Word: hops
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Just four months earlier, he had been hustling from one Philadelphia hair salon to the next, selling pound cake to women while they were being coiffed. Now Reuben Harley was reclining on a black leather couch in the midtown Manhattan recording studio of hip-hop mogul Sean (P. Diddy) Combs. The unlikely pair chatted about business, music and, most importantly, jerseys--the classic models that sports legends like Julius Erving, Nolan Ryan and Jackie Robinson used to wear...
...beats are digital icing—finely groomed and processed gems that remind listeners that, despite its faults, radio hip-hop has consistently pushed sonic boundaries. “Platinum BlaQue Party” employs shaker, hi-hat and triangle samples straight from a Missy Elliott chart-topper, along with a creamy-wet, futuristic synth. The lyrics imitate radio-hop’s vapid babble but exaggerate it even further, laying bare its superficiality. “I got so much access to excess,” they croon, “words cannot describe my success...
...album’s great achievements is that it portrays an invisible, ongoing transition in mainstream hip-hop: from ghetto-fabulous rebellion to upper crust complacency. On “Fader Party” the Majesticons play defiant street rappers as they “count the funds / count my guns / count my sons / count my clout / count you out.” But by the time “Platinum BlaQue” arrives, they’ve begun to assimilate: “New Republic on the table with the New York Times / Used to read The Nation...
While Ladd clearly loves the art and comedy of mainstream black music, his point is striking: that the Majesticons of the real world are in danger of assimilating into the ruling class, against which hip-hop has traditionally struggled. It is this tension between celebration and censure that rings true to fans of the music, and makes Beauty Party at once a joy and a challenge...
Moving away from their early baggy-beat and shoegazer styles, Blur have more recently taken on electronic traces in their music that parallel the advent of trip-hop acts such as Massive Attack and Portishead...