The Glitch Mob are in our hometown this weekend, alas, and of course, it has sold out. So to ease the pain of not attending just a little, this is a super-nice video with a brief interview and some on-stage action.

Lots more heavy beats on founding member Boreta’s Soundcloud page

Take a look at this here teaser trailer for upcoming snowboard film “The Arena”. Some jaw dropping sequences with a real look at street skating style mixed into snowboarding… plus a bumping Gang Starr soundtrack

This also features in our video channnel which has heaps more dopeness.

This post also ends a little drought of main updates here, casued mostly by tonnes of work and time evaporating. We have a bunch of updates backed up with some lovely new wallpapers including some phone treats so hold tight.

If you’re after lots of more regular Delarge updates be sure to subscribe our RSS feed which has all the images, links, posts, videos and music in one spot….

The latest video from Doomtree’s Dessa.

Taken from her album A Badly Broken Code.

Watch more episodes on VBS.tv »

Dephect also have a new website up, which is looking mighty ill and oozing fresh threads, along with a heap of free music to grab and grapple.

Simply answer the question below to be in with a chance to bless your chest with something stupid fresh.

What’s the name of the world renowned DJ that Dephect have hooked up with to produce the “Turntables In Technicolour” t-shirt?

Winners will be chosen at random on the 14th May 2010, and notified via email by the Dephect crew. They’ll get your size, then send the garments your way. Email addresses are kept private, we won’t spam you or pass it on.

Guru and DJ Premier’s work together made individual stars of them both and, although they parted ways in latter years, they remained close. Indeed, Premier was one of the first to break the tragic news of Guru’s untimely death on his blog.

For me personally, no Guru joint gripped me more immediately than “Rep Grows Bigga”, a perfect example of Guru and Premier combining to awesome effect. Join us in paying tribute to the man by bumping this slice of hip-hop perfection on full blast. Rest In Peace, Guru.

(Words by MF Hart)

We also had the pleasure of interviewing Guru last year.

EDIT (27/04/10)
Be sure to cop the tribute mixes…
Premier: http://usershare.net/jebx6uj7gtbw
Mr Cee: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LHEPZAEH

King Geedorah – Take Me To Your Leader (June 2003)

It’s testament to Daniel Dumile’s considerable talents that he matched the quality of 1999’s Operation Doomsday several times over the next decade.

Take Me To Your Leader was his sophomore longplayer as a solo artist, encapsulating his anarchic, eccentric production and rhyme style at its off-the-wall best.

Claiming he’d been possessed by a three headed space monster, he spat perceptive observations on human foibles, accompanied by gloriously eccentric production.

The album opens up with a clear statement of intent on Fazers, where he breaks down the album’s philosophy, “He only here to warn us what the plan is, The hour be upon us it’s bananas.”, before delivering an irreverent anti-gun message, “Rule number one, Set your fazers on stun”.

There’s a fine line between gimmicky and innovative, and Dumile has always walked the right side of it. As you venture further into TMTYL the layers of oddness fall away, revealing sensitivity, beauty and, more often, straight-up bangers.

At its heart, the album is pure hip-hop rawness. Anti-Matter, and No Snakes Alive are as good as any tunes he’s ever dropped.

Lockjaw dazes you with quick-fire raps and a super-fast beat. By the time you get to the last line of I Wonder you can’t help but see the parallels with Dumile’s own fraternal grief, “And my brother got stabbed and I miss him”, accompanied by a delicate string loop that’s moving and melancholic.

Even by his impeccable – and totally loopy – standards, TMTYL was an eyebrow raiser. With the benefit of hindsight, we can also see it was an absolute classic.

Video & track

King Geedorah – No Snakes Alive

King Geedorah – I Wonder

Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner (July 2003)

Dizzee Rascal was just seventeen years old when Boy In Da Corner dropped. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he was also the producer on every track. Added to that, he’d already been part of the Roll Deep crew for several years.

Make no mistake, this was a rare talent mature beyond his years, and his first album blew the minds of those who heard it. It’s no surprise the album won 2003’s Mercury Music Prize – it sounded like nothing else you’d ever heard.

