I'd had the lofty goal of heading into the city and buying a CD or two, a goal soon subverted when my friend at the CD store handed me two CDs. Those CDs were DJ Format's Music for the Mature B-Boy and the Black Eyed Peas' Elephunk.
Elephunk was quickly dismissed for two reasons, 1) their last album, Bridging The Gap, while good, only endured several listens before being relegated to the back of my CD collection; and, 2) it guests both Papa Roach and Justin Timberlake.
I was expecting Music for the Mature B-Boy to be another disappointment as well. Man, was I wrong. Coming in at a slender, listenable 45 minutes, Music for the Mature B-Boy is an amazing collection of old school funky hip hop songs.
The MC who gets the most of a work out is an MC called Abdominal, who guests on three out of the ten songs - ten not including the obligatory hip hop intro.
Abdominal (who I'd never heard of) is an amazing MC who reminds me of the Day-Glo MCs of the late 80's and early 90's, dropping light-hearted, lucid rhymes.
Akil and Chali 2na from Jurassic 5 also get a workout on the album's single We Know Something You Don't Know; another excellent little song, but that's hardly surprising given the guest vocalists.
Fatski guests on the song B-Boy Code Part. 2 a song that starts with his vocals and some scratched beats before kicking into a gem of a bassline. I'd never heard of Fatski before; he's a great MC but not as charismatic as Abdominal or the Jurassic 5 cats.
The other guest on the album is Aspects, another guy that I'd never heard of (I think I'm losing my touch because this whole CD came out of left field), but one that I'm going to keep an eye out for.
The rest of the songs are instrumentals, four in total; these are all amazing. Two of the instrumentals are up-tempo little numbers, and the other two are down-tempo.
Going with the main feel of the album, the instrumental tracks are situated comfortably in the realm of funk. Of the four songs the slower ones are the best, relying not only on energy to get by, but rather on amazingly crafted break beats and cool basslines.
In between the some of the songs there is often a little interlude. Some include some guy talking about the music industry and stuff - I'm not sure from where it would be sampled, it sounds like it's from a movie or something.
Anyhow, this voice sounds kind of paranoid and almost spooky which adds a nice counterpoint to the lightweight, party feel of the rest of the album.
This is also true for another interlude which includes a sample of an old English pop song.
The only negative thing about this album is that the interlude, featuring a quick little beat and an organ, that occurs directly after the Fatski song should really have been stretched out a few minutes and made into a complete song.
I hope that what I have written will be of some assistance.
Reviewed on Thursday, 10 July 2003