It’s been a good minute since I’ve been on here, but trust me, all good things must wait. SwaggerTooth is coming back with a vengeance in early 2010 with Version 2.0 aka SwaggerTooth Reloaded aka SwaggerTooth the Refresh. The BrainTrust has been in a bit of a funk lately, with S Dot pretty much keeping us living via life support with his retarded highly interesting video clips, pictures, and what not.  We love you S Dot–keep dem internets going nuts, homie!

BrainTrust

BlakRoc – The Album

I have been a subscriber to the jam-rock music magazine Relix for about 2 years now, and last month’s issue had something quite odd on the cover:  The members of the blues-rock band The Black Keys, underground hip-hop rapper-slash-actor Mos Def, and the very-commercial rapper/entertainer Jim Jones of Dip Set fame (the “no homo” boys).  Needless to say, this was a very jarring image to see on the cover of this magazine (a magazine that was originally created in the mid-70s for obsessed Grateful Dead fans, also known as Deadheads).  It gets stranger.  The purpose of the cover story was to introduce a new project called BlakRoc, created and executive-produced by…Damon Dash.  Dame Dash?  Yes, that guy who started Roc-A-Fella Records with future hip-hop mogul Jay-Z back in 1996.  I told you it got stranger.

At that point, I did not have high hopes for this project.  But then, I kept my mind open and read on.  I didn’t know anything about The Black Keys, but I later learned that this is a band that I have been sleeping on.  Dame Dash fell in love with The Black Keys sometime in 2008 and instantly wanted to create a project for them.  Upon meeting the band, Dash learned that The Black Keys, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney, grew up as huge hip-hop heads.  The concept was simple:  The Black Keys create tracks with their instruments, then cherry-pick some of their favorite MCs, bring them into the studio, and have them lay down rhymes over the tracks.  What impressed me the most about these dudes from Akron, Ohio was their choice of MCs:  Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Raekwon, RZA, Q-Tip, and Billy Danze of M.O.P. fame (or gangsta rap Bert and Ernie fame…your call).  Dame Dash, of course, rounded out the list of artists by adding his own affiliates Jim Jones, NOE (who suspiciously sounds A LOT like Jay-Z), and R&B singer Nicole Wray.  Mix all that together, and you get BlakRoc.  After reading the Relix article, I decided to give it a shot.

But I didn’t start by buying the BlakRoc album.  Anybody who knows me knows that music is one of my most, if not most, passionate hobbies.  I am always trying to find new quality music, and one of the ways I do that is by investigating the side projects and the influences of my favorite artists.  So, for example, if it turned out that I liked this BlakRoc project, then I would have probably checked out some of The Black Keys.  Instead, I did the opposite, and decided to check out The Black Keys first.  I wanted to hear what they were like pre-BlakRoc, and also to familiarize myself with their sound.  This way, in my opinion, it would be much easier to tell how genuine this new project was.  After one day of listening to their 2006 album Magic Potion, I was hooked to the stripped-down blues-rock riffs and simple, yet profound lyrics.  I bought BlakRoc that same day on Amazon (or iTunes).

The album starts out with the banging track “Coochie” featuring Ludacris and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard.  The instrumentals were created by The Black Keys during the sessions for this album, but the vocals in this track were actually found in RZA’s basement and were recorded some 9 years ago.  The track sets the tone for the rest of the album:  Tight, concise rhymes over impressively original live-instrument tracks.  The next track, “On The Vista” features Mos Def doing his standard rap-singy thing.  He sounds quite comfortable over the piano-laced track, as he should be given the fact that much of his recent music features his own live band, Black Jack Johnson.  There are two tracks on the album, “Dollaz & Sense” and “Tellin’ Me Things”, featuring RZA, and they both bring the ruckus.  On “Dollaz & Sense”, RZA actually does most of the work, as he writes and plays the main guitar riff, and of course, writes and spits his verses.  The video below documents RZA’s time in the studio with The Black Keys and shows the birth of the track, and includes my favorite highlight: RZA recording his verse, which he recites from his BlackBerry, all while smoking a joint.  I think Dem David Dem dreamed about doing this once.

Another highlight of the album is the awesomely titled “Stay Off the Fucking Flowers” featuring Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan fame.  Rae has been known throughout his career as one of hip-hop’s more vivid storytellers with his elevated sense of imagery and wordplay, and he doesn’t disappoint here.  As for Jim Jones, who is probably best known for his club hit “We Fly High” (also known as the “BAAALLIIIIIN’!!!” song), he surprisingly delivers a couple of really nice verses on “What You Do To Me”, also featuring Billy Danze and Nicole Wray, and the radio single with Mos Def “Aint Nothing Like You”.  It’s remarkable what some rappers can do when not driven by mass commercial appeal and record sales…

One of the more amazing things about this project is that the album was recorded in 11 days.  Anybody familiar with the process of putting a full album together can attest to how hard it is to do that for ANY album.  Upon listening to this album, one should be even more impressed.

Trios & Orchestras