Analog magnetism

I’ve recently dusted off my old Akai tape deck, dug out whats left of my cassette collection and reconnected with my analog self. I had really forgotten how great the cassette was a music medium as I played some of my homemade mixtapes. The way my tapes swang from mixes, exclusives recorded of the radio even to stuff recorded of the telly, you had the ability to record and edit at the touch of a button rather than the click of a mouse or the shaving of a visual soundwave.

Tape was a labour intensive medium often involving hours of dubbing, editing, spooling and splicing to create and maintain your music library but it was all done physically. By doing everything with your hands it somehow becomes second nature and you don’t have to think anymore to control and manipulate sound, which is surely the first step on the way to DJing.

I’ve realised how much I actually loved the tape sound quality too as I’ve  digitised them and listened to them on the computer you can hear how music production and home audio equipment have changed hand in hand. There is just something so perfectly imperfect about the compression, hiss and even that faded muffled snippet of the last thing you recorded over seeping through to the speakers. Also the constriction of 45 minutes a side is almost made for mixtapes and its suprising how few people really ever make an album or ‘mixtape’ with a Side A Side B feel.

The lower sound quality also raised questions in my mind about how boring and homogenous pop, rap and rnb have become. They all sound the same now thanks to the difficulty producers have in making their sound big enough to get a commercial realease. So you end up with everyone looking for the same clinical crisp sounding bass thuds and percussionless drumbeats and empty synth patches. I mean when it gets to the point that talentless mugs like N-Dubz, Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk can perfectly replicate the ‘hits’ put out by our translatlantic cousins Timbo, The Dream and Kanye you have to ask what is the point?

So I dug out these ad’s that show that tape was once considered the pinnacle of home audio and realised that a rise in hi fi quality has clearly made an audible decrease in music quality for the consumer. The 90’s hip hop production that I love so much wouldn’t stand up to the merciless digital formats we use today. Punters would just dismiss their music as budget or swag, I mean when was the last time you heard crackle on someones single? I firmly believe that the analog formats helped us connect with the sounds of the 70’s and farther back that the 90’s hip hop artists were sampling.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Edited: August 26th, 2009

My Credit Crunch holiday

Sorry for the ‘postal strike’ last week but I indulged myself in a little credit crunch holiday. I didn’t get a cheap last minute trip abroad but I did down tools for long enough to appreciate some of the low budget activites that I love. First up I welcomed in the new Premier League season in traditional fashion with a champagne breakfast. We’ve been doing this at my pad for about 5 years now, watching the early 12:45pm with a fry up and a bottle of Cava, but this year we actually managed to score a bottle of Moet.

That led to a very long messy weekend watching countless hours of live footy and pretty much boring a hole in my sky plus remote rewinding the goals and offsides. My better half had been away climbing a mountain (no joke of a lie) so by the time I’d caught up with her it was almost midweek. This turned out to be the best bit of the holiday as it coincided with the hottest day of the year.

I took the time to go visit an old mate from college out in the sticks a few miles outside of the M25. It was nice seeing cows, level crossings and rivers on the train out there. It was even better basking in the 30 degree heat catching up with a good mate who greets you with a pint and reefer in his 40 yard garden. By the time the sun had set I was back in London though and ready to fulfil the last part of my ’staycation’ a pre planned bender with another mate who’s off abroad for a bit.

As booze and fun fuelled benders go it was a pretty good effort all round, lasting well over 24 hours. My opinion for what its worth is that anything that involves that much boozing and more but leaves you with no hangover has got to be good. We managed to listen to a lot of classic hip hop too which is one of my favourite ways to relax but that intoxicated I had vivid memories of the 90’s heyday (of hip hop and my partying). It was now friday and all that was left to do was sleep it off and count the pennies, thankfully though I hadn’t even spent £50.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Edited: August 24th, 2009

90’s wiki: Smoothe Da Hustler

Damon Smith, better known as Smoothe Da Hustler, hails from Brownsville, Brooklyn. He came to prominence in the mid-90s thanks to his groundbreaking debut 12″ Broken Language and critically acclaimed underground album Once upon a Time in America. Smoothe is known for his pioneering of the hustler persona and lyrical style in hip hop.

