the of mirror eye

* Dalek: Hold Tight (5.5 mb) | Black Smoke Rises (16.0 mb)
From From Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots : Ipecac Recordings : IPC-030

One of my roommates does some after school video workshops with teens and she showed me what they’ve been working on the past semester. Entitled, “This Is Hip-Hop”, the video is a short documentary style piece about what Hip-Hop is/means to the kids in the class and various people that they’ve interviewed, and the video got me thinking about what Hip-Hop means to me.

For the most part, I wouldn’t say that I “live” Hip-Hop, but I definitely have an appreciation for the genre and culture, and listen to enough of it to know what I like. My problem with about 99% of popular Hip-Hop is that they’re doing nothing to extend the art form. The lyrics are tired, the music is uninspiring and, in general, everything sounds like itself. To me, Hip-Hop is all about extending and reinterpreting what came before. And I personally respond to the experimentalism that occurred when Afrika Bambaataa started mixing hip-hop beats with Kraftwerk and Ennio Morricone, the lyrical prowess of Rakim and Public Enemy, the DIY ethic of Grandmaster Flash who created his own mixing decks when none were available and the political nature of the Furious Five who rapped about “White Lines” and “The Message”.

And to me, Dalek (look here) is one such group that combines all of those attributes. Just one listen to their epic, beatless “Black Smoke Rises” should convince you that this isn’t your normal, radio friendly style Hip-Hop. Dalek create an enormous sound that really blows my mind. This is my Hip-Hop.

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