Whattup kiddos? It’s your friendly neighborhood selector Cosmo baker with another 10+ heavy choons that really moved me this month. Yes, I’m sending the year out with a bang with the latest edition of the Top Ten. There’s a whole bunch of joints on here that really kill it but specifically I want to give a shout to my homeboy Michna who killed with his own version of the song from the movie “Drive.” But that’s not to detract from any of the other songs cause they’re all heaters. Anyway, as always, listen, comment, download, share, and most of all, enjoy…
1: Spank Rock “Hot Potato”
2: Billy W. “Times In My Life” (Underwater Mix)
3: Pat Lok “No Shame” (Volta Bureau Remix)
4: Kon 1200 “Sunlight” (Dub)
5: Midnight Magic “Julio”
6: Dimitri From Paris & DJ Rocca “Back To House” (Original Mix)
7: Michna “Real Hero”
8: Lovebirds “Want You In My Soul feat. Stee Downes”
9: Sylvester “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” (Kon Edit)
10: Oliver $ “Granulated Soul” (Original Mix)
BAKERS DOZEN BONUS
11: Trent Cantrelle “I Want A Freak” (Original Mix)
12: Brodinski “Let The Beat Control Your Body feat. Louisahhh!” (Original Mix)
13: A-Trak & Zinc “Stingray”
I did this joint really quick a few years ago after grabbing all the “Mind Power” stems and literally threw this together in like 15 minutes or less. After playing it out a bunch people started really hawking me for it and I put it up on the Music section of my site. Well, my Music section is kind of a mess and I’m hoping that me and my cousin (who did this site for me) can sort that out – even though him and his wife are having twins not too long from now…
But because recently I’ve had so many people ask me for a re-up, I figured it was time. So with no further ado, I give to you…
There are some things that I just love. And when I say I love I mean like I extra-extra full on go blind L.O.V.E. love with a capital <3 complete with funny little cupid arrows through it. What do I love? Well there’s a lot of things. I could run down the laundry list of the things that I just absolutely am nutso about, but here are just a few. For example:
I love olives.
I love baseball. Particularly, I love my Philadelphia Phillies, win or lose.
I love the entire Addams Family series. Raul Julia as Gomez is suave as it comes.
And I love the music by the French electronic duo Cassius.
I got hip to them under the guise Cassius back when the first big wave of French electronic music had already been a couple years old, but actually I never realized until recently that I was a fan of their work under the pseudonym La Funk Mob. This is back in my acid-jazz adoring, baggy houndstooth print trouser and floppy apple jack wearing, “everything sounds better with a flute on top” loving halcyon days of youth in the early 90s. But when I was a tad bit older and a quite a bit more in touch with my soul, the dance music that Cassius was making struck a particular chord with me. It was fun a playful but not trite. It was funky and moving but it was also somewhat very emotional to me. I don’t know why I was able to tap into the particular emotion of the right combination of samples and synthesizers and patterns from various drum machines. The “soul in the machine” per se…
One of the things that I find most interesting in the way that modern day hip-hop has progressed with sound is with the way it has incorporated modern day dance music. Two of the songs off of the Kanye West & Jay-Z “Watch The Throne” album really serve as perfect examples of this trend as it stands in 2011. The two are the “Dubstep Run Through A Carwash In East Texas” sounding “Who Gon’ Stop Me” and “Why I Love You,” both produced by the legendary yet somewhat unheralded in the mainstream genius Mike Dean.
It’s just so refreshing to hear these two worlds collide in the way that it does. And also refreshing to hear Cassius “I <3 U SO” re-envisioned in this way. This is one of my favorite songs, and it brings up such deep emotion for me. Why, I’ll never know. But nonetheless, I love you so. And why I love you, I’ll never know…
It was a pretty rough and tough day for me in general, kind of from the start. But like one has to do, you just power through it and keep yourself busy so that you can make it to the end of the day, finally rest, and then pick yourself up and dust yourself off the next morning.
Today I took over the SOL Republic Twitter Feed. For those that don’t know, SOL Republic is a new headphone company that is working together with me and a bunch of my buddies, including but not limited to Steve Aoki, DJ Morse Code, DJ Gina Turner, Thee Mike B, Nickodemus, Roxy Cottontail and more… They’re really good headphones and part of the marketing campaign is to have “celebrities” (I know, I’m using that term lightly) do a day’s worth of Tweets from their account. Pretty fun for sure – and peep the SOL Republic Facebook Page and headphones themselves!
