Fluxblog Weekly #155: Czarface/MF Doom, Kali Uchis, Cardi B, Me’Shell NdegéOcello
April 9th, 2018 12:53am
Blow The Spot Up Lovely
Czarface & MF Doom “Captain Crunch”
You get just over a second of intro in this track before it throws you into the deep end of a high-hat clattering drum loop and MF Doom’s verse, and it just keeps going through two more verses from Esoteric and Inspectah Deck. And like, look, I have relatively broad taste in rap like most any reasonable music listener in 2018, but this sort of thing is always going to be the thing that really knocks me out: a quick succession of clever rhymes from multiple rappers over a grimy, up-tempo track, and with a chorus that exists almost entirely to punctuate verses. Doom and Deck turn in strong performances on this song but are about what you’d expect – the former is charmingly mush-mouthed and sharp-witted, the latter exudes a menacing intelligence in seemingly effortless rhymes. And Esoteric? Well, it’s impressive how many Guardians of the Galaxy references he packs into 41 seconds on the mic.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 9th, 2018
With You
Kali Uchis “Flight 22”
Kali Uchis’ debut album Isolation is so eclectic that it’s actually difficult to discern whether it’s the work of a restless and wide-ranging artist, or if it’s more that the label just wants to try working a few different lanes of promotion to see which one sticks. It’s probably a bit of both. Uchis has a strong voice and is good with phrasing, so she fits comfortably into most anything her absurdly long list of collaborators can throw at her, but I’m particularly fond of the songs that feel more 20th century than 21st century. She shines on a few songs that feel a bit jazzy or nod in the direction of Quiet Storm, but I’m most impressed by how she handles “Flight 22,” a lovely and achingly sincere neo-soul ballad that’s nearly on the level of Alicia Key’s sublime “If I Ain’t Got You.” Interscope would be foolish not to work this song as a single, even if doesn’t quite fit in with what gets played on the radio right now. Get it on TV somehow. Put it in a movie. Something like that.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 11th, 2018
It’s Only Facts
Cardi B “Bickenhead”
Cardi B reminds me of a line written by a pre-Sonic Youth Kim Gordon in Art Forum in early 1983: “People pay to see others believe in themselves.” This is true of most rappers, but I think it’s particularly true about her. Everything about her – that booming voice, the ferocious lyrics, her life story – is a display of superhuman self-belief. Even in the context of a genre defined by scrappy outsiders, her narrative stands out as being about a woman who didn’t ask for permission and became huge through sheer force of will. She’s an instant icon of unapologetic female confidence and aggression, and exactly what pop music needed in this moment. She also stands in stark contrast with a lot of what’s going on in rap today – it’s not as though there’s a total lack of swagger out there, but who else is delivering this sort of classic hip-hop self-empowerment at this level right now and with this degree of intensity? There was a void in the market, and Cardi filled it.
As much as Cardi B delivers on rap’s core values, she’s also a subversive figure who recasts the stripper – so often a decorative and subservient character in hip-hop lyrics – as the dominating, money-making, trash-talking protagonist. “Bodak Yellow” and “Bickenhead,” her finest strip club anthems, convey a ruthless competitive drive and a desire to bend the entire world to her will. “Bickenhead” is particularly explicit but not at all sexy. She’s in total control of these men, and it’s not even eroticized in a BDSM way. She makes these guys sound like total rubes, and the raw confidence and power in her voice is so potent even someone as extremely un-Cardi B-like as myself can get a slight contact high. I’m sure you can relate.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 12th, 2018
A Man Like Me
Me’Shell NdegéOcello “Sensitivity”
Me’Shell NdegéOcello’s new album Ventriloquism is a collection of covers of R&B hits from the mid ’80s through the early ’90s, and her selection is heavy on songs that I reconnected with in a huge way when I was working on my survey projects over the past couple years: “Don’t Disturb This Groove” by The System, “Nite & Day” by Al B. Sure, “Sensitivity” by Ralph Tresvant. An interesting thing about the record is that while NdegéOcello is extremely comfortable working in funk and R&B modes, she has arranged all of the material to take the emphasis off of these elements of the songs. There’s a very particular aesthetic to the record – it’s a very moody and atmospheric vibe, and heavy on acoustic guitar and understated percussion. Some of the songs sound like they’d work in the soundtrack of a modern Western.
To be clear, this isn’t that awful clichéd thing of someone taking an old hit and making it slow and acoustic and dreary. NdegéOcello’s arrangements are far more thoughtful, and occasionally swerve into very peculiar creative decisions, as when he take on “Sensitivity” suddenly shifts gears into a jazzy vaudeville section. But no matter where she goes with the songs, she is incredibly faithful to the melodies. NdegéOcello’s project here isn’t simply an aesthetic exercise in arranging old songs, but more about her efforts to show the listener how well-written these tunes are, and how their quality is not rooted entirely in genre or cultural moments. She’s trying to rescue these songs from the lazy ways culture frames this music. Your response to the track listing of Ventriloquism is supposed to make you go “Oh yeah, I love that song! And that one too!,” and the recordings are there to show you a new way to appreciate them.
Buy it from Amazon.