NEW AMERYKAH, POLL 1 (4th World War)

deej lemme tell you a lil bit about sampling and recontextualization, and then lemme hang myself for being a dunderhead.

I always listen to the intro when I listen to Illmatic.

the talking works though, it ruptures the original and is slightly frightening in a way that sets the tone for the album proper

(i mean i'm not defending it as anything other than an intro but on those terms it works)

maybe it would feel more like an intro if it was shorter, as it is it's longer than the healer.

if anything it lulls you into thinking the rest of the LP is gonna be that raucous. and it may be an intro but it's not just a mantra on loop ala My People or Master Teachers - you could argue that as lazier but i'm cool with all these things really.

"how many of you guys are always bumping the illmatic intro like "what a classic nas track!!!!"

plz, don't give people here more reason to be challopsy, this is just asking for it.
anyway, new america > the genesis. i treat erykah's as if it were an actual song...its got important context in the album and it was the first track on this that i really really liked, if only because it made me laugh the first time

i think it 'works' as an intro i just think that calling it 'recontextualization! lets have serious art discussion about a jacked track that she talks over!!' is some serious silliness, beyond ppl challopsing about the grey album

Whatever, I feel strongly about this.

Can we pretend I never brought the geir quote into this?

I mean, I meant that facetiously, and y'all are acting like it's the crux of my argument.

i dont get why people are dismissing it as just an intro. its a full blown song.

how so

i mean its a full blown RAMP song, not a full blown erykah song

You people are so fucking boring.

shall we talk about 'amerykahn promise' a bit more?

god i need someone to bring me a drink

a mint julep would do the job right about now

are there any itunes bonus tracks to argue about?

did you all ever hear 'real thang' in the end?

gossipgirl.jpg

what do u guys think of the minute before 'honey' -- what a genius bit of recontextualization amirite :D

i mean its a full blown RAMP song, not a full blown erykah song

― choom gangsta (deej), Monday, 5 January 2009 21:52 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

deej consistently OTM IMHO

Gossip Girl is pregnant for the third time.

I have tasted the challops in the mind of the universe.

i don't think people were dismissing it as an intro, rather defending in the sense of "who cares if it's jacked, it's just an intro"

xp

yah i dont think anyone was mad that it was jacked tho

i mean its a full blown RAMP song, not a full blown erykah song

i guess song is the key word there (people expecting/wanting more from badu in this regard, not just her saying mostly silly stuff over a funk loop...as if that was an inferior concept somehow!). it's not like you'd say 'The Next Episode' is a full blown David McCallum joint not a Dre one (unless you're nuts).

either way, its still a full on proper song (re: people discussing whether its just an intro or not), whether its erykahs or ramps. and it is still erykahs, even if she doesnt really give it a proper once over and make it hers (like she should have done) as someone else said above.

the next episode features rapping -- im not mad at her using it for an intro, im just saying im not getting anything from it as a song that didnt exist in the original -- shes not singing over it, shes not switching up the beat -- its just like when ghostface uses a soul song as an INTERLUDE, not the same as him using a song to rap over.

should have done a replay like with that tarika blue song on didntcha know.

you mean the entirely diff song that featured her singing

either way, it would have been better. i dunno what to call erykahs version, its sort of a cover, but not quite.

yeah..."filler" is a pretty abstract concept in general, but when you're talking about an album that's the first in a series of 2 or 3 albums that the artist made in the same timeframe, it's an even more amorphous idea.

I didn't mean "filler" as in something callously inserted to fill time, but in the more colloquial (and less damning) sense of being weaker and probably included because an artist has fallen too in love with everything produced during a period of time to objectively edit it down to its strongest form (probably the basis for the vast, vast majority of multi album/3LP/2CD/etc. projects produced). Erykah's "weaker" is still stronger than 99.999% of anyone else going's "strongest," so it's not a huge complaint. It's just that a lot of the album felt next-level, and then the rest had that biding-time feeling of the majority of Worldwide Underground, the longer-than-LP-length release she caveated as being an EP (if I'm not mis-remembering).

