indie stands for 'Independent'. However, it also stands for 'Pretentious Cunts', and, in this new episode of Radio 4's award-winning 'Behind The Scenes' documentary series on Youth (or 'Youf') Culture (or 'Culture'), Jonathan Wasteman delves deep into the genre that Phillip Schofield called "great!" and Judy Finnegan called "worse than Hitler": INDIE !

Check the Ruffhousing podcast site to hear it.