Madlib, Quasimoto, Monk Hughes, Yesterday's New Quintet, DJ Rels, Sound Directions, and Beat Konducta are just some of the alias' of Otis Jackson Jr. His father was a jazz session player and bandleader and his mom a folk/blues singer who practically raised him in the recording studio. Music is like breathing to 'Lib, who said he made his first beat when he was ten years old.I saw Madlib as an extension or natural progression from Herbie Hancock, in the way he likes to explore sounds and rhythms. He's carrying the avant-garde torch passed to him by artists like Sun-Ra, Roy Ayers, and Stanley Cowell. Madlib is a musical arranger first and foremost, like his father, but he likes to "dabble"; which is where all the alias' come in. Madlib is the hip hop producer, Quasimoto is his rapper alter-ego, Beat Konducta is the composer, and the countless others are mostly his jazz side projects. His excentricities may be a by-product of his love of marijuana, which will help you understand the state in which he makes his music.
Not included in your listening are his collaborative albums with J-Dilla and MF Doom (Jaylib and Madvillain). Both considered classics by the underground hip hop community and yours truly. Also omitted from your listening are his straight up jazz albums from Yesterday's New Quintet and Sound Directions, which I felt Beth and David might want to check out.
Quasimoto was my introduction into Otis' world, so you will take the same path I did. Don't take Lord Quas very seriously, his rhymes aren't thought provoking but his beats bang. From there Madlib marries some jazz classics with hip hop beats on "Shades of Blue". The Beat Konducta gives us a collection of brief thoughts on grand ideas, and Jackson Conti takes us to Brazil for a lesson in jazz. Below I have some of Madlib's recent production with artists you all have heard of, give them a listen and get a feel for Madlib's sound.
Required Listening:
Quasimoto - The Unseen (2000)
Madlib - Shades of Blue (2003)
Beat Konducta - Vol. 1-2:Movie Scenes (2006)
Jackson Conti - Sujinho (2008)
Well, Madlib certainly gave us quite a variety with these selections. Perhaps I am just too white, but I certainly did not experience that connection that I described in the last post with The Unseen. Some of the lyrics were relatively interesting, but overall I just do not understand rap. It may just be me, but if you go around stabbing people in the chest with pitchforks, then you shouldn’t be surprised to be labeled as a bad character. I did like the title of track 3 in Microphone Mathematics, however it seemed the only math going on was counting up the years to serve in prison for the multiple criminal acts. Overall the lyrics were a bit entertaining, but there wasn’t a lot of variety in the songs, and the beats were not all that impressive.
ReplyDeleteShades of Blue was my favorite album of the group. This one had longer tracks that gave me the opportunity to get into them. This reminded me a lot of some of the Beastie Boy instrumentals in that it was Jazz, but with a bit of hip hop to it. My favorite track was Song for My Father because of the flute solo, which reminds me of Flute Loop by Beastie Boys. I also really liked Stepping into Tomorrow. When listening to this at work, I have to listen to it through my headphones. At the very end of Slim’s Return, when he has the music alternating between the left and right speakers, I got quite nauseous and almost had to throw up in my trashcan. Thank you for that Madlib. Also, I am quite certain that John Legend had to ask permission to use the beats in Stormy for Save Room as they are identical.
Beat Konducta was very difficult to get into just because all of the tracks were less than 2 minutes in length. This album was all over the place. Sometimes it was like a Busta Rhymes song, other times like Salt N’ Peppa, then Kanye West style. Since this came out after a lot of these artists, I am guessing that he was actually influenced by those groups. I did often find myself tapping my feet along to the beats in here, but by the time I noticed that I had gotten into the song, it was over. There were way too many interludes and experimental tracks in this for me.
Jackson Conti reminded me of Herbie Hancock week. This sounded much more like traditional jazz in the lack of Hip Hop, the length of the tracks, and the lack of vocals. This one will fit in nicely with Inventions and Dimensions in my work track list as you can get lost in these easily. This was my second favorite album and I honestly cannot see how you cannot like this album. I do not think that there are any high points on this album, but it is a pretty solid album overall.
Madlib clearly has a lot of different sounds and I really only like about half of those that I heard. I do think that he should keep away from rap circles and stick to the instrumentation. Thank you for this selection and providing more supporting documentation for me to get more into this genre.