On the first few listens, before you got to thinking about the lyrics, you just listened to the music. It was like an east Londoner in a mental institution doing a bad impression of Kool Keith, accompanied by several stolen Nokias and a fax machine. Meanwhile, his cell mate pounded on the bins.

Every track reflected his flexibility, his skills as a strong emcee but also as someone with an ear for a great tune, period. I Luv U was an instant knockout – a story about inner city violence, underage sex and teenage bravado. Jus’ A Rascal was as good a battle rap as you’d ever heard, and Fix Up Look Sharp was a braggadocio tour de force.

Stripped down, stark and bleak, Boy In Da Corner couldn’t fail to grab your attention. Wiley, Chipmunk and every other grime rapper and producer that has gained notoriety since 2003 owes this album – and Dizzee – a huge debt.

Videos

Dizzee Rascal – I Luv U

Dizzee Rascal – Jus A Rascal

Cappo – Spaz The World (August 2003)

Criminally underrated. If you take nothing else away from reading about Cappo’s Spaz The World album – take that. Listening to the album is like listening to 40 minutes of pure, distilled 1980s boom-bap at its very best.

Hit play and you’re transported to a different era, totally faithfully and without even the smallest hint of post-modernism. Cappo comes at you hard, from the first minute to the last.

Produced by Nottingham’s P Brothers, this is by far their easiest work to buy. But everything they do can be summed up by the title of another of their albums – Heavy Bronx Experience.

They headed to uptown New York to research how the music was originally made, then bought all the necessary production equipment and started rockin’ the bells. Quite how the P Brothers never got more exposure is baffling, on this album they are fearsome.

Their heavy production could only be matched by an emcee with plenty of raw power and talent – and Cappo has it in spades. His hard, braggadocious battle raps from start to finish leave you punch drunk. He takes on every beat and matches it for intensity and hype. And when he’s done, you understand him when he says, “I rip it like Scarface, I do it for fun”.

Track

Cappo – Grand Final

Viktor Vaughn – Vaudeville Villain (September 2003)

So intense was the whirlwind of excitement around the myriad personas Daniel Dumile had created by this point, the rumours threatened to get out of hand. In the best of the tales, a plucky young reporter from Phoenix, Arizona called MF_DOOM to talk about Vaudeville Villain.

DOOM hung up, but not before instructing him to call back and ask for Vik. Was Dumile really such a method actor during this period, insistent on staying in character? Maybe not, but such folklore always surrounds art this brilliant.

Not one track on Vaudeville Villain is produced by Dumile. The first time this had happened the creation of the MF_DOOM character.

Instead, he focuses on his lyrical skills, and introduces us to a new character – Viktor Vaughn. Comic-book references remain, sci-fi influences continue, but Vaughn is a world apart from Dumile’s other characters.

Vik is no super-villain, like DOOM, and no soothsayer, like Gheedorah. He’s a small time hood, albeit an enlightened sorta guy, and the album’s choc-full of street raps. Vik’s stories, phrases and metaphors are straight from the ghetto.

This switch of styles is, of course, a triumph – and testament to Dumile’s adaptability and supreme talent. “Lickupon” is reminiscent of Biggie Smalls’ “Warning”, all shambling beats and tales of vengeful violence. RJD2-produced “Saliva” is a straight club banger. “Let Me Watch”, possibly the album’s best, is a refreshingly honest tale of a wannabe-player who fails to seduce the girl.

Vik follows the variety of beats perfectly, shifting his flow to match the track every time. When an emcee is on the very top of his game, sometimes a rare thing happens.

Rather than the producer setting the tempo, it’s almost as if the emcee is in control of the beat. This is one of those albums. About this time, it just seemed Dumile could do no wrong.

Tracks

Viktor Vaughn – Raedawn

Viktor Vaughn – Let Me Watch

Jaylib – Champion Sound (October 2003)

No review of the decade would be complete without a mention of Jay Dilla. A supremely talented producer, he has continued to be hugely influential even after his untimely death.

And nowhere more consistently were his talents showcased than on Champion Sound, where production and emcee duties were split between Dilla and crate-digging genius Madlib.

The division of labour was exactly balanced. Half the tracks are produced by Jay Dilla with Madlib on the mic. On the other half, the roles are reversed, Madlib on the boards and Jay Dilla on the mic. And the difference is clear.

