Get To Know H.E.R.

Hip Hop was born in South Bronx. That much is basic knowledge to all heads. From this one borough in NYC, a regional trend took the country by storm. And now, the United States is the undisputed hip hop champion of the world. What a lot of people in this country tend to overlook is that hip hop is now a global phenomenon. And judging by some of the quality coming out of these countries, I’d say that the United States is in some serious trouble. Just quickly going over one example of each element, we got Hong 10 from Korea covering b-boying, Miss Van from France covering grafitti, DJ Honda from Japan covering DJing and Roots Manuva from Britain covering emceeing.

I’m not saying all this to make ya’ll panic or anything. I mean, I don’t care how good they are, nobody’s touching our G.O.A.T.’s. Nobody! But I am saying all this in order to open your eyes a bit. You don’t like the crap that’s playing on our airwaves? Well, now you can look outside of the 50 states to get your fill of good hip hop. One such group that you should be aware of is Pete Philly and Perquisite, a duo from the Netherlands. Pete Philly is the emcee half and Perquisite handles the production (and plays the cello too if that sort of thing floats your boat). Their music sounds fresh and exciting compared to some of the garbage we label hip hop these days, and to top it all off, it’s all in English! So even though you’re listening to foreign hip hop, it’s in your language, so you can actually understand what the hell’s being said. Life’s great isn’t it?

The debut album, Mindstate, starts off with an Intro consisting of some scratching over a nice, mellow instrumental. It then jumps into the smooth Relieved, in which we first hear Pete Philly rap. Granted he’s no Rakim, and his rhymes aren’t the most complex shit you’ve ever heard, but his flow and voice matches the instrumental so much that it just kinda seems like a part of the music. Take that as you will. The album then continues with Insomnia, which has a pretty dope instrumental, but some of Pete’s first and second verses leave me a bit wanting. On the next track, Motivated, the rhymes finally hit the right spot and the end product is pretty dope. Pete Philly seems to be one of the few emcees that can sing in a song and not piss the hell out of me.

Eager is a fairly graphic song for the ladies and comes off decent enough, effectively portraying Pete Philly’s “eager” mind state. Lazy continues the album on the right track, but Respect comes off sounding a bit forced and contrived, like it was put in for a bit of street cred. The next track, Cocksure is better than Respect, but not by much. It does have a pretty damn interesting beat to it and it reminds me a lot of some Planet Rock stuff. The album then continues with the short, but enjoyable Conflicted and picks up the album. Next up is Grateful, which, as the title says, consists of Pete Philly giving some thank you shout outs over an absolutely beautiful instrumental. The title track (Mindstate) finds the two at the top of their game. Pete Philly drops some pretty introspective, personal rhymes over Perquisite’s bass heavy beat and the simple scratched out hook is just icing on the cake.

After a relaxing guitar riff at the end of Mindstate, the album jumps right in to Mellow, which features the lovely pipes of Senna Gourdou. Pete Philly actually sings, instead of rapping on this track and although Pete doesn’t have the greatest voice in the world, he has a unique voice that isn’t bad to listen to. At about 3:55, the main song ends, and is followed by an excellent, smooth guitar solo, which then leads straight into the next track, the aptly titled Paranoid. The production on this track is nothing short of great, especially during the beat changing interlude in the middle. Cheeky is another great track, and features fellow Dutch rapper, Cee-Major. Afterwards comes the strictly instrumental Grateful II, followed by Hope. Hope features a rapper everyone should be familiar with by now, Talib Kweli and comes off as a pretty dope track. There’s a remix out somewhere by DJ Mitsu, which is equally as dope, if not doper. The final track on the album, Amazed, is another track featuring the singing Pete Philly. I actually prefer the second half of this track, when the cello and guitar kicks in but to each his own.

The Good: Insomnia, Motivated, Lazy, Conflicted, Grateful, Mindstate, Mellow, Paranoid, Cheeky, Hope, Amazing
The Solid: Intro, Relieved, Eager, Cocksure, Grateful II

The Bad: Respect

Final Score: 9.0/8.5

Pete Philly and Perquisite have excellent chemistry together and it shows all throughout their debut album. However, I think it is safe to say that Perquisite is better at what he does than Pete Philly is. While Pete isn’t a bad emcee (he’s actually better than lots), he’s pretty inconsistent. On one track he’ll be dope as fuck, and then on the next, you’ll be left scratching your head. Still, he manages to work well with the instrumentals and like I said before, he may be one of the few select emcees that can actually get away with doing whole singing tracks. The instrumentals on this album are consistently freaking gorgeous. The word pretty is not a word that one uses a lot when describing hip hop albums, but damn it’s the perfect word to describe the soundscapes here. The Dutch know how to craft a nice beat (Nicolay anyone?). So, in conclusion, if not for the hopes of broadening your horizon, at least pick this up for its amazing production.

