Shufflings #2

Prefuse 73 - Another One Long Gone - Security Screenings (WARP 2006)


Quasimoto - Strange Piano - The Further Adventures of Lord Quas (Stones Throw 2005)


A Tribe Called Quest - Sucka Nigga - Midnight Marauders (Jive 1993)


Oh my love of Party Shuffle is unmatched… except maybe my love for Scarlett Johansson. I should be writing more theme-based articles, but who doesn’t love quality random music? If you don’t, then you should seriously take a minute to reevaluate your life, and realize the pure joy that can be found in random occurrences. Like last Wednesday for example: after a enjoyable night of many-multiple $1 budlights, watching merrily as the Bobcats drafted ‘The Great Mustachio’ aka Adam Morrison and being pushed off the dancefloor by a ladyfriend who apparently wasn’t enjoying my pure caucasian dance moves, I was walking down the street to my apartment and notice a small, styrofoam container I had not noticed before. When I opened the mystery box, I was overjoyed to see a steaming hot piece of pizza! How it got into my hands is beyond me, but was the greatest surprise ever. Godbless randomness. So, without further a due, here are the first 3 songs on my current party shuffle. (also I just got the coolest shoes ever)

Prefuse 73 – Another One Long Gone – Security Screenings (WARP 2006)
I have made no secret of my unequaled love for Guillermo Scott Herren, and I probably owe any interest I have in electronic music to him. I also love his penchant for creating theme-based albums, whether it be the hip-hip and uprock homage on 2001’s Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives (WARP), the guest artist theme of 2005’s Surrounded by Silence (WARP) or the remixes of found-sounders The Books on 2005’s EP, Prefuse 73 Reads The Books (WARP). This year’s ‘Security Screenings’ finds Prefuse reflecting back to his earlier days as well as his work as Savath & Savalas, concentrating more on laid back, finely slice instrumentals that would be labeled electronica but owe just as much to hip-hop and jazz. This is the sound that truly defines the Prefuse 73 moniker, though, unlike most people, I am all about experimentation and pushing definitions to the limits. This particular song features some of the key components to the Prefuse sound, a steady hand-clap layered snare, awkwardly timed vocal samples (of what sounds like Sam Prekop), and skittering, unidentifiable sounds that give the song texture and infinite replay value.

Quasimoto – Strange Piano – The Further Adventures of Lord Quas (Stones Throw 2005)
Madlib’s brick-throwing, smack-talking alter ego, Quasimoto, was really a musical phenomenon of sorts, garnishing warranted but unforeseen praise for it’s strange but infectious helium sucking emcee and hazy jazz soundscapes. 2005’s ‘The Further Adventures of…’ is the follow up to the much acclaimed ‘The Unseen’ (Stones Throw 2000), and was just as gleefully accepted. One part Prince Paul, one part Pete Rock, the album combined amazingly sampled soul, jazz and funk along with 50+ audio clips from movies, educational clips and other skits with playful raps that range from weed to record breaks to inner city struggles. The album continues to prove why Madlib is the most creative man in hip-hop and maybe all of music along with the undeniable master of the sampler. This song begins with a NASA countdown, before Madlib/Lord Quas duet accented by obviously an interestingly timed piano loop.

A Tribe Called Quest – Sucka Nigga – Midnight Marauders (Jive 1993)
The story of Q-Tip, Phife and DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad is well documented at this point, and their place on top of the alternative rap hierarchy will never be displaced. Building on the base built by De La Soul, Tribe went the less comical direction, sampling jazz into laid-back grooves and spit about socially conscious issues making the most essential hip-hop created by the early 90s (and possibly today). By that time, Gangsta rap was budding as well and Tribe led the latter side of the underground division between the more shock-oriented Gangsta rap and the more intelligent alternative rap. 1993’s ‘Midnight Marauders’ was the solid follow-up to the pinnacle, impossible to outdo, ‘The Low End Thoery’ (Jive 1991). This track could be very well the most potent and poignant of any Tribe song, and really defines them to a tee. Tip confronts the use of the N-word that was quickly becoming an endearing slang for Black youth everywhere. He skillfully explains the paradox behind using the word and explaining that its new use is ‘as a term of endearment,’ but he still flinches as ‘he’s about to spray it,’ know the history behind it.