44: Blak Twang - Kik Off

I bought this through UK iTunes as it's not available in the US, which I'm finding is not an uncommon experience. Double album, 16 tracks, straight up UK hip hop 90s revival. Proper scratching, tuff production and aggressive rapping in full effect here. It's good.

Blak Twang can certainly rap, London style and I don't think this is his only entry in the list. The problem with the record, if it has one is the number of tracks - while it's really good it sometimes feel like a big mass of music rather than something a little more nuanced. Kik Off is great - a big smack round the face of production and fierce rhyming that chugs along. This was my exiting Oakland BART music de jour this week. The following track is full on Harry Love, all US style production and cuts and stabs. Again good.

A 2005 appearance from Estelle (Est'elle). She's not the only guest and there's an awful track with Lisa I'anson later on - none more mid noughties. The album chugs along at a good pace from there - solid cuts, good rhyming and it's mostly up tempo. There's a bizarre skit track which involves someone shouting that someone looked like a monkey. And from there it fades to an end.

So, overall, this is a hard one and I don't think I really got the measure of it - I've been bunged up (or stuffed up as they say here) all week and I've certainly given this a lot of listens but it's not really impressed itself on me. Most tellingly - I have not picked out any lyrics yet which is a sure sign that a rap record has got under my skin. Now it's the turn of the Stereo MCs of all things - remember them?

Anyway here's the Kik Off video:

45: Braintax - Panorama

So this record upsets the Cookie Crew's long standing run as best so far. I sort of knew this would be good - Braintax had a track on the Word Life compilation which I remember being good, and I almost got Biro Funk at the time but it never seemed that essential.

This is just a fantastic record - All I Need opens and its one of those genuinely uplifting rap songs. The beats are tight and there's a cracking drum sound keeping things moving along. Can We Skit pretty much sets the scene for the rest of the record - Braintax is not a happy man: "I don't care for illegal wars, but then again I don't care for those legal wars". The more political tracks on the record are well balanced and full of bile without being preachy. Braintax has a fantastic way with words, dancing round your head and putting grins on your face. The production is really strong, not typical hip hop beats but minimal, and the drums are great.

Anti Grey, nicks the hook from fade to gray and has one of my favourite lines: "All they know about the culture is beer and tapas, all they know about they about the culture is flamenco maracas and that spanish girls go like the clappers, that's what british is, I want no part of this game"

Last Tenner is the standout track for me - opening with "Fuck it, let's go and get drunk" and that snare's back. And then the line in The Grip Again: "I made it to the city, the false Id, my english is good, I'm BBC".

I think Biro Funk is higher up the list somewhere and I can't wait for it to crop up - this is a seriously good record, I'm going to track down a vinyl copy. Here's a video for Anti Grey:

46: Infinite Livez - Bush Meat

Hmm - what to make of this? Infinite Livez is the voice of Steven Henry, Bethnal Green. Another record I thought I would really hate but actually it's not too bad. It has a little bit going for it - it's not far from a British Version of Del or someone like that.

Infinite Livez is something like, quirky British Humour (They're not called 'crisps', they're called 'crips' innit), with a bit of borderline puerile humour and lots of synth type beats. There's a track called 'Lactating Man' about a man that produces milk. There's also a song called White Wee Wee. Hmm

And this is a problem. I'd been reading http://cheesenbiscuits.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-kitchen-table-at-bubbledogs.html in the past weeks, outlining how something essentially good can be easily altered by something relatively small. And this is my problem with Inifinite Livez. It's a good record, well produced and the rapping is pretty good, very particular style but good with it. But the childish humour is really off putting. So I doubt I'll come back to it.

Comedy rap is incredibly difficult to pull off, and sexual humour especially so. But there's lots of good stuff here: He does an impression of Bowie at the end of the Lactating Man and it's great. There's a vaguely amusing take on the Brit Art which is good. My favourite is of course, Spade Invaders, a tribute to video games. It's not as good as the Nextmen covering the same topic but it's good. There's also a rapper called Ghandi Warhol.

And that classic 90's thing - a 22 minute final track which is 90% silence and then a "hidden track" - it's a bit like a terrible antique.

So that was infinite livez - essentially good, but difficult to take seriously, or even humorously. Here's the obligatory youtube - there were some really terrible ones in there but I think this is pretty good, and largely representative of what to expect: