Disponibile dal 27/3/2020 With the original UK 7” of this release now as rare as hen’s teeth, and with the group having recently ‘reformed’ for one last album together, the Mr Bongo replica re-release of this 1990 masterpiece by Gang Starr couldn’t be more timely. The now-legendary duo of DJ Premier and Guru dropped this at the height of hip-hop’s sampling of jazz, which had led to a creative leap forward for the genre. Yet while others plundered in the dark, this instant classic wore its influences on its sleeve and paid verbal homage to the musicians they were sampling. The “melodious funk” of “Thelonious Monk” gets namechecked, while the track samples two of his records, including 1958’s Bop gem ‘Light Blue’. While both versions presented here have common elements, the ‘Movie Mix’ – so-named for the song’s appearance on the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s mythic jazz biopic ‘Mo’ Better Blues’ – goes in a few different directions to the ‘Video Mix’. Rather than just drop in an instrumental for the B-side, DJ Premier instead shows his versatility by switching up the base track (Kool & The Gang’s 1971 ‘Dujii’) and layering in other samples. In more ways than one, his virtuosity here echoes the improvisation of a jazz musician, akin to Denzel Washington’s Bleak in the movie. Of course, he’s not the only show in town. The late Guru’s voice is as mellifluous as an instrument itself here, his potted history of the genre and the artists of jazz delivered with his own unmistakable cadence. Without this record, would he have gone on to make his ‘Jazzmatazz’ projects

DESCRIPTION “When we decided to do an album, we didn’t want to do just a beats and rhyme album, but something more conceptual. The times we’re living in gave me the idea of tackling the idea of what’s a sinner and what’s a saint.”—Rasheed Chappell on his new album with producer Buckwild, Sinners & Saints. On their ambitious collaboration, New York rap heavyweights Rasheed Chappell & Buckwild have perfectly captured the stress and tension, but also a faint sense of the hope, of what it means to be a sinner or a saint. In just 11 tracks, Sinners & Saints plays like an audio documentary series filled with expertly crafted beats and rhymes. When the two sat down to work together, Rasheed says that they only knew that they “wanted to address the now, the past, and the potential future.” And upon receiving the first batch of beats from Buck—the D.I.T.C. producer with decades of acclaimed work to his name—the NY emcee used a majority of them and knew immediately what they were doing. “My goal was simple: don’t try to recreate anything they have done, just create something that no one else can do, which is to be me,” Rasheed says. Buck echoed that sentiment when he talked about the record in a documentary, in which he expressed his excitement to work with not just a talented rapper, but a skilled artist. “Being an artist is just as important as putting two words together to rhyme,” Buck explained. That high level of artistry, from everyone involved, is what makes Sinners & Saints so impactful. Not just anyone could pull off a track as stirring as “The Blue Hood,” in which Rasheed plays the role of a racist, corrupt police officer over Buck’s harrowing production. The same goes for “Rock Bottom” where he and Ransom sound off about life’s low points, and “Bredren,” a speaker-knocking middle-finger in musical form featuring Planet Asia. There’s just so much to love about what these two have created with Sinners & Saints, a project that sounds like if 2020 was a hip-hop album. And if things do truly get better as we move into 2021, there’s no better anthem than “Black Owned,” a powerful anthem for Rasheed, Buck, and everyone listening. TRACKLIST 1. Tour Bus feat. 38 Spesh & Chè Noir 2. Sinners & Saints feat. Shannell Griggs 3. Rock Bottom feat. Ransom 4. Mass Media 5. Crime & Punishment feat. Yolanda Sargeant & Oran Juice Jones II 6. Bredren feat. Planet Asia 7. Dyckman feat. The Musalini & Durgaveli 8. Post Game (Skit) 9. The Blue Hood 10. C.E.O. Sug feat. SugaHill 11. Black Owned

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