Jay Dilla produced tracks like Starz are stripped down, soulful and sharp. Madlib’s production, like on the title track, bangs hard and full – loaded with eccentric samples. The two styles complement each other perfectly.

Most importantly, few albums in our list deserve to be turned up as loud as Champion Sound. If you’re listening at home and your neighbours aren’t banging down your door or calling the police, you’re doing something wrong. If you’re hearing it in a club and they haven’t been served a notice for noise pollution, something’s wrong. Or, in the words of Madlib, “you n***** must be outta ya head if yo system ain’t up to The Red”.

Video & track

Jaylib – McNasty Filth

Jaylib – The Red

Immortal Technique – Revolutionary Vol. 2 (November 2003)

“Martial law is comin’ soon to the hood to kill you,
While you hangin’ your flag out your project window.”

Political hip-hop was part of the mainstream once. Times were when Public Enemy and KRS-One were on MTV.

Nowadays, Immortal Technique and artists like him struggle to even get signed. Revolutionary Vol. 2 was effectively self-published (Technique being President of Viper Records).

Yet, lyrically, it’s as strong as any PE or KRS album and, commercially, “Obnoxious” was the 3rd biggest selling hip-hop single online in 2004. It doesn’t take long to understand why he’s a little bitter about major record labels.

Make no mistake, Technique has done his reading. He knows his history. For any political dissident, socialist and anarchist, his lyrics are the stuff of dreams.

Rap message boards have been filled with countless threads attempting to decipher all his references. His lyrics have a depth that Chuck D and KRS-One would be proud of – in truth he eclipses them at times.

Perhaps the strongest track on the album is “Peruvian Cocaine”. Featuring a crew of underground rap royalty, this masterpiece tells of CIA involvement in running drugs to USA city streets. And as well as just being a great rap tune, it’s well supported by the work of journalists like William Blum, Gary Webb and Michael Ruppert.

“4th Branch” dissects the idea of a free press in the USA with Chomsky-esque skill. “Freedom Of Speech” sees him revel in his freedom from artistic influence from a big music label. And, all the while, his metaphors and similes continue to overflow with references to other key moments in world politics and history.

One criticism made of Revolutionary Vol. 2 is that, at times, the production lets Immortal Technique down. These moments are rare, though, and it’s far more often that the austere production frees his voice to take centre stage. After all, his lyrical content is why he’s such a cult hero, and it’s why you’ll come back and back to this album.

Tracks

Immortal Technique – Peruvian Cocaine

Immortal Technique – Obnoxious

Buck 65 – Talkin’ Honky Blues (November 2003)

A world apart from any of his previous work, this is The Great American Novel on wax. His tone had developed from youthful to gravel-voiced, his raps from abstract to cynical. Talkin’ Honky Blues is like taking a boxcar ride with a storytelling, depression-era hobo.

Production that varies between jovial and haunting pulls together a mix of ripping yarns and philosophical observations. Sometimes the beats are as simple as the pleasures he discusses (“perfection is where… there’s 2 for 1 milkshakes on Tuesdays”).

Other times, like on the opening track Leftfielder, tracks are leaden with reverb, samples, cuts and scratches. Equally, lyrics vary from the hope of Wicked and Weird, through the principled pride of Craftsmanship to the embittered Tired Out. Perhaps the zenith of the album, this cathartic tale of infidelity, conceit and self-destruction illustrates the futility of regret beautifully.

From the moment you hit play, you’re on a Jack Kerouac road-trip, amidst the golden era of Pax Americana and spending a hedonistic night with 1950s beatniks. You’re listening to elements of Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits.

Crucially, you’re listening to Buck 65 roll all this up with his very own quirky sense of humour, his tales of hope and heartbreak, his raw honesty and his unique metaphors – this right here is Buck 65.

Video & track

Buck 65 – Wicked and Weird

Buck 65 – Tired Out

Words by MF Hart. Read our review of 2000, 2001 & 2002.

South London mix maker Abjekt has done us all a favour and made up a slick 30min mix of Minnesota’s finest – Doomtree. If you’re not already familiar with the raw illness that is Doomtree – this would be a good place to introduce yourself to it.

