Truth be told, Mississippi’s Lavell Crump is both Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby, though he looked to Bixby’s Dr. David Bruce Banner character from The Incredible Hulk when selecting a stage name, a moniker appropriate for describing a combination of larger-than-life bombast and quietly measured intelligence he shares with the…
Oakland’s Zion-I (Amp Live and MC Zion) has few peers when it comes to skillfully integrating samples, original instrumentation, and substantive lyrical content. Unlike others, Amp preserves the essence of his sampled source material, using it to make effective points (as on “Luv”). He’s also known by his fans for…
The third installation of Verve Remixed is far and away the best — and the first two were completely worthwhile. The source material is taken from songs by artists such as Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, and the remixers include a wide swath of hip-hop and electronic music talent. Highlights…
50 Cent and the Game have made up for now. But their recent feud has kicked up a lot of dirt, emphasizing that Game’s platinum debut The Documentary was a product of a hit machine manned by 50 and Dr. Dre; 50 co-wrote and guests on the three most popular…
Each conference brings a buzzword for the latest micro-strain. In 2004 it was grime, a hybrid of hip-hop and jungle with UK MC Dizzee Rascal as its poster boy. This year finds hipsters talking about dirty house, a more electro-leaning, rhythmically playful incarnation of good ol’ fashioned house. The music…
Ten years ago Sven Väth was trying to conquer America. He had a contract with Warner Bros. and a Los Angeles outpost for his acclaimed Frankfurt-based record labels Harthouse and Eye Q. But America wasn’t ready for the techno and trance sounds of Germany. Väth’s Warner Bros. contract fizzled after…
Despite the undisputed fact that women fuel all party scenes, both literally and spiritually, DJ and artist lineups for WMC/M3 remain largely an annual sausage fest. Women are in the minority, but the balance appears to have improved over the years as trends evolved. “It seems the scene, for the…
Back in the early days of WMC, talking about diversity meant comparing and contrasting the work of, say, Junior Vasquez with that of Danny Tenaglia. But now that M3 is a major player as well, spotlighting a host of musical genres traditionally overlooked by the house-music-heavy WMC, the parties and…
Okay, who hijacked France’s most successful techno DJ/producer and replaced him with a brooding film composer who created a beatless electronic soundtrack to a nonexistent movie? This might make Garnier sound like he’s up his own conceptual ass, but The Cloud Making Machine is surprisingly fun, especially during the brief…
Tiefschwarz (Ali and Basti Schwarz of Stuttgart, Germany) are long-time favorites of Chicago house guru Derrick Carter (who has released an album and several singles from the brothers), sharing his love for crafting cheeky and irrepressibly booty-shaking club hits and DJing in fashionable spots around the world. This release includes…
The UK’s Lemon Jelly (Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen) debuted in 2001 with Lemonjelly.ky and instantly became favorites of the post-raver era. But its album (following 2002’s Lost Horizons) is an express ticket out of its typically snoozy, mellow groove territory into something more electric. Confined to sampled sounds from…
With his new The Greatest Hits collection, C-Bo (Shawn Thomas) is sixteen albums deep into his career. It’s likely that his name and songs are unfamiliar to those outside of his home state of California, save for those who follow the intricacies of gangster rap. But his craft has been…
Combining two artists’ debuts into one release was sensible marketing for Lil Jon, who sought to bring out further evidence of the young crunk culture of Atlanta. But the maneuver almost begged for competition between Lil Scrappy and the trio Trillville, even though both received the benefit of Jon at…
Music videos weren’t particularly groundbreaking in 2004, nor did most genres stray from their conventions — rockers still favored live performance shots while rappers opted for traditional money shots. Still, there were plenty of entertaining videos this year, ones that elicited either delighted awe or gossipy ridicule — what marketing…
After sharing a fruitful musical partnership that yielded electronic music with a sci-fi twist for nearly fifteen years, brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll conclude their Orbital project with Blue Album, their best album to date. We’re not talking Jay-Z pseudoretirement here, either — they’re probably done. “Transient” starts off with…
Don’t tell Hexstatic (Robin Brunson and Stuart Warren Hill) that there has been a crackdown on sampling. They’d be screwed; it’s the genius of their art, which extends beyond music into audio-visual territory, sampling songs as well as films and television programs. On their second album, Master-View, the group’s carefully…
Grant Marshall, a.k.a. Daddy G, was the strong silent type in the original lineup of Massive Attack (now the sole domain of Robert “3-D” Del Naja). Marshall seeks to establish a career apart from the UK group, yet as a DJ he can’t stray from using their songs and remixes…
Out of the Darkness is the sixth album from English producer Kirk Degiorgio and, following 2001’s 21st Century Soul, only his second to be released stateside. Initially titled Into the Darkness, a nod to our lives in a post-9/11 world, the Ipswitch-based Degiorgio changed the title to honor the birth…
It has been 22 years since Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released “Planet Rock,” a seminal hip-hop cut that borrowed its funky electro goodness from the German act Kraftwerk, and Bambaataa is still perfecting the beat, whether it’s in hip-hop, breakbeat, or drum and bass form. After releasing several…
Gold Chains (Topher LaFata) teams up with good friend Sue Cie (Sue Costabile) for the lighthearted When the World Was Our Friend. Here, the duo inject dance cheekiness into punk, resulting in music that often borders on novelty but mostly rocks a tough groove. “California Nites” blends guitar riffs that…
Toronto’s Kheaven Brereton challenges hip-hop conventions with his sophomore effort, Joyful Rebellion, just as he did on his 2002 debut, Exit. He sings as well as he raps (which he demonstrates on the hook of his breakout hit, “Superstar”), and handily flip-flops from reggae to rock, flowing beyond the looped…
I-20, who lent his deep voice to Ludacris’s “Move Bitch” and Houston’s summery R&B hit “I Like That,” brings a similar brand of catchy, aggressive tunes to his debut, Self-Explanatory. Named after an interstate highway in his native Atlanta, I-20’s music is appropriately fast-paced, with concerns that range from breaking…
