New Music: Phat Kat, Telegram!

Phat Kat - Vessels (feat. Truth Hurts) (Look 2007)

Phat Kat - Carte Blanche / Look

J Dilla's death in February of 2006 was, strangely enough, the genesis of a kind of resurgence in Detroit hip-hop. Donuts came at a time when most people only knew Detroit for D12 or "8 Mile" or whatever; I know that I hadn't taken much interest in the community up there until well after Donuts, but the reason I did was because of Dilla. In the months since, he's been memorialized almost to the point of sickness; whereas once he had been the beatman behind Common, now his name and likeness are frequently plastered all over liner notes and websites declaring what an influence he was on these people. It makes me ill at times, like his remaining unrealized potential is some sort of excuse to exploit an artist's own inherent weaknesses. "But he gives a shout-out to Jay Dee, he can't be that bad."

Well, maybe it's time to let sleeping dogs lie. Poor James probably just wants to RIP and I can't say I blame him... But if anyone has an excuse to throw up the name for another drop, it's Ronnie Watts aka Phat Kat. Kat has all the listings on his resume for his latest release, Carte Blanche. Origins: Both he and Dilla were in the group 1st Down in 1995 and, with a sole 12" to their name (A Day Wit' the Homiez just six songs long), disbanded after label trouble. Though it was ultimately unsuccessful, 1st Down was the beginning of a fruitful relationship between Dilla and Kat. They hooked up again during Kat's time in Slum Village and again on Jay Dee's Motor City-centric Welcome 2 Detroit.

In the months leading up to his death, Jay managed to bang out a number of songs for Phat Kat during a tour in the summer of '05. Though the album isn't flooded with Dilla's production, five of the 14 songs on Carte Blanche (and three of the first four) showcase his talent on the boards. The rest of the album flows just as well even though three other producers (Young RJ, Black Milk and Nick Speed) keep Kat honest on the mic with their resilient beats. One of the reasons it works so well together is because virtually everything involved in Carte Blanche is Detroit-based. All the producers and all the guest MCs excepting one: Truth Hurts is out of St. Louis. The only other exception, ironically, is Kat's label Look out of San Francisco... But they all seem to get it. Everyone involved in Carte Blanche, thankfully, seems to get it.

Kat's lyrics are as husky as the frame of the man that spits them, which actually works for him on this album. He's pure East Side on "True Story, Pt. 2" but he never plays the fool or slacks on his words. Equally intriguing are the guest appearances, and "Vessels" is the most fascinating of these with its stuttering synth line courtesy Nick Speed and Truth Hurts belting out a soulful backing track as Kat flies through each verse as fresh as he's ever sounded. If it's a little too tense for you, "Lovely" featuring Melanie Rutherford slows things down with an airy vibraphone line that has so much space to wrap up in. Couldn't have titled it better, really.

Dilla's production is pretty good too, though I didn't want to throw that in your face. "Nasty Ain't It?" gets the album off to a streetwise start with its dropped bass thuds, scratching and typical brevity at just over two-and-a-half minutes. "Cold Steel" is another highlight, dark and woody and both frighteningly urban and utterly rural all at once thanks to Elzhi's monochromatic reminder of what you're listening to. "Game Time" is the sound of a Japanese summer, sparse koto accopanying crickets and inevitable handclaps. But it's a brilliant beat and it's once again proof of what Dilla could do given the chance to expand.

But ultimately Carte Blanche isn't just about what Phat Kat and J Dilla could do given the chance; it's a giant orange-painted billboard indicating what Detroit as a whole can do given the chance. For what it's worth, this is one of my favorite hip-hop albums of the year so far, if for no other reason than its production is just another reminder of what the possibilities for Motown are: Between Young RJ, Black Milk and Nick Speed, the city is alive. I just hope they don't always fall back on Dilla, because that will feel like we're being cheated; for now, Carte Blanche remains a respectful homage.












Telegram! - Disjointed, Unnerving, and Continuous (I'm Not Going Outside Today) (Self-released, 2007)

Telegram! - "Message for You, Sir" EP / Self-released

It was a toss-up between Apparat and Telegram!. Call me a favoritist, but I went with the guy I knew personally over the German engineering maestro that you'll likely be reading about here next week anyway (as we use tons of excuses to talk up Apparat and all things remotely Bpitch Control-related). So I'll tell you a little story: I just got this EP from a friend of mine, one John Murray, and he's the man behind Telegram!. Murray's a man of beats as he'll readily tell you, and as I know him personally, I think explaining a little bit about his personality will help you better understand not just this particular song but the EP as a whole.

The man gets his bills paid and his business done partly because he always needs stuff to keep him occupied. Music has proven to be a successful way for him to do that, and it shows on Message for You, Sir because, even though there are seven songs on his debut, none of them run over four minutes and you can find everything from the flittering, fluttering helicopter beat that happens to be a personal favorite of mine here on the ungainly titled "Disjointed, Unnerving, and Continuous (I'm Not Going Outside Today)" to a pseudo-Genghis Tron cop on "Joanna Whitmire" to a track akin to subtractiveLAD on "Milestones and a History of Ups and Downs." The focus is that there is none: Anything can happen next, and though it's all vaguely in honor of Fruit Loops and the possibilities thereof, you never know how that's going to be translated.

One thing Murray likes using is samples. I must confess to also being a sucker for a well-placed snippet from an old film or political diatribe, just to spice things up (and perhaps this explains my love for From Monument to Masses, but that's neither here nor there). Though not all songs are based on a sample, frequently it feels like a song is constructed either around or through one. I don't often promote locals but, let's face it, Chicago is like four times the size of Columbia so I don't get as much of a chance to. Even still, there's always bound to be something humming beneath the streets in a college town, and in the case of the University of South Carolina's infamous catacombs, it's electro that lurks beneath the smiling faces and bland jock-rock and easy breezy acoustic strumming of a Saturday night Starbucks solo artist. Message for you, sirs and madams alike: Murray is a fly-by-night kinda guy, so if you're into fetching this for yourself, hit up his MySpace and let him know. Sharing is caring and that's what we're here for: You. Cheers.