Metaphors Are Dirty Like Herpes But Harder To Catch

Immortal Technique: Bin Laden ft. Mos Def
from Sirius Bizness Mixtape (2005)

Immortal Technique: Bin Laden (Remix) ft. Chuck D & KRS One
from Bin Laden Single (2005)


Seeing as how the remix for Bin Laden was just leaked I thought now would be a good time to do a post on Immortal Technique. An inflamatory song (but then again, which Immortal Technique song isn't) that uses the Jadakiss sample to drive it, the original version features Mos Def on the chorus and Chuck D and KRS on the remix, but oddly enough none of the three drop any verses which means Immortal Technique has to carry the song which he is entirely capable of.

The original goes for a more stripped down sound with I.T. rocking over a haunting keyboard sample. His lyrics, as usual, are full of quotables even when he's going off the deep end, claiming that "Fahrenheit 9/11 thats just scratching the surface." The surprising thing about this song is that it was included on a Sirius satellite radio mixtape put out by Eminem's Shady Records, but then Eminem was on that Rock the Vote tip for a minute.

Opening with an Al Sharpton soundbite, the remix with Chuck D and KRS brings a more ominous sound with it's faux guitar and it's head scratching opening line "what the industry did to Pac they did to Jesus." The song covers a lot of territory that the original did, which is both a positive and a negative. Lifting a lot of the same lines and images that the original used just as effectively I.T. covers everything from money grubbing christians "preaching out their bentleys" to Schwarzenegger to steroetyped portrayals of blacks in cinema and the music industry, the song is essentially treading the same ground as the first and bringing very little that's new to the song. The fact that neither Chuck D or KRS drop any verses is a bit of a puzzler as well as you have three of Hip-Hop's most outspoken voices and two of them are relegated to the chorus. I'll assume that somewhere down the line a remix with all three will show up.

But in the end, an average Immortal Technique song is guaranteed to be ten times better and infinitely more provacative than anything else you will hear on the radio.

Will Rise, Not Fall. Definition:

Cypress Hill: Latin Lingo (Prince Paul Mix)
from Latin Lingo single (Columbia 1992)

Prince Paul: DJ Prince Paul Vs. The World
from Deep Concentration (O.M. Records 1998)

Paul Barman: Salvation Barmy
from It's Very Stimulating (Wordsound 2000)

MF Doom: Hot Guacamole (Featuring MC Paul Barman)
from MM Leftovers (Rhymesayer 2004)


It's been a long while, and for that my apologies, I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again. After having done a post on Prince Paul I decided that just one wasn't good enough and so I present the second installment of the Prince Paul post. The first track is a Prince Paul remix of the Cypress Hill song Latin Lingo from their classic first album. Of all the songs to remix on that album I think it would have been a better choice to do Pigs as the concept of the song lends itself well to the production style of Prince Paul, namely his use of sampling kiddie records, but as it is, we have this remix. Although not a bad remix, the fact that it's a Sen-Dog song is what I think holds it back. As a rapper, his strength is complimenting B-Real and not carrying a song, which he does here. Production wise, the song sounds like a by-the-numbers Cypress Hill piece which is surprising since Prince Paul has a unique sound, but as that Soul Assasins sound was becoming really popular back then, it seems that Paul was just trying to bring his own vision of the sound to the song.

DJ Prince Paul Vs. The World is a return to form so to speak. Starting out as a DJ/Producer in Stetsasonic, Prince Paul goes back to his 1200 roots and crafts a song that is straight turntablism. Mixed with some dissonant keyboards and some vocal samplings, including a collaged shout-out to himself the song is deceptively dope, it may take several listens for it to really catch on (more if you're not a fan of DJ songs). As a DJ, he's no Q-Bert but he's really good on the ones and twos, throwing in some transforming and layering his cuts to create a rich sound.

The third song is from the Paul Barman EP It's So Stimulating, which is entirely produced by Prince Paul and listneing to the songs it's easy to hear why he decided to produce him. Although the content of his rhymes is questionable, his skill is evident from the beginning. Lacing him with a classic Prince Paul beat, the off kilter vocal and jutting horn samples and the use of the Black Italiano (a Prince Paul staple) works perfectly with Barman's dextrous wordplay and his bugged out non-sequitors. Listen for the line "My pissed off Jimbrowski turned three colors like Krystof Kieslowski."

The last song is from MF Dooms promo EP MM Leftovers and brings together two greats and throws in Paul Barman to play off the two. A short yet very funky headnodding song (with a sample that's on the tip of my tongue and probably won't come to me till after this is posted). The song has a playful bounce throughout and it amazes me that Prince Paul and Doom don't do more collaborations as the two that I'm aware of, this song and the Chubb Rock joint from Politics of the Business show that they go together just as well as he did with De La back in the days. The more I listen to this song the more I realize that it's not just the samples that endear me to Prince Paul, but his drum programming, with it's simple, concise chops that still bring to mind the claassic era of late 80's early 90's.

