Tinie Tempah - Discovery

is he an r&b singer? oh god i'm like the new york post gossip columnists that call all black r&b singers rappers!

to be fair he is so bad at it it's near-impossible to tell.

he as much raps as he does sing on "break your heart" & "dynamite"

(and oh the irony it's almost certainly designed partly with mobile phones on buses in mind)

was delighted to see the "no playing music on your mobile phone" icon stickers on London busses last month! but forogt to take a photo

i'll just dump the key PRE-FAME tinie tempah cuts here then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CV4PJS9FPQ

^^the beat that first brought flukes of crazy cousinz to prominence (he made it when he was like 9 or something ridiculous) (ok 16)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2UUXYyPhJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9xWN7llsBY

I actually think this album is my favourite example of typical 2010 pop-rap production.

excluding everything from the US i assume? in which case you're not setting the bar high exactly

The first couple of tracks in particular use the expected plasticky blocky trebly dancey wall-of-sound to make a kind of pop equivalent of "What You Know" (probably the last decade's no. 1 example of unspacious production done well).

tinie tempah definitely doesn't fare well in this comparison, though it's sort of unfair (and "what you know", while i wouldn't call it spacious exactly, is faaaaar less cluttered than most of these tracks)

excluding everything from the US i assume? in which case you're not setting the bar high exactly

When I said "typical 2010 pop-rap production" I really meant the post-Guetta aesthetic, whether US or non-US (e.g. "No Love Lost" et. al.). I guess you could say I'm still setting the bar pretty low.

for an artist that has absorbed american swagger rap, i find tinie tempah to be as endearingly corny as i would want from a british rapper

20 light bulbs around my table and my dresser
CLC kompressor, just in case that don't impress her

i just love the idea of him being all "now check out my vanity!" and the chick looking askance and him going "ALRIGHT WELL LET'S LOOK AT THE BENZ, SHALL WE?"

kinda can't stop listening to "pass out"

a shame that even tho our male pop stars sound so much like this that this prob won't even sniff american pop charts, even by the 8 months late standard that we've set on catching on to british pop -- if ludacris recorded this exact song it would be a fucking smash

"pass out" is def single-of-year contender

do ppl think that "miami 2 ibiza" is a bit garish? i think the big synth riff is kind of great, also love how far he takes the brand name thing

"A bit" garish???!!!

lol

I'm not keen on that one really, or that whole section of the album tbh, it seems to fall into the "try and please everyone" trap you get with so many Brit rap albums.

The album version of Pass Out isn't as good as the single, the additions of those extra bars completely bungles the moment when the chorus suddenly explodes into drum and bass.

Hood Economics is terrific by the way, I remember hearing it on some Channel U compilation c. 2007 that was generally full of arse-end-of-grime Bearman types and it really stood out. The other track on that comp that that really stood out was Hey Girl by Ear Dis so clearly it was a harbringer of better days to come.

"obsession" & "invincible" are prob the two weakest tracks after "written in the stars" obv and maybe "snap"

oh god i'm like the new york post gossip columnists that call all black r&b singers rappers!

― truly blunted rhyme fiend (J0rdan S.), Monday, October 11, 2010 3:42 PM Bookmark

uh huh

The album version of Pass Out isn't as good as the single, the additions of those extra bars completely bungles the moment when the chorus suddenly explodes into drum and bass.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, October 12, 2010 1:53 AM Bookmark

this is otm

chamillionaire rapping over "pass out" http://hulkshare.com/tezov9120xbw

man "pass out" is kinda great, huh?

thanks for those links btw lex - i loooooove "wifey"

Late to this

written in the stars has to be one of the 10 greatest youtube basketball highlight tracks ever (and that's basically the best kind of music imo.)

disc-overy

sexy seno-RITA i feel your ORA [aura]

fuck u

impressed that he thought that up with his tinie tempah-ral lobe

haha i kinda like that verse

yeah that is textbook tinie! where others would sound lame he just comes off as cheeky

"baby i ain't talking books when i say that i can take you across the BORDERS!!"

like listen to the way he doesnt even try to play cool and disguise that delivery

hickory dickory, i just had an epiphany
why'd i call myself tinie if i keep thinking about bigamy

^ one of my favourite tinie joeks

the rita/ora line isn't even that verse's real clanker

i'll make you call me DADDY even though you ain't my DAUGHTER

just noooooooooooooooo

rita ora taking over with I'M READY FOR YA is an amazing moment on the seamus haji remix though

he has too much charisma to ever clank, this is the thing

so I saw this guy perform on TV, Paladia HD was showing some British festival...

