Word: hops
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...melodies were strong and tight, but while there are a few winning tunes on All Eyez on Me--including the soulful I Ain't Mad at Cha and the amiably defiant Only God Can Judge Me-- far too many of the songs sound like the typical drive-by hip-hop--big, smooth grooves and a lot of F words...
...what divides us--Shania Twain and Tupac Shakur don't share much of a crossover audience. It's therefore a delight to encounter two engaging, offbeat new rap groups, the Japanese-American duo Cibo Matto and the Haitian-American trio the Fugees. Neither makes overtly integrationist music--no hip-hop covers of We Shall Overcome--but both of them cross cultural and musical boundaries to create a sound that is bold and fresh...
...Hill, is a native of New Jersey but considers herself "Haitian by association." The band's winning new album The Score draws liberally from the music of both the Caribbean (there's a rousing cover of Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry) and urban America (a woozy hip-hop remake of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly...
Cibo Matto's blissfully oddball music, by contrast, is free of any overt social agenda. The duo's impressive debut album Viva! La Woman is a seductive mix of hip-hop beats, jazzy instrumentation and goofy yet provocatively surreal lyrics. "The velocity of time turns her voice into sugar water," sings lead vocalist Miho Hatori on the genially bizarre Sugar Water. Food--apples, artichokes, white-pepper ice cream, beef jerky--is the album's constant, almost perverse preoccupation. "When Miho and I used to hang around before we started this band, we became close friends because we love...
Finally, you look up at the stage, and you see them: Skavoovie and the Epitones. They're almost laughable, an image of your grandparents in their youth. Decked out in suits, hair greased back, they look more like swing kids than offspring of the grunge and hip-hop...