“Jingle Jangle,” by The Legion. Incredible minimalist production. The other verses are cool, but Dres of Black Sheep KILLS...

I’ll always give a lot of credit for Cantaloop, by Us3. It’s just a near perfect sample/interpolation that turns the uber-mellow Cantaloupe Island (by the legendary Herbie Hancock) into a real head-nodder. Sure, it lacks a little in the lyrics department — but the beat lets you overlook this. You’d probably call the group a one-hit wonder, though the other single, the dancehall-ish “Tukka Yoot’s Riddim,” is solid on its own — and the rest of “Hand on the Torch” is pretty good too. To my utter surprise, I learned recently that they’re ON THEIR SEVENTH ALBUM. What? Guess I’ll do a little...

This list of rappers and their literary counterparts is pleasantly and surprisingly accurate. (I’m SO hoping someone understands my choice for the title of this post.)

“Haha, what is he saying in that song? It’s terrible! White guys can’t do that!” Sigh. Anyone who actually listens to dancehall/reggae knows exactly what the song is about. It’s essentially a “Stop snitching” song; Jamaican police are known for their heavy reliance on police informants. Now, let’s talk about the criticism. The people who dis him the most are outsiders; people who generally don’t have any claim to the genre. You have a bunch of outsiders (largely white) ragging on a white guy for not being black/Jamaican enough, as if those outsiders should get a say in it. A little obnoxious, I’d say. In contrast, there was generally a lot of collaboration and respect from other actual dancehall/reggae artists and fans. Unlike, say Vanilla Ice, Snow’s got some pretty decent songs and a good amount of street cred, if you bother to look for it. Yes, Informer as the biggest selling reggae single of all time is a bit outrageous, but I don’t think Mr. Darrin O’Brien deserves the blame. Enjoy and rethink, w/ the...

One day I may write something longer on the topic, but it seems like the mainstream (webstream?) media does golden era rap (see what I did there?) a disservice– by generally implying that the “mashup” is an invention of the Web 2.0 generation by folks like Girl Talk. No disrespect, but hip-hop DJs were doing them well before that, and arguably in a fashion that required much more skill. We called them “blends,” and they weren’t done with the help of music chopping software like AudioMulch or Ableton — strictly with vinyl, an acapella track on one turntable, an instrumental on the other. Still, the new guys do some very good stuff as well. I’d suppose the only problem is equivalent to the problem of music online generally — there’s so much available and it’s still pretty difficult to filter out the rubbish. Especially when it’s now extremely easy to match up two song parts with roughly equivalent bpms. I always appreciate when you’ve got some interesting level of thematic as well as sonic synchronicity — such as the joint I stumbled on today: the great Johnny Cash + the great Eazy-E. Apparently this one is by a guy named DJ...

Comics + classic rap albums = win