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22 December 2023
And the winner of this year’s “Aw, Hell! I Still Can’t Pinpoint Exactly Why I Can’t Stop Listening To This Record” Award is Bobby Digital Presents: Northstar. Yeah, I know. It’s only January. Eleven more months left. Will something better come along? Maybe. But I’m not sure anything I listen to will be more perplexing than this.
Allow me to explain: For starters, the very first track is produced by Armand Van Helden. ARMAND VAN HELDEN! The dude plays house music, which I loathe. Before I played the record, I was real scared. Then I played it. Seriously, he makes some beautiful tracks for Christ Bearer and Meko to rhyme over. The RZA’s tracks? Sheeit,.. did you even have to ask? Has he ever made something you didn’t like? Van Helden and RZA are joined by a handful of other producers, too, who somehow manage to adjust their styles to bring a real cohesiveness to the record.
Then there’s Northstar themselves. It’s like they reached into hip-hop’s history bag, pulled out a few gems, put ‘em in a blender, and drank it to develop rhyme styles: a little Prince Paul-era De La Soul, early Ghetto Boys, Wu-Tang (obviously), and some of that sweet West Coast G-Funk that Dre and Snoop made so famous. They bounce from street tales (“Duckie”) to spirituals (the beautifully produced “Luv Allah”) and the "Sista G’s" (“Crazy”). And it’s all littered with interspersed skits revolving around a wily cat named Calvin Cooler.
So all this stuff comes out of this one record-- all the production, the rhyme styles, the skits. I know I’m listening to a new record, but it feels like it could have been on the radio back when I was a lil’ scrapper, right between “Punks Jump Up To Get The Beat Down” and “C.R.E.A.M.” Should you get it? If you like either of those songs I just mentioned (if you even know what they are), yeah. Get it.
FOR MORE INFO, CHECK IT HERE.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
Allow me to explain: For starters, the very first track is produced by Armand Van Helden. ARMAND VAN HELDEN! The dude plays house music, which I loathe. Before I played the record, I was real scared. Then I played it. Seriously, he makes some beautiful tracks for Christ Bearer and Meko to rhyme over. The RZA’s tracks? Sheeit,.. did you even have to ask? Has he ever made something you didn’t like? Van Helden and RZA are joined by a handful of other producers, too, who somehow manage to adjust their styles to bring a real cohesiveness to the record.
Then there’s Northstar themselves. It’s like they reached into hip-hop’s history bag, pulled out a few gems, put ‘em in a blender, and drank it to develop rhyme styles: a little Prince Paul-era De La Soul, early Ghetto Boys, Wu-Tang (obviously), and some of that sweet West Coast G-Funk that Dre and Snoop made so famous. They bounce from street tales (“Duckie”) to spirituals (the beautifully produced “Luv Allah”) and the "Sista G’s" (“Crazy”). And it’s all littered with interspersed skits revolving around a wily cat named Calvin Cooler.
So all this stuff comes out of this one record-- all the production, the rhyme styles, the skits. I know I’m listening to a new record, but it feels like it could have been on the radio back when I was a lil’ scrapper, right between “Punks Jump Up To Get The Beat Down” and “C.R.E.A.M.” Should you get it? If you like either of those songs I just mentioned (if you even know what they are), yeah. Get it.
FOR MORE INFO, CHECK IT HERE.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
artid
1961
Old Image
6_5_digital.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 05 (jan 2004)
section
entertainmental