Busdriver Interview and Profile: “The Avatar of ‘Less Yeses, More No’s’ in the Era of ‘Yes, We Can”

A recent interview and profile of rapper Busdriver, written for TheFanzine.com.

“That’s the problem with underground hip-hop is that we don’t have street cred with niggas in the hood,” Busdriver expounded from the stage of Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre while muscularly wearing a mauve polo shirt. “College kids just download the shit, so it’s a small demographic we’re chasing after.” Opening for UK grime rapper Dizzee Rascal and Definitive Jux label head El-P at the end of a month long tour, Busdriver tore through his song lyrics at nearly double the already astonishing speed of his albums, pulsating around the stage, feigning anger and ecstasy, a mist of perspiration rising up into the stage lights while he freestyled about walking down Wilshire Blvd. in cowboy spurs. At one point he grabbed a life-sized cut-out of an eighties gold chain-wearing rapper and thrust the microphone into its face and––perhaps in an effort to catch his breath––demanded, “Now sing your part.”

Read the complete article here.

Mike Ladd “Negrophilia”, Daedelus “Exquisite Corpse”

Originally published in XLR8R Spring 2005

Mike Ladd
NEGROPHILIA
Thirsty Ear

Instead of cramming jazz into hip-hop‘s beats, Ladd lets hip-hop spill out in a manner that would make Ornette Coleman and other pursuers of freedom proud. Name dropping Duchamp and Malinowski, he isn‘t trying to be clever, just not interested in dumbing it down. A bevy of instrumental tracks allow the talented live band to work their chops. On “Back at Ya,” a duck-walking oboe riff is backed by what sounds like Tony Allen in a garage punk band: ominous, sad, sarcastic, and smart. Most of these tracks aren‘t exactly crowd pleasers, instead Ladd has carved out an unusual and consistent album.

Daedelus
EXQUISITE CORPSE
Mush Records

MF Doom speaks the truth when he says, “This beat is strictly retarded, yo/sound like it came off the late Ricky Ricardo show.” Daedelus gets a lot of mileage from the contrast between his fly beats and string-soaked samples from old TV soundtracks and public domain 78s. Mike Ladd guests, describing the forlorn smell of Taco Bell as experienced by an expat returning to the US, and Jogger‘s remix has pants-wettingly good synths. Exquisite Corpse is a concept album about death: it isn‘t a showtune about getting gunned down in Vegas, gangsta-style, but more like a lullaby for dying in your sleep.

More reviews for XLR8R.