Oh, and check out this link for a good video interview with transcript. Prince Paul touches on all subjects and if you can't sit through the inane host's comments, just read the transcript.

Plug 4

Prince Paul: Mother's Day
from It Takes A Nation Of Suckers To Let Us In (1991)

Prince Paul: Mood For Love
from A Prince Among Thieves (Tommy Boy 1999)

Prince Paul: Beautifully Absurd (Featuring Ellington Felton And K'Alyn On Guitar).mp3
from Politics Of The Business (Razor & Tie 2003)

Prince Paul: Here Come The Dix
from The Art Of Picking Up Women (Smacks 2005)


Other, much better and more frequently updated, blogs have touched on the genius of Prince Paul (like Can I Bring My Gat, Cocaine Blunts and The Rap Nerd just to name a few) and since he just released a new album I thought I would throw my proverbial hat in the ring and run down a couple of my favorite tracks from some of his albums.

The first track is from Prince Pauls Resident Alien album that never saw the light of day because of label politickin. However if you ever listen to the album you can understand why it was never released. Initially given an imprint label and a distribution deal with Def Jam with the notion that Paul would craft his beats for Def Jam artists, he created the album It Takes A Nation Of Suckers To Let Us In and in true Prince Paul fashion the album was devoid of any material suitable for singles. Although one 12" was released the album on the whole sounds more like a couple of guys fucking around in a basement (for any other artist, this would mean an undigestable album but for Prince Paul the album carries a unique irreverance). Take for example the song Mothers Day. Essentially a five minute Yo Mama joke, territory that's been treaded by a lot of rappers before, the conceit of this song is just how bad the jokes are and the token white guy misunderstanding the whole situation makes the song even more hilarious.

The second track is from his critically acclaimed concept album A Prince Among Thieves. Prince Paul takes the James Moody classic, Moody's Mood For Love, and showers it with a really bad moog organ and a syruppy thick bassline and turns the song into an ultra-cheese lounge fest that actually fits the mood of the song just as well as, if not better than, most jazz interpretations. The best part of the song, besides Don Newkirks vocoder voice, is the Breezely Brewin line "Your love is real good honey, it even feels better cause I didn't pay money."

Beautifully Absurd is from an album that was unjustifiably overlooked. Politics of the Business was released four years after his last abum and a lot of critics at the time were either looking for more of the same or they wanted Prince Paul to make a quantum leap beyond what was a classic album neither of which happened on this album. The production on this song is classic Prince Paul, take a melodic sample, sparsely layer it, in this case with just drums, bass and a bit of scratching, and let the artist go. While not indicative of the album as a whole, Beautifully Absurd is a definite banger.

The last track of the post is from his new album The Art Of Picking Up Women and in it Prince Paul goes back to the irreverence of the Resident Alien days. Taking the premise that while beat digging in a Parisian flea market Prince Paul discovered the rarest of rares for beat diggers, a forgotten 60's group that has evaded collecters, namely The Dix (and yes the less than subtle double entendre of the album title and group name play heavily into the song). Sounding less like a 60's doo wop group and more like a mash up of Pauls Stetsasonic beats and some ridiculous garage funk band, the song is just the tip of the iceberg on this album. One of the funnier moments of the album is a spot on impression of The Dix doing a Wu-Tang style interview. Packed with a documentary DVD titled "The Rise and Fall of The Dix" this has to be one of the highlights in the 2005 year of Hip-Hop.

Before I end this post I have to give a big thanks to one of the better audioblogs out there Honey, Where You Been So Long for their kind shout-out and assesment. Not only have they been holding it down with some of the best blues artists you may never have heard of, they compile some of the most thorough discographies of a song that you will ever have the pleasure to peruse. You do yourself a great disservice if you don't visit their site and/or bookmark it immediately, especially since they're doing a Nina Simone tribute this week.

Crowds So Live They're Coming In Flocks

Sam Cooke: Bring It On Home To Me
from Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 (RCA 1963)

Donny Hathaway: You've Got A Friend
from Live (WEA/Atlantic 1972)

The Temptations: For Once In My Life
from Live at the Copa (Motown 1968)


After my last post, I got on a live-in-concert kick and tracked down several live albums that I've always enjoyed listening too. The thing with live albums are that they usually tend to focus on the performance of the artist(s) to the exclusion of the crowd, which is understandable because you pay to hear your favorite performer. The problem with this is the whole purpose of a live album is that the artist is performing for an audience and not some studio engineer. Sometimes this isn't entirely the fault of the album. If you have an artist who is unable to move the crowd you're usually left with a performance that goes by the numbers, not so with these three tracks.