Is this dude like the B.O.B. of England or what?

exactly

Is this dude like the B.O.B. of England or what?

Ha! otm

(featuring Ella Eyre)
(featuring 2 Chainz)
(featuring Labrinth)
(featuring Dizzee Rascal and Ty Dolla Sign)
(featuring John Martin)
(featuring Candice Pillay)
(featuring Big Sean)
(featuring Emeli Sandé)
(featuring Sway Clarke II)
(featuring Paloma Faith)
(featuring Laura Mvula)

Bingo.

Seriously, I could not imagine a less pulse-quickening set of collaborators than that. Maybe stick Eliza Doolittle in there as well.

Driving the car into the ditch by getting Jessie J on a track would at least show commitment.

since no one else will be morbid enough to listen to this i shall now liveblog chucklesome tinie lines as they wash over me

1. thinking about life / listening to too short / maybe they'll have a statue of me in madame tussauds

2. trying to get fellatio / from girls as fresh as daisy lowe

3. tiger beer or cobra / lime in my corona / shakes down my bilateral periorbital hematoma

3 is #accidentalpartridge

4. life threw me lemons / now celebrity juice on my sofa

5. and a girl to make a racket / call her anna kournikova / had to put me in another tax bracket / so much for my diploma

6. roses gabor (no!) / ester dean (yes!) [wtf]

7. another woman under cover like a bryan ferry album

She take it off but leave on her stilettos / You know you can find me around white girls like Othello

i have no idea whether any of these lines are on-the-nose rtc parodies or not

kournikova reference :)

what is he doing talking about roses gabor but not getting her on the album

2. trying to get fellatio / from girls as fresh as daisy lowe

if i was to listen to this, this line would be the point at which i would stop, btw

(featuring Emeli Sandé)

and YOU AGAIN!

she's on the robert glasper too

A cursory skim has confirmed this to be an completely unsurprising dud, but 'Don't Sell Out' is pretty fun.

(featuring Dizzee Rascal and Ty Dolla Sign)

wait what

the song with 2 chainz is remarkably bad

The Dizzee/Ty Dolla Sign track is called 'Mosh Pit'.

Guess what it sounds like.

haha the daisy lowe line is obv the best thing on the album. (and yeah cosign on 'don't sell out')

music got too shit for me to continue this lil project after the first few tracks, although the othello one is giving me new life

The Othello one is from the same song as the Daisy Lowe one!

His voice has either gotten deeper or he's deliberately making it so and he's lost a lot of his youthful charisma in the process :/

oh! well that's handy

goes without saying the worstest line is 'trampoline's "i'm just strictly speaking anne frankly"

although "in a white ferrari spider, rolling with anansie" afterwards is prob his legit hottest

shift k3y remix of that is obviously choice btw

Guess what it sounds like.

― Matt DC, Monday, November 4, 2013 2:04 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

nooooo

then she vogue / then she vogue / AGYNESS DEYN

you can pretty much tell when a dumb 2 chainz verse is him being sly and when it's him not giving a flying fuck about the quality of the song, and the tinie tempah one might be the best example of the latter

the sad part is that in an alternate world, tinie f/ tity would be the perfect vortex of dad joek rap

otm, if he can lavish "sold out arenas you can suck my penis" on derulo idk why he would phone it in for tinie :/

bit sad about this album tbh, there was no reason for it to be a flop

when the 2 chainz joint came out i thought he was going for full on american crossover but the guests on this don't make it seem like that is the case

maybe he felt shook by the idea of rudimental snatching his career?

nah i think the tity bit was always intended as a bit of extra comeback glamour before going for the same template as the first album. feel like that's a known brit strategy although examples escape me

eesh 'mosh pit' was produced by rick rock apparently

Rudimental are different enough from Tinie for them to be plenty of room for both of them, but it's true that the pop-grime crew have been totally caught out by the sudden paradigm shift in the British mainstream. It says a lot that none of them have even bothered to jump onto this year's sound.

great shift k3y tunes on 'youth'. the whole thing is sooo good.