Tracklist:
1 – Legend Recognize Legend – Lazerbeak
2 – Stand Up [Let’s Get Murdered] – P.O.S.
3 – Suicide Jimmy Snuffa – Hand Over First
4 – Bullpen – Dessa
5 – We’re Working Hard – Paper Tiger
6 – Slow Burn – Sims & Mike Mictlan
7 – 1999 – Cecil Otter
8 – Game Over [Go Big Or Go Home Boy] – Mike Mictlan
9 – Half-Cocked Concepts – P.O.S.
10 – Like You Mean It – Sims
11 – Jaded – Cecil Otter, Dessa & P.O.S.
12 – No Homeowners – Doomtree

Listen:
Go get Adobe Flash Player!

DOWNLOAD (mp3 – 66mb)

If you like what you hear, support Doomtree and buy their music.

Photo by jcbehm

As said on VBS.tv:
“For the first part of the new season of Skate Europe we traveled to Italy. Besides the Milano Centrale train station and Giorgio Zattonni, there probably is not much the general skate public knows about Italian skateboarding.

“We first arrived in Rome and were promptly taken to their new skate park located across the street from Cinecitta Studios, just about every skater in Rome was there because who can resist a fresh concrete park. We had a chance to talk with Ale Martoriati and Alessandro Gargiulo about being a skater and sticking with it in football crazed Rome.

“On the way up to Milan we stopped in Savarna to meet up with Giorgio Zattonni, Italy’s first international pro, to talk a little bit about his personal history. Milan was the next destination, and we got a chance to skate with Max Bonassi, the recognized father of Italian skateboarding.

“Along with his long time friend, and important skater in his own right, Claudio Bernardini they run Bastard Clothing. The building that Bastard is housed in is old movie theatre outfitted with one of the most beautiful wooden bowls that hangs over the whole office.

“These might not be the most well know people in global skateboard history, but they certainly are some of the most die hard.”

See more on VBS.tv – Skate Europe & Skate Europe Season 2

Sage Francis – Personal Journals (April 2002)

“I’m different,
In a different way,
The only thing that stays the same is change.”

Sage Francis represented a growing movement of emcees who dispensed with hip-hop traditions of braggadocio and battle rhymes. Instead, drawing influences from the indie and emo genres, they laid bare their souls for us. Growing pains, relationship inadequacies and loneliness were all fair game.

Weaving this together with his undoubted prowess as a spoken-word poet, Paul ‘Sage’ Francis presented a persona that was formidable.

Whilst there were many similarities in his rhyme flow to other slam poets, what marked out Personal Journals was its completeness as an album. Never does Sage stray from the discipline. This is a music album, and these are all songs. No poetic cul-de-sacs here, no monologues grafted onto beats.

The one poem, Hopeless, is unashamedly naked and acts like a skit. Production by Sixtoo, Alias and Odd Nosdam gives the album a classic anticon sound – and a strong hip-hop core.

Unlike Saul Williams’ Amethyst Rock Star a year previous, this was an album tightly-focused around a handful of key themes and, crucially, underpinned by a charismatic sense of humour that drew you in. Nowhere is this better exemplified than on Eviction Notice.

A stark, candid tune about an acrimonious break-up featuring a post-modern voiceover describing the tune on the bridge, it has the potential to be insufferably pretentious. Yet Sage’s charm pulls it together, “I’m in the house y’all, And ain’t no new boyfriend gonna kick me out y’all”.

Personal Journals was Sage Francis’ only album on anticon records, yet it is a cornerstone of their portfolio. They are the perfect fit. It’s an album that makes you smile, makes you think and leaves you moved.

Tracks

Crack Pipes / Different (Live)

Smoke and Mirrors

El-P – Fantastic Damage (May 2002)

“Oh you didn’t know that the apocalypse was here? You didn’t realise we were in the middle of World War III and that we’re all gonna die soon?”
(Revenge of the Robots DVD interview)

Fantastic Damage dropped in the aftermath of the events of September 11th 2001. It truly felt like we were in the last days. Enduring images of the attacks were repeated ad finitum on your TV. Clumsy responses by the Bush Administration, both diplomatically and militarily, seemed only to exacerbate the problem. On top of that, there was the Patriot Act, the ‘terror alert’ colour scale and Guantanamo Bay detention camp. George Orwell’s 1984 looked less like a novel and more like an instruction manual.

