SpoonyBard wrote:Never heard of BADBADNOTGOOD until now. Totally floored. This stuff is great. Glad I stopped into this thread.
glad you did too. I discovered them back when they did a cover of Tyler's "Bastard" that floored me. The fact that they're now doing a full album w/ a rapper is a good sign
A Tribe Called Quest
Midnight Marauders
1993, Jive
This is a really hard record for me to write about because - full disclosure - it's my favorite hip hop album of all time. And it has been since 1993. It's a record I know inside and out; have listened to hundreds, if not thousands of times, and still find nothing but joy from every moment of it. Trying to put that into words is a difficult thing though. I think if I was forced, I'd point to the fact that Q-Tip's ear for production here signaled a subtle - but hugely impactful - shift in East Coast hip hop. His later production work on both Illmatic and The Infamous (two of the most defining records of that era) echo this fully. Whereas The Low End Theory was very much a record praising jazz, so that they were rapping over jazz, Midnight Marauders is a record that turns those jazz samples into something new. These samples felt like they were from the street, if that makes sense. Take opener "Steve Biko (Stir It Up)," with its stabbing horns. They sound menacing and confrontational. Or how about the obscure Bill Cosby ensemble (The Badfoot Browns And The Bunions Bradford Funeral Marching Band)'s insanely riveting motif form "Martin's Funeral" on "We Can Get Down"? And that's another thing - this is a record that you learn from. I've spent countless hours listening to sample-sources and discovering some of the most insane jazz tracks ("Red Clay" being another!) by just pouring over the liner notes. You might also look at that cover - released in three editions - with faces of hip hop legends and peers - a veritable Who's Who that you should check out. I could fill pages talking about how "Award Tour" and "Electric Relaxation" are some of the most important jazz/rap fusions of the 90's - and ones that were released to acclaim as singles. About how Large Professor promises his LP is about to drop (20 years before it did). About Q-Tip's dissection of the N-word. About the beginning of Tribe's falling out, which led to various Tip and Phife solo tracks. About how Phife says "if I ever went solo my favorite MC would be me." This is a record that to me, is so important to hip hop history that I struggle to explain even remotely why - because ultimately you need to hear. You need to hear it now, multiple times. And after that you need to think about it. And after that you need to discuss it. And maybe in 20 years time you'll get to a point where, like me, you're still unsure how to even begin to approach its genius.
EDIT: BONUS BEATS
Here's that Badfoot Brown track, "Martin's Funeral" I referenced. OMG, this track never gets old to me. What a killer.
