I'd Love to Turn You On #228 - MF Doom - MM...Food

          

            It’s hard to decide where to start writing about MF Doom’s 2004 hip hop masterpiece MM…FOOD. Do I start by introducing MF Doom, an artist who spent the better part of his career cultivating an enigmatic presence? Or do I kick this post off with grandiose statements regarding the influence of MM...FOOD on contemporary hip hop? Both options seem to stand at odds with the rapper’s mission, which has always seemed more concerned with digging up obscure samples and crafting a character than elevating the man behind the mask.

The only way that I feel like I can really honor this album is to compare it to a really fucking good meal. MM...FOOD is like good barbeque; it’s messy, with lots of sides, but rich with flavor. Every time you get tired of the sides, there’s always more of that tangy, delicious Doom that convinces you - just one more bite. By the end of your time with the album, you’re too full, thinking that maybe you’ll never eat at this restaurant again, but three months later, you’re back, salivating for more. All of this is to say that MM...FOOD is not full of itself. It seems designed to be served and enjoyed on a paper plate, thrown out, and linger on the back of your palate for days to come.

            Doom’s bars are never showy, with a flow as tender and easy as slow-cooked pork. Across his entire career, Doom spits some of his hardest verses on this album, making food-based insults that, taken out of context, could sound like a corny warning from the FDA; “I suggest you change your diet / It can lead to high blood pressure if you fry it / Or even a stroke, heart attack, heart disease / It ain’t no starting back once the arteries start to squeeze,” he raps on album opener “Beef Rap.” Reading this verse, I can only imagine that you are unimpressed; hearing these words from Doom sound so utterly vicious though, weaponizing the all-too-real (and very uncool) threat of a bad diet into something genuinely intimidating. His lyrics feel somehow familiar yet off the cuff, like turning Mom’s leftovers into something new.

            And yet, Doom’s rapping takes a backseat to his production. MM...FOOD is sublimely produced almost entirely by Doom himself, with only the occasional assist from longtime collaborators Madlib and Count Bass D. Songs on MM...FOOD are typically constructed around a single sample, a jazzy track that’s been chopped and screwed and layered with drum fills; Doom’s a chef working in a fully stocked kitchen. He saves his strongest production for the back half of the album, replicating that deeply complicated feeling of eating something delicious too fast. The back-to-back tracks “Rapp Snitch Knishes” and “Vomitspit” highlight Doom at his most accessible, with deeply groovy and intriguing samples that wiggle their way into your head relentlessly. The early album cut “Potholderz,” meanwhile, is one of the most impeccably produced rap songs I’ve ever heard, comprised in equal parts of turntabling, an earworm-y bass line, and hard verses from Doom and Count Bass D. This album is painstakingly catchy, sometimes standing at odds with the monotone - and sometimes intentionally tone deaf - cadence that Doom raps.

            This being an MF Doom album, there are countless references to supervillians, comic books, and radical politics. These are the sides that populate the album, and to many listeners, they might come as a take-em-or-leave-em characteristic. These fit into a larger tendency across Doom’s discography, which is filled to the brim with mythos and world-building, sometimes to the detriment of the album; here, though, you can’t help but laugh at the exasperated screams of civilians shouting their need for food. MF Doom, the character, is a villain; he’s hoarding all the food, only serving the civilians when he sees fit. To me, though, this man is a hero, a genuine innovator in the world of hip-hop. If I could award him a James Beard award, I would; I think he’d hate that, though.

-         Harry Todd

I'd Love to Turn You On #180 - Nas – Illmatic

Over the years as I have worked on and off at independent record stores, I’ve tried my best to learn more about music from my co-workers. In 2004, my assistant manager, Eric, doubled as the store’s hip-hop guru in addition to working as a producer on the side. After working together for a few months, I began a conversation with him about getting back into hip-hop after falling out of touch for a while. Eric’s guidance was key in helping me navigate the work of OutKast, Common, Aesop Rock, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, and Immortal Technique, just to name a few. After we had been talking about hip-hop for a while, I asked him if there were any other albums I should check out and he stated that Illmatic by Nas was his favorite hip-hop album of all time.

Since its release in 1994, Illmatic has won a fair amount of praise and credit, but somehow it just doesn’t seem like enough. A lot of other hip-hop albums from the mid-nineties tend to top lists for the decade’s best music, but none of those albums possess the integrity, cohesion, and flawless appeal of Illmatic. Following Eric’s recommendation, I picked up a copy of the album’s tenth anniversary edition and began exploring Nas’ astonishing, yet nuanced debut. “The Genesis” sets the stage for Nas’ storytelling on Illmatic by melding a clip of dialogue from the 1983 movie Wild Style with a conversation among Nas and his peers about life, music, and credibility. Aside from this slice of life introduction, the album flows seamlessly for forty minutes without any interruptions common to hip-hop albums of the era like skits and gags. Over the nine remaining tracks, Nas teams up with a group of producers including DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, and Q-Tip to deliver a singular approach to hip-hop that has aged far more gracefully than much of what was on the radio in 1994. The second track, “N.Y. State of Mind,” begins the album in earnest with a nearly breathless account of the world Nas sees around him. Nas pulls this point of view narrative into sharp focus with the kind of unforgettable wordplay that sets him apart from his peers. The line “I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin,” blends imagery with psychology in a way that feels so intuitive, yet profoundly unique. Later on in the song, Nas establishes the theme of survival against all odds with the lyrics “I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death” and “Life is parallel to hell, but I must maintain and be prosperous.” Illmatic ends on an incredibly high note with “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” as Large Professor deconstructs Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and assembles new musical and rhythmic potential out of samples of various elements of the original song. Against this backdrop, Nas’ voice resonates with the confidence and knowledge that he’s delivering the valedictory statement of his masterpiece.