Fantastic Damage was written, and produced right in the epicentre of the madness – solely by El-P. He walked these panic-gripped streets and captured them on record – like Hans Solo frozen in carbonite. From start to finish, the sound is urgent, paranoid, and claustrophobic.

The listener is constantly overloaded, forever assaulted by feedback, robotic squeals, synth rhythms and basslines – all underpinned by classic boom-bap beats. If Armageddon had a soundtrack, this would be it.

On the mic, El-P comes like the paranoid, sci-fi obsessed conspiracy nut you’d want him to be. Blending influences of Public Enemy and Kool G Rap with his passion for the work of authors like Philip K. Dick, Fantastic Damage is sometimes street rap, sometimes futuristic fantasy and other times a metaphor for political thought. No more paranoid is El-P than on Deep Space 9mm, no more candid than on Stepfather Factory, no more hopeless than on T.O.J.

If I had to choose just one album from the last ten years for my desert island, Fantastic Damage is the one. Fantastic Damage is like broadcasts from a resistance movement, and utterly consuming for it. Until next time, stay strong, stay alive.

Videos

Stepfather Factory

Deep Space 9mm

Atmosphere – God Loves Ugly (June 2002)

“For those who wanna ride,
Come on climb aboard,
Imma be an asshole,
For as long as I’m ignored”

Bitter, horny, arrogant, insecure, highly-strung, crass. Show me a man in his late 20s who isn’t all these things and I’ll show you a liar. It’s the truth, and the truth was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Atmosphere’s Slug just put it on wax.

On Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly, Slug is turned up to eleven. The album is almost exclusively an opportunity to savage himself and women. Written amidst the fallout of a break-up, it is self-flagellatory, misogynistic and aggressive. If it wasn’t executed so well, if we couldn’t all sympathise – even just a little bit – it wouldn’t be such a damn good listen.

Behind all the bitterness, all the anger, the relationship wreckage, bumps a collection of beats that are delicately beautiful, heartbreaking in their melancholy. Ant weaves 60s and 70s soul samples with mournful piano loops, reminiscent of mid-90s RZA at his finest. Never has a requiem to a relationship sounded so expertly crafted.

A criticism leveled at God Loves Ugly is that it’s a tough listen, it’s unrelenting and the themes are repetitive. Granted, it’s not an album you’d put on every day. But when the right moment comes, there’s not a better cathartic experience than dropping F*ck You Lucy at top volume and drinking til you puke.

Video & track

God Loves Ugly – Promo Cartoon

Fuck You Lucy

Mr Lif – I Phantom (September 2002)

So meteoric was its rise, and so prolific the artists on roster, that Definitive Jux had an almost folklore-like context by the time I Phantom dropped. Mr Lif’s superb EP Emergency Rations also provided the backdrop this high-concept longplayer. Within the opening track, references are made to Lif still being on the run, and to ‘Carlos the midget’, the infamous gun dealer from Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein.

The grand narrative to I Phantom follows Lif from death, through resurrection to a nuclear holocaust. There’s plenty of room within this arc for Lif to spit his trademark politically-conscious raps, and he doesn’t disappoint. Railing against wage-slave existence, consumer culture and the effects on family relationships, he tips his hat to Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy and Gang Starr with both style and content. By the time he tears into global power politics on Earthcrusher, he’s back in the territory where he ripped it on Emergency Rations – and the standards are just as high.

El-P’s strong influence is there for all to hear. Not only is he dominant on the production credits, he worked with Lif to create the concept of the album. It’s, therefore, no surprise to find themes such as the apocalypse in I Phantom as they are in other El-P projects. Here, however, the production style is decidedly more funky. Beats are cleaner and more stripped back, leaving tracks like Return of the B-Boy as straight-up bangers as well as full of lyrical dexterity.

A Mr Lif live show has always been as much about having fun as getting preachy, and that ethic is reflected in I Phantom. It’s just as easy for Lif to rock a party as it is for him to spit knowledge – a beauty of hip-hop that should never be underestimated.

