Another one from Linkin Park’s Recharged remix LP, featuring guest verses from Cody B. Ware and Styles Of Beyond’s Ryu. Not quite a Fort Minor reunion, but close. “Fort Minor, we major / let’s take it to phase 2 / I’ve been on the internet / Hearing fans talk / maybe we should consider it.”

why i am the baddest deejay known to mankind from them too photography on Vimeo.

The Styles of Beyond, Get Busy Committee, and Fort Minor deejay markets himself hard.

With the sudden popularity of 80′s throwback groups like The Cool Kidz, it has opened doors for the resurrection of classic hip-hop sounds, by people who actually lived through that era. While both Apathy and Ryu (Styles of Beyond, Fort Minor) have had massive success in the underground, they’ve struggled with breaking into the mainstream, both having major label deals go sour via Atlantic and Warner. After the dust settled, the Demigod duo teamed up with producer Scoop Deville, best known for his work with Snoop Dogg & Fort Minor, and also son to Chicano rap legend Kid Frost. Together they form the Get Busy Committee, and with their debut album, Uzi Does It, they reflect on life in L.A. and classic cuts from the 80′s and 90′s.

The end result is a unique style and sound that’s less pandering to the retro audience and instead teeming with indie sensibility. The opening track, “My Little Razorblade” finally utilizes that ridiculous Knife sample from ’05, as Ryu and Ap spit lines of coke over the tracks infectious baseline, original hook in tact. This continues on the synthy “Shoot Me Up”, which knocks with 808 bass and synth as the female vocalist’s sleazy hook animates the guys rhymes. The melodic “I Don’t Care About You” is the most commercial thing we’ve heard yet from these guys, as they sing-rhyme their way out of dead-end relationships, loosely interpolating the Rolling Stones/Soup Dragons “I’m Free”. While the fans of this crew might balk at this potential hit, it’s still a far cry from what pop radio abuses us with day in and day out.

The meat of this album lies in it’s classically styled hip-hop tracks, which pull from a variety of different genres of vintage rap music. “Chillin’ Out Maxin” brilliantly flips a chopped Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire sample over slamming kick-snares that would make Schooley-D proud. The ridiculous “Say Whaaat” pays homage to the forgotten boomin’ system jam, as Ryu and Ap beautifully describe their L.A. surroundings referencing several 80′s staples from the Suzuki Samurai to Donald D. A more modern take on the thumping speaker-popper is “No Time To Speak”, which explores what these two would sound like over high-priced hip-hop production. The result? Slammin’.

The only real misstep here is the bugged out “Diamonds In Your Eyes”, where Ap really attempts to belt out a note, no autotune. Coupled with the fact that the song then launches into JJ Fad territory, complete with Ryu adopting the “Supersonic” flow, it’s not a good look. It’s obvious this was a goof, but you almost want the patented “rappers ending the track with laughter” outro (see Big Daddy Kane’s “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” or De La Soul / Teenage Fanclub “Fallin’”) to validate the fact. Even sillier is their cover of Jodeci’s “Come & Talk To Me”, which chops the original into an almost “Real Love”-esque R&B hip-hop jam. First listen it’s a complete curveball, but somehow they made it work. Perhaps it was Ryu’s “kill yourself motherfucker” ad-lib.

Uzi Does It is yet another satisfying piece of work from the Demigodz / Fort Minor camp, who prove they don’t need a major label behind them to produce excellent music. Both emcees are so talented, that naturally a producer like Scoop would choose to work with them for an entire album. It’s only a matter of time before the execs come knocking again.

]]> http://www.hiphopsite.com/2010/02/05/get-busy-committee-uzi-does-it/feed/ 0 http://www.hiphopsite.com/2005/11/29/fort-minor-rising-tide-tour-edition/ http://www.hiphopsite.com/2005/11/29/fort-minor-rising-tide-tour-edition/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:00:00 +0000 http://0 [cont.]]]>     For the most part “vanity projects” don’t pan out. What is a “vanity project” you ask? It’s when a celebrity becomes so big (and so vein), that they feel they can do anything. The problem with this type of project is that while the average rapper, actor, or athlete, is probably really good at their craft, they aren’t so good in other crafts. Case in point, Shaq is a much better basketball player than he is a rapper or actor (thus making rapping and acting his vanity projects). So when it was announced that Mike Shinoda of rock outfit Linkin Park would embark on a solo hip-hop album, fans and critics of the genre were obviously a bit skeptical. After all, this is nothing more than another vanity project, right? Surprisingly, not so. 

