hip hop

Song of the Week: "Aquamarine"

Jackson Diianni — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 15:01:04 +0000

Song of the Week: "Aquamarine" Jackson Diianni July 19, 2022 - 11:01

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Black Thought & Danger Mouse - "Aquamarine" feat. Michael Kiwanuka

3.5 out of 5 stars

Last Wednesday, Black Thought and Danger Mouse released "Aquamarine," the third single from their upcoming album, Cheat Codes, with guest vocals by UK singer Michael Kiwanuka. Black Thought is the frontmen and co-founder (with Questlove) of the Philadelphia hip hop group The Roots (house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), and Cheat Codes is his fourth project without The Roots after 20 + years of never releasing solo material (besides guest verses and freestyles).

Danger Mouse is a Grammy-winning producer for artists like Gorillaz, MF DOOM, A$AP Rocky, Beck, Gnarls Barkley, Parquet Courts, The Black Keys, and others. It's the sort of hypothetical dream collaboration that typically yields great results in your head, but makes for disposable, disappointing art. The bargain bins of the world are littered with projects like Deep End, The Highwaymen, Electronic and Sonic's Rendezvous Band, and while most aren't colossal failures, they're generally underwhelming. Traveling Wilburys (Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne) released some decent songs via two albums, but given the individual pedigrees they were not overwhelmingly brilliant. Similarly, Danger Mouse's collab album with MF DOOM yielded a pretty minor entry in DOOM's discography, and Black Thought's EPs with 9th Wonder and Salaam Remi were both well-received, but neither were classics, either.

Given my previous disappointments, I had low expectations. "Aquamarine" begins with the sound of an orchestra "tuning up" and then launches into a standard Danger Mouse beat. The liner notes haven't been published yet, so I'm not sure what he's sampling, but I know he samples a lot of vintage film/TV soundtracks -- he once made an entire album interpolating Spaghetti Western music -- and his contributions as a producer (not beatmaker) usually consist of adding a "chamber pop" feel, i.e., filling out the production with a lot of orchestral touches. On "Aquamarine," he appears to be using a choir, and he's substituted an open hi-hat sound for a snare drum. The 4-bar hook by Kiwanuka (singing through what sounds like a telephone filter) is pleasant enough and contains existential nuggets like "everything's burning down / when I close my eyes." Black Thought is (typically) in great form. His command of internal rhymes, multisyllabic rhymes, slant rhymes, alliteration, breath control, stressed syllables, double entendres, and other literary devices is, as always, otherworldly:

"We go from Lira to Libra

From cold water to fever

To World War 3 from the treaty signed at Geneva

The biology teacher said we used to be amoebas

The neighborhood preacher said we emerged from the ether

We converge from urethra and struck gold, eurеka

The morning star Tariq, I was born to be a teachеr

Whether scorpion or the frog, the nature of the creature

Is to evolve"

Yes. If there's one thing Black Thought's got, it's raw technique. For sheer lyrical complexity, he belongs in a category with artists like Leonard Cohen, Aesop Rock, MF DOOM, etc. It's impossible to listen to his work and not feel at least impressed. Very few can do what he does.

Personally I always wanted to like Black Thought a little more than I did. He's been named an all-time great emcee by more publications than I can count, but whenever I listened to old Roots' albums, I was always left scratching my head. Every lyric seemed to be riffing on the phrases "illadelph," "fifth," "dundee," "the Roots crew," and "South Philly," and I couldn't understand why that would earn him such superlatives. Even (admittedly jaw-dropping) showcases like Web or the Funkmaster Flex freestyle seemed to demonstrate intellect more than anything else. He shows up on a lot of lists of rappers with the biggest vocabularies. In "Aquamarine" he says, "my words should be studied up at Berkeley and Julliard" and he’s not wrong. He makes classroom music, simply put. MacArthur Genius Grant music. Poet laureate music.