When it comes to Madlib, I think that the most interesting thing about him is his ability to create so much fantastic art out of so many disparate types of music. All one needs to do is listen to 4 selections this week, from the crazy, psychedelic world that his Quasimoto alter ego inhabits, to the jazz and South American influences of his Jackson Conti album, along with stops just about everywhere in between. The man is also one of the most prolific artists in music, and I think it's great how he uses his different alter egos to follow his muse wherever it takes him, creating a character to fit each type of music he's making.
ReplyDeleteMadlib's greatest abilities, in my opinion, are definitely as a producer, but with Quasimoto's "The Unseen" it's still pretty interesting to hear what kinds of ideas the man is able to put into words instead of translating those ideas into mixing records. This album is certainly one of the more unique things I've ever heard, and I remember the first time I heard this a long time ago that my first reaction wasn't all that good. The beats hit me hard upon first listen, but I was just fairly turned off by the helium-sucking effects that Madlib used on his own voice to create Lord Quas. After time has passed with repeated listens to the album, I've grown to enjoy it more with each spin. This is easily the most drug-influenced album of the 4 under review, and listening to it with the knowledge that he was trying to create his own psychedelic world improves the experience for me, I think. After learning more about Madlib, as well, I've come to see some of the benefits of the alter ego, as throughout the album it seems as if he's basically having a conversation with himself about life in general, alternating between Quasimoto and his regular voice. My favorite songs on the album are based upon which songs have the best beats (as that's really what Madlib's all about anyway), and the beats on 'Low Class Conspiracy' and 'Blitz' are amazing. My favorite song of the bunch, though, is also one of my favorite hip-hop songs, 'Astro Black'. The descending bass line on the song just kills me every time...it's hard for me to really describe this song in any other words than just saying that it's almost perfect. While still being a little bit uneven with the experiments at times, even discounting the vocals this is one of the best instrumental hip-hop albums you'll ever hear.
Due to the cameo appearances between each song by various great jazz musicians, "Shades of Blue" is almost like listening to some amazing radio program, with introductions to each songs. Madlib obviously has a great love of jazz music, and I can only imagine how excited he must have been during the creation of this album to be able to have the unlimited access to the Blue Note records archives he needed to put something like this together. I think this album, along with "Beat Konducta" show his true abilities as a composer in the way that he's able to create such a complete composition out of so many different jazz samples. I also feel that this is an important records for our times as it has probably introduced many younger listeners to true jazz music by mixing it with hip hop beats, making it more of something that a generation that didn't grow up on jazz can appreciate. Despite not having any obvious standouts to me, the entire album as a whole makes for an extremely chill, enjoyable listening experience for a time when you just want something to sit back, relax, and nod your head to.
ReplyDeleteThe "Beat Konducta" album was my favorite, as I think it best shows Madlib's supreme mastery of so many different forms of hip-hop beat making. Alternating between jazz influenced numbers, psychedelic soundscapes, old-soul sample loops, and some straight street beats, this album has it all, and put altogether it's amazing, despite being a bit of a hodge-podge with no real cohesion from track to track. I honestly think that the track sequencing itself is actually a bit of a metaphor for Madlib himself, in that both are just so all over the place stylistically. Every single song on the album is a mini-masterpiece in my opinion, but two songs especially stood out to me. The first of these songs was 'Snake Charmer', and this is entirely due to where the beat actually came from. If any of you ever played Mike Tyson's Punch-Out as a kid, you might recognize the main sample on this song as the theme music for the fight against the character Great Tiger....I had to hear this song 3 or 4 times in a row the first time I heard it. The other standout for me was 'Chopstyle'. This song definitely fits the psychedelic mold, and is seriously one of the greatest beats I think I've ever heard. The way he introduces the chiming synth, and then just causes it to become so woozy sounding over the course of the song is amazing. He even removes it at one point, only to bring it back....which only heightens the strength of this one small sample that makes for an entire brilliant song. This album by itself shows that hip-hop production will remain safe for many years to come, and hopefully many aspiring musicians get ahold of this and learn it by heart.