Videos

Live From the Plantation

Return of the B-boy

MC Paul Barman – Paullelujah! – (October 2002)

All too rarely an album is released that’s just pure fun. Even rarer a find is a great ‘funny’ album. Yet Paullelujah! achieves both feats comfortably. So expertly crafted is the record, so well written the raps, so accurate the observations that it transcends the concept of a comedy album and just becomes a great hip-hop album.

A Jewish American emcee, Paul Barman draws on a myriad of influences past and present to create his material. The irreverence of Woody Allen, the frat-boy brashness of the Jerky Boys and South Park, the toilet humour of a Kevin Smith film and, strangely, a hint of the classic Playstation game Parappa The Rapper all jump out – and the result is a joyful slice of fun.

Sometimes he’s gloriously juvenile, like on his ode to flatulence, Burping & Farting. Other times hilariously self effacing, like on the sarcastic ‘players anthem’ Cock Mobster. Throughout it all, he’s verbally adroit. Even when he moves toward the dangerous ground of sincerity he excels. Old Paul is an impassioned self defence, whilst Talking Time Travel is genuinely touching.

Prince Paul and MF DOOM laid down tracks for Paullelujah!, and the fantastic tunes will keep you coming back to this album. Now over eight years old, I still find it on regular rotation. There’s a lot to be said for an album that makes you happy.

Tracks

Excuse You

MC Paul Barman website »

Count Bass D – Dwight Spitz (December 2002)

“Jazz ain’t the past,
This music’s gonna last,
And as the facts unfold,
Remember who foretold,
The 90s,
Will be the decade of a jazz thing.”
(Gang Starr – Jazz Thing)

When you choose a name that’s a pun on a legend like Count Basie, it’s pretty clear where your loyalties lie. With Dwight Spitz, Count Bass D created an album full of a dreamy warmth that just makes you sit back and smile. Crackling vocal samples, ripe synth melodies and peaceful, wiseguy raps take you on a nostalgic, laid-back journey through black jazz and soul.

The resulting sound is lush and voluptuous. Dwight Spitz is made with a love and tenderness so rare in hip-hop albums. The rich instrumental backdrop recalls the sultry qualities of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, the eccentricities of a Madlib joint, the record collection of Jay Dilla.

On the mic, he sounds every inch a dude – exuding an effortless cool that’s infectious. There are obvious influences to his style, Guru, Phife Dawg and Q-Tip come through in the pace and content of his flow. But there’s also an unmistakeable likeness to the GZA, in his vocal tone if not subject matter. His affinity with MF DOOM and Edan is not just for the sake of keeping good company either, he has much in common with them.

It would be easy to continue noting the references weaved into the album. Yes, it reminds you of DAISY age rap, of Mos Def, of Common but, most importantly, Dwight Spitz is just a pleasure to listen to. Hit play and start smiling.

Tracks

How we Met ft. Edan

Seven Years

Nas – God’s Son (December 2002)

Is it a choice with our heads, or with our hearts? Is God’s Son really one of the best hip-hop albums of the last ten years, or are we tipping a nostalgic nod to one of hip-hop’s greats? Plenty of people might think the latter. God’s Son clearly never scales the heights of Illmatic. But should Nas be judged by a bar that he himself set so high? For almost any other artist, God’s Son would be seen as an absolute triumph – and it should be no different for Nasir Jones.

He comes out of the blocks fast. No intro skits on this joint. Straight into one hard tune. Get Down’s unashamedly pop sampling of James Brown’s The Boss wins you over immediately – then Nas drops storytelling that rap had been sorely missing for years. By the time you hear the opening click-clack of Made You Look, you know he’s back. Fierce, straight hype bars from start to finish and a beat that breathes new life into the classic Apache loop, make this one of the biggest joints of the decade.

The beef with Jay-Z rumbles on, thanks to Last Real Nigga Alive, and the hypnotic, cyclical production on Zone Out sounds like a prototype of Lil’ Wayne’s A Mili. Sure, there are moments where you need to give him a little slack – I Can, Thugz Mansion and Dance are naive at best, schmaltzy at worst. Yet he just about keeps it on track and finishes with the absolutely stunning Heaven – where Jully Black’s voice ties together a truly beautiful tune.

So is God’s Son a must-listen from the last ten years? Well, put it this way, the list would be weaker without it’s presence.

Videos

Made You Look

Heaven

Words by MF Hart. Read our review of 2000 & 2001.