Probably the greatest soul performance I've ever had the pleasure to hear, Sam Cookes Live at the Harlem Square Club is a perfect example of a great live album. Performed at a small club in Miami in an intimate setting the atmosphere is on fire throughout and it's most evident in the track presented here. Bring It On Home is a gospel tinged remnant of his Soul Stirrer days but listening to Sam perform it here he strips it of any maudlin overtones and presents it in a raspy rendition that's as soulful as it gets. Opening with the ending refrains from the prior song, Sam at this point in the concert is hitting all cylinders and the crowd is literally wrapped around his hand. He takes the urbane and refined You Send Me and reshapes it into a song that you barely recognize but that the crowd instantly picks up on and it's at this point that Sam, King Curtis and the band breaks down into three minutes of the most soulful singing you'll ever hear. No amount of superlatives can cover how impossibly moving this song is so just listen in awe as Sam takes the crowd on a call and response that I don't think any singer can rival, with the possible exception of the performer of the next track.

Donny Hathaway's 1972 Live album can probably be regarded as one of his best albums and I'm sure you wouldn't find too many people that would argue that point. The beautiful thing about this song is how he takes the stripped down Carole King song and drenches it in some soulful juice and makes it uniquely his. Blessed with an expressive voice that punches through any melodrama, it lends a sublime aire to the song which lifts it beyond the hallmark-esque sound that it now seems to possess. Like the previous song, this one is from an album filled with a crowd that's glued to every word that Donny sings, just listen to the chorus after the first verse. The crowd literally takes over the song and Donny just guides them through.

The last track is from The Temptations performance at the Copa. The album was a mix of Broadway standards and classic motown songs and came a little bit after their album In A Mellow Mood where they performed all pop standards, an album that redfined their boundaries. Taking the classic song that Stevie Wonder would also record, Paul Williams' rendition retains the originals mellower tempo and introspective mood. Listening to Williams sing it, his voice sounds as if a weight has been lifted off of his back and the inner struggles that he fought against had finally been purged, but unfortuantely this wouldn't be as he would later commit suiced after struggling with alcoholism.

As an ancillary note, for a pretty good rendition of Sam Cooke's Harlem Club performance, get a copy of the Michael Mann/Will Smith movie Ali. The opening of the film is worth the price of admission alone. And on a sadder and more morose note, all three of the singers, Sam Cooke, Donny Hathaway and Paul Williams would all die early tragic deaths, cutting short their infinitely bright careers.

The Line Forms On The Right Babe

Bobby Darin: Beyond The Sea (Live In Los Angeles 3/11/73)
from A&E Biography: A (Musical) Anthology (Capitol 1998)

Bobby Darin: (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher (Live In Los Angeles 3/11/73)
from A&E Biography: A (Musical) Anthology (Capitol 1998)

Bobby Darin: The Curtain Falls
from The Curtain Falls: Live at the Flamingo (Collecters Choice Music 2000)


If ever there was a person who defined the image of a Vegas style showman it would have to be Bobby Darin. His live shows always included a playful interaction between himself, his band members and the audience and because he crossed so many musical genres his performances would always cover the spectrum of his career. Although capturing the raw energy of being there at a show is sometimes a difficult thing for a live album to reproduce, Bobby's live performances are often the exception to the rule. A meticulous performer, he was always able to jump in and out of the different aspects of his career, whether it was singing folk ballads, improvising comedic acts or just belting out the classics that he was known for, his shows were always performances in the finest sense of the word.

The first track is a live rendition of one of his most famous songs and comes from his last concert performance before his death. As a testament to his performance prowess, Bobby takes a three minute song and extends it to over eight minutes with playful banter, renditions of old classics, timely commentary on Burt Reynolds near nude Cosmo pictorial and even penis humor and never once does the song drag. In the actual video of the song you can even see him do him his best James Brown performance and get down on the good foot. Done in front of a live television audience the atmosphere is still just as energetic as his performance in front of a Vegas show crowd.

The second track is from that same concert performance and is his rendition of the Jackie Wilson classic. It's amazing to hear the energetic output from a man whose heart defect would take his life just nine months later. Despite the cheesiness that the wah-wah guitar adds to the song, Bobby and the backing chorus infuses the song with a lot of the elan that Jackie brought to the song. By the time the first chorus comes in, Bobby has full control of the song and never lets it stop, his voice riding along with the backing singers and the horn section to a soulful ending.

The third track is from his 1963 concert performance at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and was meant as a sort of swan song for his retirement from concert performances because of health concerns and so he could concentrate on a Hollywood career. The album itself is full of wonderful Bobby moments including a nine minute comedic act where he masterfully impersonates everyone from W.C. Fileds to Cary Grant to Dean Martin, but it's the last track that takes the cake. An appropos song, much in the same way that My Way is associated with Frank Sinatra, it's a shame that this song and in particular this live rendition isn't as widely known as his other songs. Bobby's performance, from his eager anticipation to get the song started to the abrupt ending is done so well that it's only appropriate I end this post with it.