As for "sampling" the RAMP track--that's really pushing the limits of "sampling," but I don't really have any beef with that. I just think what's meant to be funny or spooky or ominous in the vocals just sound. . . corny, and more than a little boring. Why have an "intro" that's longer than the proper opening track--especially when the opening track is so ace ("The Healer")? The sampled "coming to you loud and clear" bit at the beginning of the Healer would've been intro enough, imo. I guess I tend to be a less-is-more person in general--shorter albums that are pithy thrill me, so I feel more ripped off by longer albums that don't need to be longer--there's no value in having simply more music, unless someone just wants to tack it on after a long silence after the end of the best stuff.

The "sampling" issue of using an entire track--eh. Doing it's fine by me, but do something that justifies it. Everybody knows the best Daft Punk tracks are almost just the originals, but for me, the slight changes they make really do add something; whereas the "conductor" vocals add nothing to 'American Promise'.

Erykah should do a mix/compilation, though, of her inspirations/favorite stuff. . .

mark of a great album i guess. different people getting different things from it. i totally disagree tho, the narration on track 1 is great and provides one of the few really light-hearted comedic aspects of the work (but still v reverent and committed, to my ears and mind).

I'm mad as hell about Stereolab's entire career.

not the same thing and you know it

oh snap wrong thread my bad

Erykah should do a mix/compilation, though, of her inspirations/favorite stuff. . .

^^^^^^^^would purchase for all my friends

So I realize this is a naïve question, but are her previous albums like this? I had always just thought of her as a slightly better version of a Jill Scott-type neo-hippie-R&B singer, which is not my thing at all, but I LOVE this album. Does her previous work have the same kind of simultaneous hip hop/70s soul vibe to it? The only older songs of hers I remember hearing were the live version of Tyrone and Bag Lady, which was pretty good but it was always weird to me that it used that same guitar sample as the then-current Dr. Dre song.
Also, was J Dilla directly involved in any of her music?

Time for some research, Whitey on the Moon.

Also, was J Dilla directly involved in any of her music?

― Whitey on the Moon, Monday, January 5, 2009 11:01 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not too much, only on one of her biggest grammy award nom'd singles -- but i expect those deep cuts are hard to google for

OK OK jeez I acknowledged that it was naïve. I just wanted to get some feedback on what you guys thought of her older stuff before I actually buy/download/conduct further research.
And I apologize for not knowing who was "nom'd" for female vocal R&B performance or whatever Grammy in 2000.

nom'd nom'd nom'd

Baduism is neo-soul with hip-hop fringes - no rapping, no scratching, but the tight clip of the drums tells the tale. but it is very neo-soul (and brilliant).

Mama's Gun never goes as far as The Healer in the Hip-Hop direction, but the group who recorded it are the soulquarians (feat. Dilla), and it is an utterly sublime album, you need to hear it.

Worldwide Underground (is that the title of the EP?) is gonzo and brilliant, Danger is badass 70s funk meets Hip-Hop, while 'I want You' is like sultry water torture.

the first verse of 'danger' sets that scene like BAM. so perfect.

me and this baby
gon' be here all night long
walkin' this wood floor
until my man gets home
i'm at the front door
i'm listenin' by the phone
but i'm gon' be here
with my make-up on

her albums in order:
mamas gun
baduizm
worldwide underground
the new one
though i find it hard to really decide which is better of the last 3 there as they all have some really brilliant tracks. but basically mamas gun is impossibly classic.

All four are impossibly classic, so listen to them simultaneously.

That said, I rank them as such:

4th World War
Mama's Gun
Baduizm
Worldwide Underground

Part 2 comes out February 17th! Same day as The-Dream. Wish I had four ears.

oh noes the weight of expectancy (which i didn't have at all for Part 1). can it be better?