Every so often comes a group that hits you with a sound that feels so innovative and so fresh that it makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about music. These groups are able to combine and in a sense blur the separations between genres until a whole new monster is formed. And damn it if this whole new monster doesn’t sound great. The Gorillaz is a band that, in my eyes, is the very epitome of this.

Depending on who you ask, the Gorillaz have anywhere between 2 and 100 or more members. This confusion of course stems from the fact that it is a virtual band, comprised of Murdoc, 2D, Russell, and Noodle (all of whom are not, despite confusion, apes). So if you ask someone who lives and dies by this view of the band, the Gorillaz have and always will have four members. However, if you ask someone else, he or she might say that the Gorillaz’ only members are Damon Albarn, the musical mastermind behind the whole thing (from Blur, great band if you’re interested), and Jamie Hewitt, the characters’ illustrator. Then again, if you ask yet another, he or she will say that due to the vast number of contributors on each album (ie. Dan The Automator and Danger Mouse), you can never be sure of the exact number of members.

What is the point of all this information? Nothing, really. Because whether you believe the Gorillaz to be 2, 4, 10, 78 or 124 members strong, the fact remains that their music is incredible. Now, some people may be a little wary about my categorizing the group as hip hop, but if you’ve ever listened to their stuff, it’s impossible to not realize that hip hop has a very heavy influence on the overall sound. Not to mention that their two biggest hits, Clint Eastwood and Feel Good Inc., feature none other than freaking Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and De La Soul respectively. Anyways, Demon Days is actually the second full length album in their catalog, and was executive produced by Damon and none other than Danger Mouse. I think that Dan the Automator, who produced the first album, is usually a better producer than Danger Mouse is, but I have to say, Demon Days is the better album. But why am I writing all of this when I should’ve started the damn review already?

The Good:

2. Last Living Souls- The melancholy, dark sound on this track is what you can expect for pretty much most of the rest of this album. I love it.

3. Kids With Guns - Despite the ridiculous name, it’s a really good song. The simple bass beat works so damn well, it’s genius.

4. O Green World

5. Dirty Harry (ft Bootie Brown) - I get glad when I see that anyone from the Pharcyde is featured in a song. I get straight ecstatic when the song in question is actually great.

6. Feel Good Inc. (ft De La Soul) - You’ve probably heard this song before. I think that this song along with the music video is plain ridiculous. If you go to Wikipedia they actually have a surprisingly long entry going into the finer details of the messages behind this track.

7. El Manana 

9. November Has Come (ft MF Doom) - Told you this album is full of hip hop. Good hip hop at that. MF Doom is a beast on the mic.

10. All Alone (ft Roots Manuva) 

11. White Light - According to the animated Gorillaz universe, 2D is the main male vocalist of the group while Noodle takes care of female accompaniment. This song is the only one where Murdoc does any of the vocal work and interestingly enough was made while he was drunk and most likely high. This song hits fast and it hits hard.

12. Dare (ft Shaun Ryder) 

14. Don’t Get Lost In Heaven - My only complaint is that it’s too short. There’s a demo version on the D-Sides but I haven’t had the chance to listen to that yet.

15. Demon Days 

The Solid:

1. Intro - It does nothing more and nothing less than what an introduction should do.

8. Every Planet We Reach Is Dead 

13. Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey’s Head (ft Dennis Hopper) - It’s interesting enough, but it’s not something that you’d want to listen to over and over again.

The Bad:

Final Score: 9.5

The Gorillaz were able effectively destroy the sophomore curse with Demon Days, which is nothing short of brilliant. The album isn’t perfect, but it’s damn close, and it’s only missteps aren’t really big issues. Sonically, it’s just so pleasing to listen to, and it’s so different from anything else that’s out there, including even the Gorillaz’ own previous album. It may take a few listens to really get into it, only because it isn’t something that you may be used to, but it’s well worth it. Now if only the third LP wasn’t taking ages to come out.