Well, with that drawing gone, I’m trying to clear the way for a short term project up until April. Anyway, probably just going to do some wtgf’s tonight, and maybe tack in some other crap.
For example, here is a video I came across recently, that I meant to add the other night, but didn’t get around to it:
(jedi mind tricks — i who have nothing)
Jedi Mind Tricks is a group I never really paid attention to, but have gotten into recently thanks to stumbling onto them in my mp3 collection through just running a long ‘play random’. If you like late 90’s underground hip-hop, you have probably heard “violent by design”, or at least owe it to yourself to check it out. This is a video from their 1997 limited (1000 copies) vinyl release of their debut album, a full two years before they reached underground acclaim (and have continued to be prolific in their own right, while collaborating with an impressive list of other MC’s. At this year they were probably in their late teens, and the rough edges in the video and audio production, as well as the verbose and flowery prose really mark this in their early career, but what really impresses me is the sophistication of it. For any piece that is telltale of being amateur and outside of the MTV borg, that a bunch of punkass kids out in philadelphia could pull off such competent producing, visuals and music, and they were still barely known until a couple years later when they managed to pull their way up into obscurity. They are definitely more well known now, but only through relentless dedication, and, well maybe talking about guns and shit more. Anyway, check it out. When I was 17-19, I may have still had all my teeth, but I wasn’t making shit like this.
Like I said, they are still active, and while a lot of it is deliberately offensive (see the excellent “army of the pharoahs” albums), they still put out their own brand of dark and thoughtful stuff. Hey, its hip hop, you don’t have to agree with it to like it.
This is from their latest album:
Two person producer/MC groups can run into limitations quickly, despite all their potential (see Black Sheep), having done a thorough run-over of their discography in the last six months or year, I have found that stoupes production is really quite good, interesting enough that its worth giving the album a couple spins even if the MC isn’t your type. There are a lot of times when vinnie is still on, but his strength has always been in collaboration, so on long stretches of his solo work, he is interesting, but there is too much of it to declare every gem a diamond.
Anyway, if I continue to post about music, there will certainly be more pieces about the people orbiting this particular diaspora of hip-hop.
Im gonna go post some other shit around, but I’m still going…
