I haven’t done one of these “Mixtapes I Don’t Hate” posts in a long time. I guess that just goes to show how few mixtapes I really enjoy? Either that, or how few I actually bother to listen to. I’m gonna go with a mix of both. Regardless, it’s been a minute since I listened to a mixtape, much less enjoyed one enough to recommend it to a bunch of strangers.
Oddly enough, the newest joint to catch my ear is an artist-centered mixtape from an up-and-coming emcee, which happens to be my least favorite genre of mixtape of all time. But the emcee in question, North Carolina/Virgina-based Ced Hughes, a fashion-conscious, musically-adventurous urban renaissance man in the mold of Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, k-os, and Lupe Fiasco, put together a project (which he calls a “mixcomp”) that I couldn’t resist. Titled Ced and the Technicolor Sound Wave, it’s a blend of original material and selections where he spits lyrics over familiar tracks from across the spectrum of musical genres. Seeing the list of artists whose beats he jacked (including Interpol, Kasabian, Mark Ronson, Simian, Justice, Amy Winehouse, Sa-Ra, Phoenix, and Stereolab) piqued my interest enough to get me to download it. The way he freaked them held my attention enough to prevent me from sending it to the “Recycle Bin.” And the artistic prowess and charisma he demonstrates was compelling enough to make me want to tell people about it.
Of the tunes where he rides roughshod over the musical landscape of other artists, “Greetings From the Firing Squad” over Interpol’s “All Fired Up,” “Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Protection” over the Justice remix of Simian’s “We are Your Friends,” “Ced Can’t Hold Her” over Amy Winehouse’s “He Can Only Hold Her,” and “Blame It On Ced” over Phoenix’s “(You Can’t Blame It On) Anybody” are my favorites. On these tracks he uses portions of the original vocals, often punctuating his own rhymes, to devastating effect, and actually turns them into new songs, not just “remixes” of familiar tunes with some rapping thrown on them. But the whole thing would be an exercise in futility if his original songs weren’t on point. Luckily, tunes like the Neptunes-esque “On My Lean Casually,” the Booker T & the M.G.’s-sampling “The Jukejoint,” the Hank Ballard-fueled “My Cool is the Envy of Iceman” and “Simple Addiction.Boy Meets Girl” showcase his engaging personality, brash confidence, pop-culture references and knack for introspective storytelling, particularly on the topic of male/female relations.
My favorite original composition though is “InsteadofUandI.ItCouldBeUs” which finds Ced rhyming and crooning about the pitfalls of young love alongside the decidedly Björk-like guest-vocalist Kid A, a Virginia-bred producer and singer/songwriter I’ve admired from afar for quite some time now, over a concoction of ridiculously crunchy drum-breaks, and synths that bridge old-school New Wave/Electropop and Future-Soul, from 19-year-old Virgina-based beatmaker Gabe Niles. While the joints based around other artist’s hits may be nothing more than a fun but frivolous distraction and listener-friendly way of introducing Ced via familiar grooves, it’s tracks like this which actually make me anticipate an official full-length from dude.
Listen to “InsteadofUandI.ItCouldBeUs” feat. Kid A
-El Keter