The Jackson Conti album was also very good, and I think it's greatest attribute is it's ability to create a sound that you can just get lost in. Like most Brazilian influenced music, it has an extremely summery tropical vibe to it, which was very nice to listen to while I was driving around in the cold rain earlier this afternoon. This album is just all the more evidence (if any was needed) that Madlib is just a brilliant musical talent, and he can succeed in just about any style he sets his oft-stoned mind to. This was probably my least favorite of the four albums as I'm just more naturally into the beat-oriented work that Madlib does, but I still love this album and will be listening to it again repeatedly in the future when I feel like being transported to another world.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, it's obvious that I loved Justin's selection this week, and with all the praise I've given to these albums, none of them even come close to comparing with Madlib's masterwork. If anyone else even has any of the slightest interest in checking any of the man's other work out, immediately find a way to get ahold of his work under the title Madvillain. It's a co-production with the rapper MF Doom, and is one of my personal favorite records of all time. Although, Justin could just be saving that album for a Doom week sometime in the future, in which case you'll be understanding what I'm saying at that point anyway.
This is not my type of music, at all. Trying to keep an open mind, I liked the Madlib and Beat Konducta stuff OK, and Jackson Conti wasn’t too bad. I didn’t really like Quasimoto, but at least I feel as though it’s healthy to get out of my comfort zone sometimes. That, I will say about this week.
ReplyDeleteStarting with Quasimoto, “The Unseen” put me off quite a bit. First, I did not enjoy the “Quasimoto” voice at all, although it did provide contrast for the much preferred voice of Madlib himself. David had said early on that I probably wouldn’t so it was less of a shock when I heard it - I was able to mentally prepare, you could say. In the song “Bad Character,” it almost sounds like he has a lisp. If only everyone with a speech impediment could grow up to be a rapper, JK. Alright, I’ll lay off. At least I can appreciate the complexity of the arrangements and all the stuff that must have been going through his mind while making the album.
I read on Wikipedia that upon its release, it took people a while to get the hang of this album, which I can understand due to its abstract nature. That being said, it’s hard for me to like this kind of music because I really don’t feel like I “get it.” It makes me feel downright ignorant really, and I tend to develop a complex.
It’s like in the documentary “My Kid Could Paint That,” which revolves around 4-year-old Marla Olmstead and the works that made her tens of thousands of dollars and made her a celebrity before her 5th birthday. For some people the question was whether or not she actually painted them or if her dad, who is an artist, did, because they were “so good” there is no way some kid could have done that. I didn’t see it. Like the name of the documentary itself, I thought the question should have been whether or not they were that good in the first place. They were good, but the Average Joe would have trouble picking out a Marla from a similar abstract painting or even another child’s painting. If you didn’t recognize Madlib’s/Quasimoto’s voice and were hearing this for the first time, would you be able to tell this music is his? Furthermore, if wasn’t him, would you still hold it in such high esteem? Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe people grew to like the album later because they grew to know Madlib as an artist. To me, without the name, the work does not stand alone as anything really special. Maybe if I were on shrooms. I might have liked it a little more without the rapping. Due to the fact that I understood about 2 percent of what he was rapping, to me he wasn’t saying anything unique, just talking about hoes and jail time like every other generic.
On “Shades of Blue,” I felt immediate relief to have moved away from noise and the n-word to something a little more appealing – jazz samples. Despite the fact that I haven’t really enjoyed any of our jazz weeks all that much, this was more appealing to me because the beat kept it interesting. Additionally, I think it’s amazing the way he was able to make this album flow the way he did using all those different musical compositions. Without those, the album might have been as generic as the sound that plays over and over in “Slim’s Return,” which you may have recognized from Ben’s “Chigger Nicken” beat made on David’s computer.
ReplyDeleteI did like, as David mentioned, how the album sounds like you’re listening to a radio program, which takes me back to the days I would lie in bed with a boom box before going to sleep, flipping through the stations. Ahh, memories. I think it really sets the mood in a positive way.
On “Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes,” “Beat Konducta” apparently was trying to lay the soundtrack for a movie that played only in his mind. It’s a good concept, so I listened to see whether I could identify what type of movie it would have been. I haven’t exactly landed anywhere, but I’m leaning toward a badly-acted gangsta horror flick. Ever seen Snoop Dogg in “Bones?” The movie, not the TV show.
I really liked the message in the song “African Walk” that says, “Only you can tell which sounds are correct to your ears.” I think that should be a theme for this entire blog and my way of thinking when it comes to this type of music. Outside of actual technical musical skill and popular opinion, good music is really just what you like. I really liked the song in general as well, from its “wow wow” porn sound to its organ playing that reminds me of “The Ghost and Mister Chicken” for some reason… I also liked the track “Open (Space)” for its beat and creepy undertones.