The most memorable Black Thought song I ever heard was called "Fentanyl," a heartbreaking story about the opioid crisis off of Stream of Thoughts Vol. 2. It had subject matter, perspective, narrative, and it got its point across neatly in the span of two minutes. Certain images, like “tyin' off his arm with violin strings / his eyes and dreams diverted as the siren screams" really stuck in my mind, and it had all his characteristic, dense, highly-involved verbiage. But it's also one of the only songs where I feel like I KNOW Black Thought, and that gets to the heart of the issue. I get very little sense of the person behind his music, other than his obsessive dedication to technical skill.

For all his Pulitzer-worthy wordplay, there's an impersonality to his work that I always wished he would shed, and it’s really the only thing holding me back from giving "Aquamarine" a higher grade. The song doesn't really lead anywhere or make any lasting point. It doesn't have a topic. Its title is just a reference to a throwaway line from the second verse, and for an artist of Black Thought's stature, it just feels like exercise. I'll be sure to listen to the album when it comes out, but it doesn't sound like his most innovative work.

Mr. Diianni is an independent writer of music and film criticism from Wayland, MA.

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Became a fan of Danger Mouse…

Became a fan of Danger Mouse ever since his work with DOOM .

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Video of the Week: "This Is America"

Dusty Wright — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Video of the Week: "This Is America" Dusty Wright July 10, 2018 - 10:00

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Protest music for this generation made easy but informed by those that came before, i.e., Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets, Fela Kuti, Public Enemy, et al. Childish Gambino nails it in his evocative hip-hop street symphony "This Is America." Thoughtful, direct and riveting, and directed by Japanese-American filmmaker Hiro Murai, a frequent Gambino collaborator, it is non-stop messaging in today's divisive America. The song features background vocals by American rappers BlocBoy JB, 21 Savage, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi, Quavo and Offset. 327,580,858 views and counting; killer indeed.

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Song of the Week: "Pieces of a Man"

Webmaster — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 14:05:21 +0000

Song of the Week: "Pieces of a Man" Webmaster April 3, 2015 - 10:05

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Gil Scott-Heron's Nothing New is a stripped down vocal and piano version of songs from his back catalog recorded in New York with producer Richard Russell between 2005 and 2009. The track "Pieces of a Man" appeared on that album originally released as a limited edition vinyl-only LP for Record Store Day 2014. The music was finally made available digitally for the first time earlier this week. iTunes also released the documentary Who Is Gil Scott-Heron?, a film by BAFTA nominated film makers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Check out the 10 minute sizzle reel of the film – along with Richard Russell’s full album sleeve notes and exclusive photography at gilscottheron.net. Screenings of the film will take place in select cities, including New York and Washington D.C, in spring, with full details to be announced soon.

Song of the Week: "Come Home"

Dusty Wright — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 06:39:13 +0000

Song of the Week: "Come Home" Dusty Wright February 26, 2015 - 01:39

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UK hip-hop artist Antix releases his heartfelt new single "Come Home" on 16 March 2015. Already gathering steam from his remarkable 2014 year, this stunning track will be released in conjunction with Mind, the mental health charity, as the track deals with the difficulties and stigma of mental health, a subject that that he knows all too well. This is my favorite song of the year, so far.

ANNIVERSARIES: Snoop Dogg - The Samples (20th Anniversary) Mixtape

Dusty Wright — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:24:07 +0000

ANNIVERSARIES: Snoop Dogg - The Samples (20th Anniversary) Mixtape Dusty Wright November 22, 2013 - 08:24

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Snoop Dogg shares some funky music and commentary on the 20th anniversary of his landmark, classic debut Doggystyle with the release of this freshie-fresh mixtape. Turn it up and pass the dutchie.

Killer B'z!

Dusty Wright — Sun, 24 May 2009 23:00:07 +0000

Killer B'z! Dusty Wright May 24, 2009 - 19:00

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Back before I started writing, I managed this righteous hip-hop group from Newark. We should have been contenders, but things got wonky. And so it went.... A few weeks ago one of the Carroll brothers sent me this Youtube link to the first song -- "Killer B'z" (12" single) -- I produced for them on the label Krossover Records. Check out the inspired vocals by the legendary Fred Schneider of The B-52s. Hilarious.