Posts Tagged ‘Wu-Tang Clan’
Earworm: Blakroc feat. Raekwon “Stay Off The F**kin Flowers”
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Who: Blackroc featuring Raekwon
Sounds like: Classic, twisted Wu-Tang funk with murky, progressive live instrumentation.
RIYL: Raekwon, Wu-Tang Clan, The Black Keys, Danger Mouse, Beck, Gnarls Barkley, DJ Shadow, Jay-Z (specifically “99 Problems”), Black Lips.
Need to know: The concept of rock and rap joining forces has an indelible stigma attached to it, and for good reason. Anyone who’s lived through the likes of limpbizkit, Korn, Project Wyze (remember them?) etc, knows how awful music can get when you combine metal riffs with rap vocals. It’s the “chocolate ice cream and turkey” principle - independently, they can be delicious, but combine them and the result is liable to be disgusting.
So when Ohio-based blues rock duo The Black Keys announced that they were working with Jay-Z’s former business partner Dame Dash to create Blakroc, a collaborative project featuring a strong lineup of rap guests including Mos Def, RZA, Pharoahe Monch and Q-Tip, it didn’t sound like the best idea.
Fortunately, recent attempts to merge the two genres in the world of independent music have yeilded far more tasteful results than the major label-fuelled rock-rap movement of the early ’00s. For examples, Kid Koala’s turntablism-meets-grunge project The Slew, whose touring band included former members of Wolfmother, and the Black Lips’ psych-rap song with GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, “The Drop I Hold.”
Perhaps inspired by the GZA’s experimentation, Raekwon joins The Black Keys on the first single from their Blackroc project, the aggressively-named “Stay Off The Fuckin Flowers”. And you know what? It’s not half-bad.
Track: On “Stay Off The F**kin Flowers” Raekwon’s chorus-less flow tells yet another hard-to-follow crime-kingpin tale rife with cryptic yet memerizing Shaolin slang. The dirty, slow blues-funk backing track works really well with the storytelling format - The Black Keys’ evolving arrangement accentuates the action and add to the narrative thrust.
Buy: Nothing yet, but Blakroc’s album is slated for a November 27th release.
- Jason Richards
Tags: Blackroc, Dame Dash, Raekwon, The Black Keys, Wu-Tang Clan
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Meet An Incredible Illustrator: Kagan McLeod
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Way back in 1993, a young illustrator named Kagan McLeod sent a photo he’d drawn of the Wu-Tang Clan to MuchMusic in hopes of getting it shown on air. He waited and waited, but no one ever showed it. Fast forward 16 years and Kagan is now an accomplished artist with his own comic book (Infinite Kung Fu) and illustrates for clients like Nike, Nintendo, Entertainment Weekly, National Post and Wired.
It’s long deserved, but finally Kagan’s work was shown on MuchMusic when Devon interviewed him for MuchNewsWeekly.
Here’s an excerpt of Kagan talking about his amazing History of Rap Poster. It’s a must-have for any fan of hip-hop.
The History of Rap poster, where did that idea come in?
Kagan: It started as a doodle on the phone where I just started drawing a couple faces and lining them up. I thought it’d be cool to make it a bit of a history lesson but also something cool to look at.
How long did it take you?
About six months. There’s 469 individual portraits on the poster, and I would do eight or nine every night. Another big part of the project was coming up with all the people I thought should go on it and putting it in order. I did that by album release date of their first album.
What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received?
Connecting with some of the rappers who are in the History of Rap poster. I got it in the hands of Brand Nubian, Busta Rhymes, Ice-T, and of course MuchMusic’s Nardwuar gave a copy to Jay-Z. I don’t even know how Nardwuar had heard of the poster or who he got it from, but it was cool to find out that he was going to give it to Jay-Z and it was great to see.
How would you describe your style?
I kinda developed this more drawing-based style that’s more brush and ink. I’m inspired by Chinese brush painting and comics.
Check out more of Kagan’s incredible work here.
Tags: History of Rap, Illustrator, Infinite Kung Fu, Kagan McLeod, Wu-Tang Clan
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