Early Career

Smoothe Da Hustler’s rap career began like many others, performing on mixtapes, local radio and freestyling at shows in the New York area.  In 1994 Smoothe and his manager pressed a self-funded promo single under their own Nexx Level imprint. Smoothe took the single to numerous college radio stations who got behind the track and gave him his first airplay. This created enough buzz to see Smoothe draw major label attention though many A&R’s were unable to understand Smoothe’s depiction of the hustler lifestyle and most thought it unprofitable.

At the time Smith was ghostwriting for future star Foxy Brown who was courting a deal with Def Jam but the legendary hip hop label were only interested in signing a female hustler not the real deal himself. One A&R who could see the potential of the product after attending a number of underground shows was ‘Ill’ Will Fulton, who took the promo to his employers Profile Records, the home of Run DMC at the time.

Broken Language era

Profile Records finally took the plunge and signed Smith, instantly re-releasing his debut Hustlin’ on their label in 1995. However, it was the singles’ b-side that would see Smoothe Da Hustler catapulted to hip hop notoriety, as Broken Language instantly became an underground smash.

Not wanting to waste anytime Profile placed Smoothe in the studio to record his debut album Once Upon a Time in America. At the time of writing the album his long time collaborator and producer D/R Period was working on the M.O.P album To Death and Smoothe was forced to rhyme over empty drum tracks with a promise from D/R that he would create classics once free. Many have noted that the album’s production does have a rushed feel with many unimaginative samples and drum tracks being used more than once on the album. Problems aside, the album was a critical success and underground hit making Smoothe Da Hustler a household name on the global hip hop stage.

Post Profile records

After the success of his first album much was expected of Smoothe’s sophomore album, but due to Profile Records sale to Arista records in 1997 the album never saw the light of day. Rumoured to have heavily featured rising star Big Pun, the reasons for the album being shelved are unknown and are usually put down to the industry cliche ‘label politics’. It is likely that because Arista was owned by major label BMG Group, underground acclaim was no longer a good enough marker of success and Smoothe’s relatively low record sales would have warranted little or no promotion for his second album.

With his second album effectively recorded but without a release date Smoothe’s situation was further complicated by the death of his eldest son’s mother from an aneurysm. The hustler was at a crossroads: keep hustling in the music industry or take a hiatus and concentrate on raising his son. Smoothe maturely chose to raise his son and left the industry for many years. He resurfaced some years later to form the group SMG (Sex, Money and Gunz) with Trigga Tha Gambler and Ice T – who reached out to Smoothe to bring him on tour in 2003. They went on to record an album together, Repossesion in 2004, and still work together today. Smoothe is currently working on new material to be released via his own SMG records following on from his digital release Violenttimes Day, as well as working on a hip hop cartoon entitled Big Wheelz.

Highlights

Broken Language

Fuck Watcha Heard

Murdafest

Hustlin

Selected Discography

Singles

Hustlin / Run (12″) Nexx Level Entertainment 1994

Hustlin’ / Broken Language (12″) Profile Records 1995

Hustler’s Theme / Murdafest (12″) Profile Records 1996

My Crew Can’t Go For That (12″, Promo) Def Jam Recordings 1996

Albums

Once Upon a Time in America 1996 (Profile Records)

Once Upon A Time…

Fuck Whatcha Heard ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Dollar Bill ft D.V Alias Khrist

Glocks On Cock

Broken Language ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Speak My Peace

Neva Die Alone

Food For Thoughts

Family Conflicts

Only Human

Hustler’s Theme

Murdafest ft Trigger Tha Gambler & D.V Alias Khrist

Hustlin’

My Brother My Ace ft Trigger Tha Gambler

Dedication

download Once Upon a Time in America

Full discography

Related Acts

Trigger Tha Gambler

D.V Alias Khrist

D/R Period

Kovon

Ice T

Nexx Level Entertainment

Hill Playaz

Trivia

Trigger Tha Gambler is Smoothe Da Hustler’s younger brother

Smoothe’s mother appears on the track “Family Conflicts” on Once upon a Time in America

Links

smoothedahustler.com

myspace.com/smoothdahustler

References

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Smoothe+Da+Hustler

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.1351/title.these-are-our-heroes-smoothe-da-hustler

http://www.sixshot.com/interviews/10663/

http://allhiphop.com/stories/features/archive/2008/03/20/19498912.aspx

http://hiphopgame.ihiphop.com/index2.php3?page=smoothedahustler

Popularity: 15% [?]

