It's grey and overcast here in San Francisco with the kind of sky that threatens snow, if not here then at least in the mountains which bodes well for my week in Tahoe hurtling down a mountain with an ironing board strapped to my foot and yet ... even still it manages to feel oppressive and gloomy.
As such it's either wildly inappropriate or wildly appropriate to have the next song as (probably) my last in a tenuous hip-hop continuity jag since it does nothing but remind me of a long, lazy summer just after I'd been kicked out of University and was wondering if they were going to let me back in. In my mind the song is drench in cornflower blue and a deep, bright yellow. Almost exactly the opposite of today in fact.
Since last week I was wittering on about Pharcyde and how they paved the way for 'alternative' hip hop bands and how the success of the Wu Tang Clan and RZA's spinoff project Gravediggaz tinged their second album in a darker, more mellow way.
Which gives me a couple of thematic outs - I could go with either Wu Tang Clan or Gravediggaz but, since I don't really have time to delve into the entire mythos of The 'Clan and the only video of my favourite Gravediggaz track on You Tube is a static video with a the Album art I'm going to skew slightly left field and go with an old Holiday standard
Featuring Kelis on vocals for the chorus and samples from Slick Rick's "Children's Story" and Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (yes, that was the drum loop that you were trying to work out where you'd heard it from) the video is based around the blaxploitation film "Dolemite", the trailer of which contains the classic line
"I'm the one who killed Monday, whooped Tuesday, put Wednesday in the holiday, called up Thursday to tell Friday not to bury Saturday on Sunday"
When "Bizarre Ride II the Phardcyde" came out in '92 it was during the height of the East Coast vs West Coast Gangsta rap era so the lusher jazz stylings were a palate cleansing sorbet in the middle of a rich meal of guns, bitches and bling.
Along with artists like Oakland's own Del Tha Funkee Homosapien it paved the way for other "alternative" rap groups like Jurassic 5.
The second album "Labcabincalifornia" was generally a more mellow and sombre affair with themes of dealing with fame, drugs and failed relationships. Released 3 years after "Bizarre Ride ..." the interim period had seen the rise of the darker tinged Wu Tang Clan and RZA's spin off project, the horrorcore Gravediggaz.
The first single off "Labcabin..." was the chopped, ethereal "Drop" which looped a sample of Ad Rock from the Beastie Boy's "The New Style" and gives the Spike Jonze directed reverse-filmed video (featuring a cameo from the Beastie Boys) a oddly surrealistic quality.