Anyway, halfway through my furious barrage of Tweets for SOL I started to notice virtual noise about Heavy D, and how he may or may not have died, and so after I got back to The Lab I logged on to my own account and found the news…
Heavy D was and always has been one of my favorite rappers, and hip-hop personalities in general. His music was fun and engaging but never trite nor did it ever rely on being gimmicky. The Heavster’s music spanned a career of well over 20 years and his music was always relevant, and just outright good. From the early days of “Overweight Lover” where he enlisted some of rap music’s finest producers at an early age (Marley Marl, Teddy Riley) to the early 90s where his sound went through a crucial metamorphosis with “Big Tyme” bringing in elements of New Jack Swing and Hip-House into the mix (as well as introducing the world to his younger cousin, an up and coming producer named Pete Rock.) Then there’s the more reflective “Peaceful Journey” that came about after the death of Hev’s friend and dancer Trouble T Roy, an incident that inspired Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s hip-hop perennial classic “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)“. “Peaceful Journey” also contains one of the greatest Posse Cuts of all time, “Don’t Curse” (seen below.)
The jewel in the crown to me is his 1993 release “Blue Funk” which may or may not be his magnum opus. This is a fully realized and fleshed out album that is rock-solid from front to back and is a shining example of music that bridges the gap bewteen the polished sound that he was known for and the more raw and gritty sound that rap music would become in the mid 90s. It didn’t hurt to bring on board producers like Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Jesse West and Tony Dofat to help solidify the sound, as well as givin a new up-and-coming MC from Brooklyn one of (if not THE) first appearance on a record, the one and only Biggie Smalls. Click here to peep the song “A Buncha Ni66as” on my Happy Birthday Biggie post, which also includes the late, great Guru of Gang Starr. Guru, Biggie and The Heavster are all rapping in a cipher in the afterlife together now… I still listen to this album today and it has aged very very well, and is a great snapshot into the emerging change in the sound of rap music.
Hev continued to push himself further with his music, as well as getting involved with discovering new talent, producing music himself, executive producing and even acting (truth be told, he actually was a good actor.) He will be missed. It’s a sad sad day for me. RIP Heavy D… Losing people sucks.
Post script: To me this is kind of the proof in the pudding. This record came out in 1989 and as a young buck when I heard it I was kind floored, by the actual music and lyrics, the all-star lineup, and the message and philosophy behind it. Decidedly not a “party jam” per se, “Self Destruction” actual did get burn at house parties and the like, and to this day is cemented in the annals of rap history as a landmark record. It was an across the board, artist-driven collaborative effort that was unique at the time and actually had a overt socially conscious impetus behind it. Plus that shit is funky as hell, and to this day a record that I can accurately rap every single last lyric of it by heart. But here’s what I’m getting at – just look at the roster of rappers on this record. KRS-One. Wise, Fruitkwan, MC Delight & Daddy-O of Stetsasonic (one of the most underrated rap groups in history,) D-Nice, Kool Moe Dee, Ms. Melody, MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh, Just Ice, Public Enemy & Heavy D. Every last one of them a heavyweight. Every last one of them bringing their A++ Game. Not one weak link – and yes, I’ll even ride for Ms. Melody on this record. But since day one, to me, there’s nobody who brought it harder and more impacting than The Heavster. Since day one I’ve thought that, and even now watching the video and the moment he steps from behind that cherry-red Cherokee, he’s the living embodiment of the Dead-As-Dillinger buzz term “swagger.” So on top of all his accomplishments and accolades, there’s one piece of the puzzle that will never be lost to me, and that is of Heavy D. the RAPPER. One of the finest of this craft in history.
Life is funny, and relentless. And it sucks losing people. But you just have to stay inspired in order to move. We just move and we move and we move and we keep on moving. And then you move some more. Like sharks that move so that they can live, and perish in fathoms below if they don’t. We move. Until the end of the line, when the lights are out and the stools are up, cash is counted and keys in hand. And you look back, everything that came before is what made us. The experience as fiber. Happenstance the very oil that moves this machine forward, none of us in power just along for the ride. Moving. Inspired.
Dwight Arrington “Heavy D.” Myers’ final Tweet. Rest in power, brother.
Edited: Here is a fantastic and well executed tribute mix to The Heavster done by my man Scott Melker. Scott is a terrific DJ and producer, and just an all-around awesome dude. And if there’s one thing that I know about him, it’s that he loves himself some Heavy D. So it’s only fitting that he was the guy to have done this, and he knocked it out the park. Definitely check for Scott and also follow him on Twitter @scottmelker for some highly entertaining rants. Also my man Jesse Serwer published a great, and more in depth article on Large Up going in on the same thing (including some great examples from The YouTubes,) A very cool look at the Quasi-Jamaican oeuvre of The Heavster.. check that article here via Large Up / Okay Player.
Friday November 1 – Dante’s Hifi – Miami, FL 