Edited: August 13th, 2009

Daps saves lives

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Swine flu and all the hysteria around it in the press. Swine flu is the new pedophilia, it is the new knife crime, it is the biggest illegal immigrant of them all. I mean so far its failed to kill even half as many people as normal flu but no one seems to care because they are so damn afraid of catching a pig cold. I’ve also noticed that there have been no reported cases of swine flu in the hip hop community and wondered why. Is it that the vast majority of people in hip hop don’t dine on swine?

Well the old school 5 per centers don’t anyway, your Joe Buddens and such do but they have no respect for the culture, example being they are too busy dissing legends like Wu Tang then moaning about being punched in the face by Wu Clan members. (9 of them 1 of you what did you think was gonna happen Joe?). The only people I know who’ve had Swine flu eat pig from the regs to the daily so it didn’t surprise me but I don’t believe swine flu came into the human realm from someone eating a bit of bad bacon. I believe in the Ricky Gervais theory that somebody somewhere (probably on a farm in the southern states of America) was taking their love of gammon to the next level and getting a bit carnal with a ‘babe’.

So that’s the kosher theory out the window so what is making hip hop heads immune to the worlds most deadly case of the sniffles ever? Daps that’s what. Swine flu is spread by filthy bastards spreading their infected muck everywhere via physical contact usually the handshake. Which portion of scoiety regularly forgoes the handshake? Hip hop thats who. That’s cos we give daps, we pound each others fists rather than press the flesh. I had presumed that the whole world knows how to pound fists but apparently even in the birthplace of the daps, America the mass media is unaware of this 200 year old tradition.

After Obama gave his wife Michelle daps at a rally last year the pound received some media attention but the nazi right wing Fox news channel branded daps the ‘terrorist fist jab’ severely damaging its approval rating with white america but thankfully not Obama’s. Proof that not only will watching Fox news make you instantly dumber but it can also give you swine flu and kill yo republican ass. Thankfully in his last act as president the other ‘W’ tried to redress the balance and save a few lives. Although the marine did seem concerned enough about pounding Bush to wear a white glove which is the daps equivalent of wearing 2 condoms. Nevertheless the message is plain to see: Daps saves lives!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Edited: August 12th, 2009

Kung Fu Kid

Filming for the Karate Kid remake is underway in Hong Kong but not without controversy. Since the film was announced last year numerous movie sites and Karate Kid fansites have protested against Hollywoods desire to rewrite history by ruining all our favourite movies from our childhood. Fearing a major backlash on release in the states and possibly the same in Japan and Hong Kong due to the casting of Jackie Chan as karate master Mr Miyagi the producers have renamed the film ‘Kung Fu Kid’. It must’ve taken them ages to come up with that.

What’s annoying is that I would gladly watch a Jackie Chan film which revolved around similar ideas to Karate Kid its just now I know this is a remake I feel negative towards the project. Kung fu films constantly borrow from each other and Karate Kid is hardly a groundbreaking story borrowing ideas and scenes largely from The Prodigal Son. The problem is martial arts fans are already so sick of watching bad remakes of classic films like Fist of Fury, Shogun Assasin and Prodigal Son that casting a favourite like Chan just adds insult to injury.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Edited: August 11th, 2009

Jay Z & Raekwon sequel album covers

I’ve said it once so I’ll say it again, I’m really hyped about the new Raekwon album Only Built for Cuban Linx II the long awaited sequel to his classic solo debut. The album cover has been leaked onto the net by the Chef himself via his Twitter account and it sums what you get from Raekwon: crime, chaos and disorder. There is supposedly a Cloverfield reference in the artwork but like most people I haven’t seen that film and only know about it via the South Park spoof which featured Peruvian pan pipe bands fighting off giant guniea pigs…word.

