39: Jehst - Falling Down

I'm marathoning Mad Men at the moment, trying to catch up before we start to watch the new season and so my commute process has switched from listening to podcasts to watching TV. Thus I haven't given Jehst as much time as I perhaps should have but I think I've got the measure of it.

So I like it, but I seem to remember this being something of a big deal, and I don't think it's that. But it is good. So some records I like the rapping, and some I like because of the production. This one I love solely because of the production, I'm not in love with his rapping - a bit too on the abstract side for me but the production is fantastic. All thick bass and fender rhodes and good quality scratching. I don't get much else from this to be honest - the rapping's not terrible and, to be fair, it does play off the production pretty well.

Monotony is the stand out for me - I think it's cutting up the windy noises at the start of In Den Garten Pharaos, and is stunning. I love that smarts, where you take something out of place and make a rap record out of it. China Shop Taurus is the big track on here, and is indicative of the record as a whole - and again the production is super sharp. A good record overall with some great moments.

Anyway - here's the terrible video for Monotony:

Entries 50-40

I thought I'd sum up each step of 10, since I'm not a fifth of the way through. So far the standard has been really high but one record has really stood out - so if you buy one of these, make sure it's this one:

Braintax

Unsurprising, this is a regular one on my commute and it's a winner through and through. And like all great hip hop records it never puts a foor wrong. And here's a documentary about Manchester Hip Hop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eGXR3tgEuAM

40: Yungun & Mr Thing - Grown Man Business

Didn't like the look of this one - the cover screams "Ernest" and the title is a little embarrasing. First listen held this out - all bad rapping and so so production. But I kept going and over time it wore me down.

The list is starting to get interesting - as the wavering 40s disappear - we're coming into what I hope to be serious territory. On the face of it this shouldn't work, for the reasons stated above. And it starts badly G.M.B. (Just Like That) tries to give you a left hook, but it's weak and flops when it should punch. The thing that this record gets away with, where others don't is that they can do cheesy rap stuff really well. Peter Pan Syndrome should be terrible, but there's some real charm there and it works. Then it's straight into one my favourites - Forget Me Not, which is really sweet, soul harmony production and some lovely intentions. It chugs along being good and into the stand out track: One Step Beyond. Heavy soul production, good horns and drums and Yungun raises his game and you start to listen. Good scratching too.

So this album is weird - it's not straight up club bangers, or the tightly produced abstracts I usually go for but it's something else. A mature record made by people with genuine talent. It's a winner.

Here's the video for Forget Me Not:

41: Diversion Tactics - Pubs, Drunks and Hiphop

In 1999 my good friend Tel goaded me into listening to Tim Westwood for the first time. I thought Westwood was a bit of a dick but there was something about Hip Hop that kept me coming back for me. As my interest in the music grew, every month or so Tim had Prime Cuts on the show and he would do an hour of 'undergound' type hip hop records. I would listen to the show, grab as many titles as I could and then every now and then search record shops for the records I had heard on the show. One of those records was a 12" by Diversion Tactics called School Report.

Thus this is the first record on the list that I own and I always held it in fairly high esteem. I haven't listened to it in a while so I was little nervous about listening to this again - would it hold up in the context of the list. And I had a little bump at the start of the week as it took me a few listens to really get my head round the record. And it is a winner but not in the conventional sense. My records are still in storage (but not for much longer...) so I can't tell you why there are four people in the group but five on the cover. But essentially two MCs and two DJs and probably one hanger on.

And it's a great great record - sticks to pretty much the same furrow but ploughs it really well. The title track sets everything off, the classic Brit Rap staple of talking about different ways of getting drunk. The production is spot on and the embellishments that support it are great - fairly low tempo throughout, but there's a real quality to the production and drums. The rapping is solid and they even push a bit of humour.

The real standout for me is a track which featured on the first 12" - Scout Report. Minimal production and solid rhyming. And there's great turns of phrases. From Buy British: "The only time I'm in a trance,  is when I fuckers who can still breakdance, unfortunately I have the physic to play darts". The Chubby Alcoholic has one of those styles which is utterly accomplished without really showing off.