I took a step back with Sujinho, of which I am not really a fan. I still like it better than the first album, but it appealed to me more as background music than anything else. I can appreciate the ethnic sounds on this album as another new venture by the artist and I liked the drums in the first part of “Brazilian Sugar,” but nothing else stood out to me.
What I can really take from this week is not an artist that I’ll listen to again because I likely won’t, but an artist I can respect for his dabbling with various sounds and styles. From a girl whose job for three years was to do a little bit of everything, I have to give him props for his work and his accomplishments.
Going into this week I had no idea what I had in store for me. From reading what Justin wrote about Madlib, I assumed I had another Herbie Hancock week on my hands. Not that I do not appreciate what Herbie Hancock has done for music, but it really is not for me. I am now starting my musical journey with an open mind, and putting aside any preconceived notions I may have about Madlib the artist.
ReplyDeleteWith Quasimoto, The Unseen, I really liked the intro to the album. I think it is a great way to introduce an album in that way, it helps to set the mood. As I am going through the album I am already noticing that it is not necessarily my usual kind of music. I, like Thomas, am not a huge rap fan. While I can appreciate what “Madlib” does for Mixing, and think for that type of music he is really good at it. As in the song, “Goodmorning Sunshine” to me the song is all over the place, but for those who enjoy the mixing style, it is telling a story as you go along and for that I can enjoy it. The song I enjoyed the most on this album was, “Low Class Conspiracy,” I liked the beat in the background and found the flow more soothing, than any other tracks on the album. I also thought the song, “Come on Feet” was pretty funny, I enjoyed it for humorous reasons. All in all this was an interesting album, coming from someone who really has no idea how to critique this kind of music.
Into Shades of Blue, I am already enjoying this album much more than the first. I have to agree with Thomas, in that it reminds me of some Beastie Boys Instrumental. It definitely has more of a jazz aspect, and for that reason I find myself enjoying it. I like the use of horns in “Distant Land’ and just the all around mood of the song, it is very much relaxing to me. The song “Stormy” I really enjoyed for nostalgic reasons. The Classics IV originally did it, and I remember my mom really liking it, so I heard it a lot growing up. I still like the original version the best, but do enjoy Madlibs rap/jazz version of it. The song, “Dance with my Father” reminded me of some background music to like a Pink Panther movie. It really took me back in time, which I think is hard for an artist to do now a days. The other thing I have to say about this album is that I do enjoy the continuous intros to songs. Not trying to repeat myself but it does help you get a sense of what the song is about and gets you into it more. I did enjoy this album and hope the rest of the albums stay on this trend.
Beat Konducta, is quite a unique album. I like the fact that he made these songs to seem like background music for a movie. At least that is what I got out of it. The album really is all over the place, and I was not able to get into it as easily as Shades of Blue. I did like the track, “ Tape Hiss” it was more upbeat and you can kind of just picture a guy strolling down the street, walking to the beat of the music, waving hello to people. The other song on the album that stood out was actually the intro, “The Comeback,” I liked the mixing of the woman singing in the background. For me this album was almost too all over the place, and a little hard to follow. Some of the stuff I enjoyed and other things I was just waiting to get onto the next track.
ReplyDeleteThe last album, “Sujinho” was a little reminiscent of “Shades of Blue.” It is back to more of a jazz feel, however now I get the sense that he is trying to take me to Exotic lands or something. One minute it sounds like something out of Africa, the next minute the song sounds like it is Brazilian. I like the fact that he is diversifying from one song to the next and it helps you to anticipate where the next song will take you. I really liked “Barumba.” It was definitely more my style of song and found it very soothing. I enjoy the fact that each album was very unique in its own way, and maybe it is the weed doing the talking…..whatever it is, I am sure he will always keep his fan base guessing. This week was much more enjoyable for me than Herbie Hancock week, and I know there are a few songs I wouldn’t mind putting on my I pod. Well done Madlib, Quasimoto, Jackson Conti, etc. etc.
The reaction to Madlib is exactly what I expected. Most everything 'Lib does is "abstract", meaning not formulated or pop. I was just trying to expand your listening pallette. I honestly wish I had a picture of your faces when you were listening to Quasimoto. Shades of Blue is one of my favorite all-time albums and it introduced me to jazz artists like Horace Silver and Donald Byrd, as I mentioned to David my cd is really scratched up from repeated listenings. You will all be relieved that my next artist will not be jazz inflected or as abstract.
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