Posts Tagged Rap
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August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Kate Tempest: The Book of Traps and Lessons
Kate Tempest The Book of Traps and Lessons American Recordings/UMG Kate Tempest has been dazzling audiences with both words for the page and words meant for a stage – via volumes of poetry, plays, a novel and albums – and most often there’s been a rage to her voice that is palpable. She delivered one of the finest shows […]Archive
August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Shit That’s Good! Crap Albums I Love: #2 – Miles Davis, “Doo-Bop”
Miles Davis, Doo-Bop, 1992 Okay, it might not be the worst Miles Davis album but it’s up there. It has to be. Simply because no other Miles Davis album has a track on it where someone steps up and raps: Let’s kick a verse for my man called Miles ‘Cause seems to me he’s gonna be ’round for a long […]Archive
August 15, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 265
Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique (1989) Just recently I wrote about this album and some of what it means to me – got quite into the idea of this being 30 years old. It was and is one of my favourite albums. Still. Always. I love everything from the Beastie Boys – but this was always ‘The One’. And yet my original […]Archive
June 25, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Matangi / Maya / M.I.A: DVD
Matangi / Maya / M.I.A Director: Steve Loveridge Madman The Amy Winehouse documentary was devastating – of course. But what was amazing about it – as is the case with documentary subjects that came of age across the last two decades – was the gathered footage. Home videos, goof-offs, early social media…Archive
June 21, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 289
Run-DMC, Walk This Way [Single] (1986) I’m pretty sure I knew this version and knew about Run-DMC before I knew the Aerosmith version and maybe even before I (really) knew about Aerosmith. I certainly got into Aerosmith (for a while) on the back of this. I remember that much. Then it was to Beastie Boys and Public Enemy and all sorts of things on the […]Archive
March 29, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The 1001 Albums Challenge # 139: Mike Ladd – “Welcome To The Afterfuture”
Mike Ladd is a rapper I’ve been aware of for a while – yet I never heard this. It’s fantastic. Everything I’ve heard him do – or heard him on – has been great. I love his albums with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer. He’s one of the people you can point to as furthering hip-hop, taking it beyond anger […]Archive
March 27, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The 1001 Albums Challenge # 138: Limp Bizkit – “Chocolate Starfish and The Hot Dog Flavored Water”
A lot of this world’s problems and most of its very bad music comes from white dudes with daddy issues. And I was reminded of that finally listening to Limp Bizkit’s breakthrough album. I was reflecting on how lucky I was to be completely above (and beyond) nu-metal in all its numb-skull variations. I was ‘too […]Archive
March 12, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The 1001 Albums Challenge # 132: Jeru The Damaja – “The Sun Rises In The East”
Now I knew about this album – maybe not quite at the time, but sometime shortly after, and I just never quite made it through to it. A shame. And good to be there now. Because not only is Jeru The Damaja great, and certainly career-best here on this debut, but also I was into all the stuff that came up around this time […]Archive
March 3, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The 1001 Albums Challenge # 129: Ice Cube – “The Predator”
I rate Ice Cube – big time. Made it work for him in acting (wasn’t/isn’t great, yet isn’t flat out terrible, etc…) but really his true strength, apart from building a business empire, a brand, is his rapping, or even – actually – his writing. Dude is one of the great lyricists in hip-hop. A pioneer even. […]Archive
February 16, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The 1001 Albums Challenge # 125: Gang Starr – “Step In The Arena”
This is the sort of straight-up banger that makes me pleased I signed up for and carried on this ridiculous ‘Challenge’. Here I am going through old albums I missed at the time. Mostly finding gems. A few duds. A few ‘who really cares’, a few ‘you had to be theres/time/place’ but mostly finding gems…then there’s something like this. You’d […]Archive
February 10, 2019 by Simon Sweetman