Happy belated new year to you all. January is already busy for me, with changes in my personal situation taking up nearly all of my energy, so this edition will be shorter than usual. However, I didn’t want to let another Sunday pass without updating you on what I’ve been doing in the cutting room. (Apologies for skipping the December 31 missive.)
The 150 Greatest Science Fiction Movies of All Time
On January 1, Rolling Stone published its ranking of the best sci-fi movies ever made. For a publication that generates a lot of lists, this one particularly stands out with unusual picks that I’ve never heard of before, much less seen. I contributed 10 blurbs.
The 100 Greatest R&B Songs of the 21st Century
On January 3, RS published its list of the best R&B songs of the past twenty-odd years. I wrote 12 blurbs.
More New Work
In The Wire’s January/February 2024 issue, I reviewed Beans’ forthcoming album, ZWAARD. (I mentioned the year-end material I wrote for that issue in the December 17, 2023 newsletter.) The album drops on February 16.
I also managed to get in a Notable Albums post for Humthrush on December 31, just before 2023 ended. It includes some thoughts on the controversy surrounding Noname and Jay Electronica’s “Balloons.”
A final note: I don’t want to highlight Noname’s Sundial without acknowledging the debate around her track “Balloons” and Jay Electronica’s guest verse, where he toys with ideas that can be classified as antisemitic.
Tension between Black, Muslim, and Jewish communities have persisted in hip-hop culture since the late 80s and the rise of politically informed rap. These fault lines have resulted in too many incidents to chronicle here, including anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism. One can certainly question whether Noname’s decision to include the Jay Electronica verse is justifiable. She has said that she refutes all forms of bigotry but also wants to reflect the kind of philosophical diversity that exists in the Black community. However, one wonders if she could have rebutted or countered his musings within the track to make her personal position clearer. (One famous example, though maybe not the best, of an MC pushing back on another’s verse is LL Cool J vs. Canibus on “4, 3, 2, 1.”) Of course, the ongoing global crisis surrounding Israel’s war with Hamas and invasion of Gaza makes this discussion more fraught.
Rap artists delight in exposing fractures between people of different genders, races, and cultures. Mainstream audiences have both rejoiced at their honesty and recoiled at the bigoted ways in which they can express themselves. It seems that in 2023, music fans that aren’t fully committed to the genre are wondering if they should continue to empathize with Black musicians whose sensibilities and ethics are so different from their own. Noname’s Sundial is a strong and at times revelatory piece of work. Sonically, it’s no Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, to reference an earlier masterpiece that was also accused of abusing antisemitic tropes. So why bother to understand where Noname is coming from?
Hip-hop in 2023 may be overburdened by history. But it’s important to get lost in the moment and remember to, as the kids used to say, “take no shorts.” Set aside comparisons. How does today’s music make us feel now?
2023 Loosies
Every year brings both new music and discoveries of older things I haven’t heard before. Here are 10 entries from the latter category.
While working on a playlisting project for Third Bridge Creative, I stumbled across this cut from DJ Kay Slay’s 2004 album The Streetsweeper, Vol. 2: The Pain from the Game. LL Cool J’s “The Truth” is a remarkably personal track for a rapper known for either crushing rival MCs “like a jellybean” or making audio sex on slow jams like “Hey Luv” and “I Need Love.” LL raps about growing older and takes pride in how he never misrepresented himself as a street thug. He also talks about being a positive role model for the Black community, a message that will surprise those of us who remember how he was criticized during rap’s Black nationalism era. This might be the best LL Cool J song most people haven’t heard.
Here’s another discovery from my adventures in playlisting: Willie Hutch’s “Never Let You Be Without Love.” It’s a deep cut from 1979’s Midnight Dancer and exemplifies the kind of deep, languid pillow ballads that flourished during the disco era.
The Bar-Kays “Girl I’m on Your Side” is an exuberant disco-funk cut from their 1979 album Injoy. It really pops off the headphones. I can only imagine what it would have been like to hear this drop at a summer barbecue back in the day.
I spent many weekends driving around the Bay Area, listening to U.C. Berkeley’s KALX 90.7 FM. One track that jumped out at me was Shizuka’s “Bloodstained Flower.” Shizuka was a Japanese psychedelic noise band who operated from the 1990s until lead vocalist Shizuka Miura’s death in 2010. Their catalog was largely available on import in the U.S. — shout out to Windy Chien and the much-missed Aquarius Records.
When I was a teenager, I never much cared for The Sisters of Mercy. But their odd mix of rockabilly, post-punk, Goth, and gospel overtures has resonated with me this year. “Temple of Love (1992)” is noisy and entrancing, the latter quality imbued by guest vocalist Ofra Haza of “Im Nin'Alu” fame. For rap heads, that song was famously sampled by Coldcut for Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full (Seven Minutes Of Madness - The Cold Cut Re-Mix).”
While building my Best Rap Singles of 1983 list for Humthrush, I learned how much the genre was aligned with dance-pop at the time. A key example is Whodini’s “Nasty Lady.” Incredibly, it’s produced by German engineer Conny Plank, who worked with Kraftwerk, Neu! and many other krautrock acts. “Nasty Lady” a glossy, uptempo New Wave funk sound.
In 2017, Capitol Records released a two-disc set of Minnie Riperton’s 1974 classic Perfect Angel. The second disc, A More Perfect Angel, includes several alternate takes, including a version of “Take a Little Trip” where Riperton duets with album producer Stevie “El Toro Negro” Wonder. It’s not a great demo — Wonder audibly chuckles at one point — but it’s fascinating to hear the two sing together.
Thanks to KALX, I found The Belles’ “Melvin.” Made in 1966 by an all-female garage-rock group, it’s a near-perfect parody of Them’s “Gloria.” The Numero Group reissued the 7-inch single last year.
Here’s a find from my search for the Best Rap Singles of 1993: Class A Felony’s “I’m Not the Herb You’re Lookin’ For.” The Long Island group consisted of Lord Dumar and DJ Stitches; Dumar was murdered in 1991, resulting in a two-year delay before their self-titled album’s release on Mercury Records. True, “I’m Not the Herb” has a funky groove typical of 1991, a transitional period between New Jack Swing and hardcore boom-bap. You can read more about the Class A Felony saga on Unkut.com.
I’m not sure if I’ve heard Killing Joke’s “Love Like Blood” before. Its iconic post-punk sound feels like something pulled from memory, even if it may have never existed before. Regardless, after hearing it in a store last month, I replayed the song over the next several days.
More soon. Best of luck in 2024.
If there’s one regret I have about the 1980s, it’s sleeping on Killing Joke.
Thanks! Yes, I voted in the ones mentioned before — The Wire, RS, etc.