Compare this to the incredibly dull, emotionless artwork for Jay-Z’s forthcoming 3rd installment of the Blueprint and I already know which album is going to be better. The Jigga man has obviously been hanging out with kanye and his gayfish cronies hypothesizing over what is ’so hot right now’ and this is what they’ve come up with. To me that image says pretentious cokehead cack, the sort of thing you’d find in a trendy Shoreditch art gallery being flogged by Damien Hirst or some other modern art imposter.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Edited: August 8th, 2009

Hollywood in The Gallery

I’m a big fan of the Guardian’s ‘The Gallery’ series a user generated parade of humorously photoshopped football pics. The imagination of the readers who submit the pictures is unbelievable some going for simple puns whilst others go for elaborate or obscure references.

One thing I have noticed popping up almost weekly is the redesigned Film poster and it made me contemplate the psychology behind this. Is it because there are so few films about such a massively popular world sport or is it just the fact that we love to ridicule the pomposity and grandiosity of Hollywood’s aggressive marketing machine.

It is obviously the latter as film posters are continously parodied by all and sundry across the interweb. I believe that people subconciously accept hollywood advertising as the norm for the medium but harbour a deep resentment towards it due to the misrepresentation of the product and often the blitzing of the media to sell us their latest turkey.

People are now aware of how seriously Hollywood style advertising takes itself and are quick to parody or even reject it outright. The Gallery is one such place where this is prevalent but it works so well as the players and the business of football take themselves so seriously too. So enjoy some propaganda from the football fans who take aim at Sven, the Ibrahimovic Eto’o swap deal, the governments swine flu ads, those Manchester poster wars and of course those over the top Hollywood film posters.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Edited: August 7th, 2009

Seagal versus Van Damme

They say you should never stop chasing your dreams but I had long given up hope of seeing Van Damme fight Steven Seagal on film. Now thanks to some snappy editing by channel 5 and the meteoric decline of both their cinema careers it will finally happen.

The channel 5 advert is part of a 3 part campaign for their very commendable Seagal versus Van Damme season. Lets hope they show all the old favourites and not the newer straight to DVD offerings that the 90’s action heroes have been dropping.

As you can see the 2nd and 3rd installments of the channel 5 trilogy are a bit lame. Who wants to see the muscles from Brussels drive a car or an 8th dan Aikido expert shooting guns? We want fist on flesh action, feet in the face, we want kumite channel 5, kumite.

If you’re as bloodthirsty as me you might just get your wish as a new JCVD & Seagal project has been announced in Hollywood. ‘Weapon’ will see the pair play assasins who combine their deadly talents of sharpshooting (Seagal) and knife fighting (Van Damme) to hunt down a drug cartel. There must be at least one fight scene scripted where they tee off in each other and I’m voting for JCVD to take Seagal down… Nuk soo kow! Nuk soo kow! Nuk soo kow!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Edited: August 6th, 2009

Compton gang pics

Thought I’d try out the Wordpress flipbook plugin with some crazy pics I found of the Bloods and Cripps in the 80’s and 90’s. The photo’s are all from the local Police archives and are all scary in different ways. Some of the ‘little guy squatting in front of big guy’ pics are totally homo-erotic but my personal favourites are the ‘random looking into space’ pics. Very album cover worthy.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Edited: August 3rd, 2009

Pro Evo 10: No game face required

After the fun I had making my ‘game face’ in Fight Night 4 I’ve been reading up on what improvements we’ll be treated to in the next installment of Pro Evo (thats PES10 to you newcomers and Pro Evolution Soccer to the console philistines amongst you). So, will there be anything similar to game face in the next Evo?

No, but there’s a good reason for this: the developers at Konami have concentrated their efforts on overhauling the graphics and lighting to improve the realism of the gameplay. Last year’s game gave the graphics a touch up for the HD consoles but as you can see from the screenshots this year the detail has been taken to the next level.

Some of the improved detail is no doubt due to the expansion of the development team into an international unit rather than the solely Japanese squads of the past, giving Konami access to more expertise and technology. The key difference visually is the inclusion of realistic in-game lighing which includes facial and object shadow. This allows for the creation of near perfect likenesses of the beautiful games’ best – and sometimes ugliest – players. It also means if they were to attempt to integrate a ‘game face’-style system into the game, us punters might come off looking a little worse for wear.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Edited: August 2nd, 2009