Over the past 30+ years Hip Hop’s main form of audible expression, rap, has seen various levels of commercial success. Since The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” single, rap music has grown from a street corner art form (though there were some rap records that were made prior to “Rapper’s Delight,” this particular single pushed the music into the foreground) to the current multi-billion dollar pimping of a cultural phenomenon. However this post is not a history lesson on rap music, but rather a promotional post for one of the newer tactics to merge popular culture and rap music. Truthfully, Fresh Out Media is not the site to find out popular culture; but real Hip-Hop music is real music, and that is what Fresh Out is about. With that said, prepared to be presented with, or represented with, DangerDOOM. For those unfamiliar with DD and the concept behind their music here is a synopsis (less of a historical account and more of a truthful inference).
The Cartoon Network has a set time of programming for its mature audience called Adult Swim. Before and after commercial breaks there is a short message that pops up on the screen, usually something funny. In the background, there is usually music playing. To the average music head, its just music, but the hip-hop head it was and is a historical breakthrough for Hip Hop. There would be music from Yesterday’s New Quintet, Madlib (as himself), Jay Dee (R.I.P.), as well as other respectable hip hop artists play on national television, that would never be played on the radio (except for college stations, big ups) or on “music” stations such as BET and MTV. It would only be a matter of time before the hip hop community made a response to this form of recognition; and the response was DangerDOOM. DangerDOOM is a producer/emcee duo consisting of superproducer Danger Mouse and all-round music man MF DOOM (remember “all caps when you spell the man’s name”).
Danger Mouse is also a part of two other duos: Danger Mouse and Jemini, and Gnarls Barkley. He been making music for some time but did not get “proper” recognition until he release is version of the Jay-Z’s Black Album entitled The Grey Album, in which DM sampled exclusively from The Beatles’ White Album to create the instrumentals for the album. DM made a name for himself after he received a “cease and desist” letter for sampling from The Beatles and had to pull his version of the album. The innovation that he showed in his beats and the controversy the followed led to his album being one of the most downloaded, bootlegged, and illegally copped albums in hip hop history. The Metal Faced Villain has been holding down the rap side of Hip Hop for years, starting off as Zev Luv X of KMD. After his brother tragically died, Zev went away, not to be seen or heard for years. When he came back to the rap scene, he returned as the masked rapper MF DOOM. His first release as DOOM was Operation Doomsday, a now rare and classic hip hop record. As time moved on, Doom released several other projects as DOOM, as well as under other aliases such as Metal Fingers, King Geedorah, and Viktor Vaughn. More of a solo emcee and producer, DOOM is a part of other duos other than DangerDOOM, that being Madvillain, John Robinson (supposedly), and recently he has coupled up with Ghostface. Presently, DOOM is one of the most in demand emcees and dopest producers in the game.
In 2005, DangerDOOM released the critically acclaimed The Mouse and The Mask album, which is a conceptually rap album whose theme is centered around the programming on Adult Swim. The album is fire. Less than a year later DangerDOOM has more food for their hungry fans; hence the reason for this post. Apparently there were some tracks that did not make it on The Mouse and The Mask album, one can assume that DOOM and The Mouse have been doing more joints since the album dropped. So on Adult Swim’s website, they are offering free downloads of the group’s new album. There really is no title, as one-track-per-week downloads have been available for a number of weeks. Recently, a 7-track EP (with the title Occult Hymn) had been put up for downloading (for how long, is unknown). The EP contains three remixes of tracks that were on the first album, two new jams and two hilarious skits.
The remixes are to “Sofa King”, “El Chupa Nibre”, and “Space Ho’s”. “Sofa King” is not as hype as the original but it is a cool little joint. This is the only joint that DOOM does not write a new verse for, but at least he respits the verse and it does not sound like a blend. “El Chupa Nibre” has a fresh new beat from Danger, as well as a dope new verse full of the off the wall lyricism of The Supervillain. What is interesting about this remix is though the words are different, that way that DOOM spits and the new word choice is parallel to the original. For example, the first few lines almost sound like the original and has a similar concept behind it. “Space Ho’s” is a nice change of pace as Madlib makes an appearance behind the boards on some MadDangerDOOM tip. The verse holds the similar parallels as “El Chupa Nibre”, as Madlib hits DOOM off with this nice The Price Is Right-show-me-the-prize sounding instrumental, make you want to place a bid on the song and drink some lemonade.
The new jams are called “Korn Dogz” and “Perfect Hair II”. “Korn Dogz” has DOOM spitting his animated lyrics over a string filled instrumental produced by Danger Mouse. The food title will make DOOM fans reminisce over his MM.. FOOD? album, where each song had a food theme. “Perfect Hair II” is a continuation song to “Perfect Hair” which is on The Mouse and The Mask album. After listening to the songs on this EP and the full length, one is able to hear the consistency with Danger Mouse’s cool, calm, not too complex instrumentals, and DOOM’s unique rhyming style that is packed with everything that one would ever need to know in order to write a rap or a poem (from rhyming using only consonance to metaphors, to alliteration). The main idea here is consistency and being consistently excellent.
The real gems of this EP, as well as in the full length, are the skits. The skit pieces before and after the songs add an extra layer of humor to the songs, just in case listeners do not catch DOOM’s witty lines. But “Skit 1” featuring Master Shake and “Skit 2” featuring White Shadow are crazy funny. “Skit 1” acts as an intro to the EP as Master Shake rambles on as DangerDOOM’s hype man, dissing Meatwad, calling out to the ladies, using rap clichés and other funny foolishness over a simple, yet sick Danger Mouse beat that begs to be rhymed over, that real boom bap. “Skit 2” takes the Master Shake skits from the first album, where Shake is trying to call DangerDOOM, to the next level with White Shadow. Basically, the skit makes Shadow look like an obsessed fan of the duo, pleading to have them join him on his conquest for evil. Its funniness is solidified by Shadow not knowing how to use the phone, leaving messages too long for DangerDOOM’s answering machine, and eventually giving up after giving a long funny speech and message when he can’t reach the two. On dawgs, these skits are on point and hilarious.
Even if one has never heard The Mouse and The Mask, the EP is still dope and a must have. What’s real nice is that the EP is not in stores (and may never be), but it is up for downloading for FREE. This is a must cop, on the strength than record stores think selling a mediocre 10-track album for $17 is ok. So go to adultswim.com, download the EP and the other DangerDOOM track they have to offer, check out Adult Swim for a little while so you are not too lost when listening, and enjoy. Oh yeah, cop The Mouse and The Mask, anything with Danger Mouse, MF DOOM, and peep the Adult Swim/Stones Throw album.
Loading ...
June 5th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
nice review trans. get at me sometime-email is attached.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:35 am
as always detailed… in depth… and very worth reading