Blogarhythms

Friday night I received a gift from my best friend. It was something I’ve wanted for quite some time too; a home screen-printing kit! While the screen-printing process isn’t rocket science it’s still a bit complicated, so I haven’t busted anything out with it yet. But one of the first shirts I plan on making with it is going to say “MOTHERFUCKERS, STOP RAPPING,” just like that in giant block letters.

This sentiment could be meant a lot of different ways and it could be taken a lot of different ways. It could mean vastly different things to different people. And I’m sure a lot of folks would wear such a shirt for a whole slew of reasons. But I’m going to make mine because I feel like everybody is rapping these days. Don’t get me wrong either, I love Hip-Hop. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s the “Love of My Life” like Ms. Badu, but it’s dominated my listening habits since mom brought home that “Rappers Delight” 12” when I was miniature-sized, so it’s been a near lifelong love affair at least. Just because I love Rap that doesn’t mean I want to hear you (whoever you may be) rap though.

Furthermore, this is not some effort to disrespect younger generations of Hip-Hop artists or to imply that the state of modern-day Hip-Hop is intrinsically inferior to that of “the old days.” There are a lot of people rapping today who make music that I’m genuinely excited about, that’s forward-thinking and evolutionary, that shows an academic and/or spiritual understanding of what made Hip-Hop so dope when I was growing up without being closed-minded or stagnant. But there are also a lot of people rapping who I could give two doo-doo pies about.

I don’t chalk that latter fact up to Hip-Hop as a whole being wack, or artists today not being as good as the greats of yesteryear because the fact of the matter is there has always been wack Hip-Hop and most of the artists making records when it was “yesteryear” weren’t as good as “the greats” who were their peers. No, I just think there’s more Hip-Hop now. And when there’s more of any thing of which there was only a finite amount that was better than average to begin with there’s bound to be even more of it that’s no good at all.

The point of all this, other than to make you jealous of my totally awesome shirt idea, is to illustrate just how dope I think today’s featured artist, Los Angeles’ Blu, is. He’s appeared in this space on a few previous occasions. And he’s getting bigged up again today because he’s one of the contemporary Hip-Hop artists who I think is absolutely the shit. He’s one of the dudes who makes me not want to make the “STOP RAPPING” shirt because if there weren’t so many kids rapping his records might not exist, but he’s also a dude who inspires me to make the shirt because if there weren’t so many wack motherfuckers rapping he might be a (relatively) big fucking star.

His collaborative effort with beatmaker Mainframe, a self-titled LP released under the group name Johnson&Jonson, finally drops tomorrow on Tres Records. Thanks to the “teaser” video for the Latin-guitar-flavored “Bout It Bout It” I’ve been waiting for this record since before Blu’s Exile-assisted debut Below the Heavens. That record made him a fan-favorite and some heads might even regard it as a classic. This Summer he dropped another banger, The Piece Talks, with emcee producer Ta’Raach as C.R.A.C. which vexed some listeners but which I liked as much as, if not more than (due to its eclecticism), the debut. Johnson&Jonson marks Blu’s third full-length release in just over a year — a landmark achievement for any emcee not named M.F. Doom or Serengeti — and it’s proof he’s as consistent as he is prolific.

Johnson&Jonson “Bout It Bout It”

I know people have bootlegged the hell out of this record. There’s been a leak floating around on the internets for damn near forever. But this is a different album sonically — with all the familiar tracks in newly mixed and mastered form –even if it’s not radically different content-wise. The new mix of the smoothed-out bass-heavy late-night Disco-bumping standout “Wow” for example bangs so hard that it even thumped on my iPod headphones the other day on the bus! Which brings up the issue of the beats in general; Mainframe’s productions are some of my favorite that Blu’s spit on to date. Why? Because they’re dirty and based around straightforward sampling, vintage vinyl loops, lo-fi filtering, breakbeats and expert chops reminiscent of the “rhyming in the basement over wax” aesthetic that made Only Built 4 Cuban Linx one of my favorite albums (of any genre) of all time.

Johnson&Jonson “Wow”

While the beats are ill, Johnson&Jonson is dope because Blu is dope. He’s self-reflective, socially aware, an ign’ant shit-talking braggart, a poignant realist, a skilled wordsmith, an engaging songwriter and most-importantly a voice and personality that I actually want to listen to. And as I already went to great pains to illustrate, I don’t feel that way about any old emcee now-a-days. That’s not because I’m some true-school dinosaur who thinks anything new is wack either. But there really are only a few dudes out here who capture the spirit of the shit I listened to when I was growing up. The kind of artists who make cohesive records that I can imagine my young self running out to the record store on a Tuesday to lay down $10 for the tape and then bumping for months and months. Blu is one of those dudes.

He was on my “to watch” list before he even released an LP. But with three rock-solid albums under his belt he’s officially transcended any “rookie” status for me. As far as I’m concerned he is a “star” in the sense that Hip-Hop had stars back in the ’80s and ’90s when emcees were recognized for their skills and their commitment to their art, not for the records they sell, the celebrities they’re dating, the money they allegedly have in the bank, or how many times they’ve been arrested.

Make no mistake, I want him to sell some records and put some money in his bank account as well. But his status as an artist already makes him something much bigger than all that in my mind. I’ve got high hopes for him, and high hopes for Hip-Hop thanks to him.