You ain't feeling UK hip hop if your best mate ain't an MC, is a fantastic line and captures the mood of the record - they know they're great but they don't have to go on and on about it. If I were to complain I would say this could be a much stronger single album but it doesn't feel too stretched. I still prefer the 12", although there are other singles they've done which are solid and better than that...

I couldn't find a live video of them but here's an awkward interview with them. Seemingly they're embarrassed to be interviewed by someone who looks like one of them...

42: Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me

So here we go - The guardian's favourite British MC (maybe?). I've heard a few RM tracks on other places but never a full album. Being a terrible music snob if you'd asked me before this I would said that he was pretty bad - The sort of hip hop that someone that doesn't like hip hop listens to etc etc. I thought this could go two ways: 1. It would be as terrible as I pre-conceived it to be and I would smugly report how bad it was. 2. It would be great and I would eat my words. Unfortunately neither seemed to be true, and it ended up being good but nothing exceptional.

The key problem for me was both that a) RM has a rapping style which is pretty tedious. Not terrible, but nothing special and worse b) the production on this is so boring. Clearly I am biased to a certain style of production - snares, drums and samples and the like. I think that if you're going to stray from this style then you either need to be a really good MC (Doom gets away with it for example), or the production needs to be really good.

Witness (1 Hope), shows how this could work - the production is tight and merges with his rapping really well and gets your head nodding. Ital Visions, though, doesn't work - the production is washy and RM just talks over it - compare this with the track he did on the Skitz record which had a similar rapping style but way better production and it just comes away broken.

Two tracks that feature guests (Charli 2na and Rodney P to be specific), for me show up RM as an average rapper, Charli hitting the production like a pro and Rodney P as usual blowing everything out of the water without even thinking about it.

RM then commits a cardinal rap sin: the "courting track". There are a few places that rappers go which is very dangerous ground. Trying to do comedy rap is incredibly difficult and rarely comes off. Ditto for tracks describing the deed. The production is kind of weird and the lyrics creepy, and that chorus is utter shit. "Take a little peek under that frock tonight" sounds like some kind of weird stalker. But anyway this is not terrible and listening to it out of the context of the project I may have liked it more - but there's nothing here that hasn't gone before (and done a little better), means that this one just washed over me. Still not as good as Braintax.

Having been a bit blah'd by the album - this video's pretty good:

43: Stereo MCs - 33-45-78

Hmmm. Everyone in the UK knows the Stereo MCs due to Connected, a track which appears on the album which followed the album that followed this. It's one of those tunes that has been played so much that it has transitioned into background noise. Also adverts. But this is their debut album, maybe they had some magic and then lost it over time (cf The Black Eyed Peas).

But then again, maybe not. This is not a terrible album, and I say that going in with the feeling that it was a terrible album. If you imagine the song connected - take the lyrical content and rapping and put some vaguely old school beats under it then you've pretty much got the measure of the record. The rapping is everything but heavyweight (Though, I listened this in the context of the Braintax record which is fast becoming one of my favourite records of all time). The production is fairly solid but nothing amazing. It's good.

Unlike trad rap though, there's lots of uptempo stuff and it's pretty happy go lucky. Toe To Toe is faster than most US rap, and then chorus of "STAND ON MY TOES!" is pretty uplifting. The lyrics are okay: "Try to track me, Try to crack me, I last longer than a Duracell Battery". Wikipedia tells me that the Jungle Brothers appeared on their second album - and that's a fair comparison, lightweight but solid.

All the samples are UB&B type affairs - a bit of Nautilus, a bit of War, a bit of the Average White Band. But it's all well done. So not as bad as I feared but not the best record I've ever heard either. The US seems to have been saved from the Stereo MCs as I bought this on UK iTunes. I find it utterly depressing that there is a difference in availability between US and UK digital music stores but there we go - that's my white whine. Roots Manuva up next...