    While Linkin Park is truly an MTV-ready rock-band, they cut their teeth on hip-hop a few years back with their “Reanimation” remix album, which featured remixes of Linkin Park tracks with Pharoahe Monch, Chali 2na, Zion I, Evidence, Aceyalone, Rasco, Planet Asia, Black Thought, and many others. They followed suit again in 2004 with “Collision Course”, which capitalized on the mash-up trend, enlisting Jay-Z to collaborate with them on the six track EP. So LP’s connection to hip-hop has always been there, however their aggressive rock sound has always dominated their music. Fort Minor, on the other hand, extracts Linkin Park emcee and keyboard player Mike Shinoda, leaving the rock sound behind, for an album that executive producer Jay-Z calls an “underground hip-hop record with big sound”. 

     Shinoda takes his craft seriously, in fact a lot more serious than many rappers holding a major label recording contract (which is a sad state of affairs). After producing the entire album himself, rhyming on every track, writing every hook, and even designing the cover art, he then took “The Rising Tied” to Jay-Z and asked him to select the best 16 tracks. Also featuring recent signees to his new Machine Shop imprint, Styles Of Beyond as unofficial members of the group (as featured on six of the album’s tracks), he has produced the surprise sleeper of the year, and easily one of the year’s best albums.   

     Jigga is correct in his branding of this record as an underground hip-hop record, as that’s what it is. Shinoda has brilliantly fooled the TRL audience into buying a smart, well produced, hip-hop album. It begins with the powerful intro “Remember The Name”, which introduces Mike and Styles of Beyond as Fort Minor, over snapping drums and symphonic strings. Immediately following with “Right Now”, Shinoda shows off his own rainy pianos, as he, along with S.O.B. and Black Thought, paint beautiful portraits of the naked city’s eight million stories. It picks up steam when “Petrified” kicks in, an abrasive braggadocio filled party rocker that draws inspiration from the classic Cypress Hill sound (watch out for those neighing horses). 

      He drops the quintessential “speaker-tester” on “In Stereo” (to which Jay-Z attests “that beat is hard!”), but it’s when “Back Home” kicks in you start to realize what an unbelievably consistent album this is. The choppy guitar licks immediately get the head nodding, but when Common drops in, the deal is immediately sealed - and make no mistake, Shinoda’s confident flow has no problem keeping up next to the Chi-Town legend. But everything really comes down to “Cigarettes”, by far the album’s most brilliant song. Here, Shinoda compares mainstream hip-hop music to smoking, stating: “It’s just like a cigarette, it’s something that I do / once in a while, between me and you / it’s just like a cigarette / nobody’s really fooled / I don’t want the truth, I want to feel fuckin’ cool.” This love/hate letter to hip-hop doesn’t scold the art form, but instead takes the blame for being a part of the problem. 

     Then the album takes a more up-tempo direction, with songs like “Believe Me”, which features S.O.B, plus solo percussion from legendary bongo drummer, Bobo; and again on the piano driven “High Road” with John Legend. As things begin to wind down, we find Shinoda dipping a little deeper into his rock roots, on “Red To Black” (feat. Kenna and John Matranga) and “Slip”, as Shinoda tackles topical subject matter about everyday people. (However, neither track take the rock influence to LP levels of angst - which is kind of a good thing). 

     But after delivering 16 solid tracks, Shinoda doesn’t stop there. Digging a bit deeper, we find that there was a lot of material recorded for this project, some of which surfaced in other places. The “deluxe” version of the album includes an additional three tracks (including the questionable omission “Be Somebody” with Lupe Fiasco, last heard on Kanye’s “Touch The Sky”).  On top of all that, Shinoda even teamed with DJ Green Lantern for the Fort Minor “We Major” mixtape, which included an additional 16 tracks of quality material with Styles of Beyond, Apathy, Celph Titled, and Ghostface. Each of these tracks were exclusive remixes or not included on the album for one reason or another (**cough** sample clearances **cough**).

     To phrase an old adage, Mike Shinoda is taking this rap shit serious, not chalking this up as just another vanity project. In an age when one of the best hip-hop albums of the year comes from a member of a popular rock band, it says a lot about the state of the art.