Through the course of ten more albums over the last twenty plus years, Nas hasn’t been able to top Illmatic, but that doesn’t diminish the power of his debut or the quality of his career. Nas has persevered on the course he set with Illmatic and, in doing so, has carved out a distinctive niche for himself in hip-hop. Perhaps Illmatic’s greatest strength draws from how well it has aged. A surprising number of highly rated hip-hop albums of this era now sound clumsy, ugly, and outdated. Illmatic has been compared many times to another debut from a gifted East Coast rapper from the same year, The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die. Both men were in their early twenties when they released these albums, which cover nearly identical subject material and even share notable visual elements on their albums covers. I’ve listened to both albums repeatedly in the last several years, but just as I grow tired of the nihilism, brutality, and fatalism of Ready to Die, I find myself pulling closer to the resilience, humor, and imagination of Illmatic.

-         John Parsell

What Are You Listening to Lately (part 6)?

Sorry I've slacked folks. Holidays, film festival, and other stuff (including laziness) conspired to keep me down. I promise I'll get back on track. I swear it.

Franco – African Classics
First disc is a chronological mess, while the second runs more or less in order (with a couple jumps). But the music makes it across the board, and it’s nice for me to pick up my third Franco “Best of” collection with minimal overlap with the other two. And what’s that? Liner notes that not only tell you a little about each piece, but tell you which CD the track is on, should you choose to follow through on some favorites? The amateur ethnomusicologist/collector nerd in me is in heaven! Only drawback for me is that not every track is as killer as on competing best ofs – the great-but-out-of-print The Very Best of Franco or the equally great and still in print The Rough Guide to Franco (or the brand-new Francophonic, just released last week to right the wrong Stern's made when they took Very Best of out of print). But for two in-print, domestically available discs studded with greatness and always delivering joy at a single disc price, it seems foolish if not downright stupid of me to even mention that it’s less consistent. It’s pretty great throughout, and if my taste favors the dancy, guitar-heavy 70’s and 80’s material while this even-handedly represents the rumba-leaning 50’s and 60’s, that’s my problem. Get it if you have the slightest inkling that you’d enjoy it.

Run DMC – Raising Hell
More consistent than the debut, though nothing here is as startlingly brilliant as “Rock Box” or “Sucker MC’s.” Even so, it’s brimming with a confidence and verve their sophomore effort lacks and from first beat to last they rarely step wrong. As a crossover move, “Walk This Way” was (and still is) a stroke of genius – or at least it was a stroke to get Tyler and Perry on board for the ride. The song slays – great original turned into great cover, and Tyler sounds as comfortable in this setting as the guys from Hollis (a great shot in the arm for his commercial potential of the day, too). What used to be the A-side is a great sequence – perfect opener in “Peter Piper” to the back-to-back anthems of "It’s Tricky” and “My Adidas” to the aforementioned “Walk This Way” to a slight cooldown with the short, funky hit of “Is It Live” and the totally live-in-the-studio feel of “Perfection.” The former B kicks almost as hard, dipping in quality only on “Dumb Girl” (it’s still funky tho) and letting up the intensity only for the jokey humor of “You Be Illin’,” but making up for any flaws with one of the best and most out-there pieces of music they ever essayed – “Proud to Be Black.” In a way, that song is the statement of purpose of both album and career for these guys, summing up in a few succinct phrases and wild scratches what the braggadocio of not even just their own career, but all of this era of rap had as its unspoken subtext – unspoken until now, of course. Shoulda been a single, though songs with “motherfucker” in them don’t get on the radio often. And the singles here signified plenty on their own. Backed by the deeper album cuts, it makes for a damn near flawless listening experience and what may in the long run prove to be their finest album.

Stereolab – Mars Audiac Quintet
My second most favorite by Stereolab though I’d point out that I’m not really to be trusted since A) I pretty much stopped picking up new albums by them somewhere around the turn of the millennium and B) I think that all their albums except the divine Emperor Tomato Ketchup are of more or less equal quality (high). But some – this one, for example – are slightly more equal and find their way into my listening more regularly than others. This fact is helped along by little strokes like the terrific lyrics of “Wow and Flutter,” the Krautrock influence that puts a fine, artsy, electro-acoustic sheen on things, and the brilliance of “Des Etoiles Electroniques,” a little slice of heaven which just floats above and beyond the rest of the record. A shame it comes in so early – would’ve made a nice linchpin in the middle of the record. But it’s pretty great throughout – more rock-heavy than later albums would prove to be, yet infused with the breathy melodiousness that makes it seem lighter than air, a fact punctured by the seriousness of the lyrics: usually political, always leftist, often in French. It’s one of the best spoonfuls of sugar they’ve created to make their socialist medicine go down.