Metal Lungies: Beat Drop – Best of 2009

Metal Lungies hosted a massive two-part (and possibly three-part) Beat Drop to wrap up the year. All contributors chose their 5 favorite beats of the year and just gushed over them. I chose the first 5 that came to mind …… which coincidentally all come from albums off my Best Rap Albums of 2009 list (yes, you are correct, I’ve really only listened to like 3 and a half albums all year, I’m a simple man). I chose Alchemist’s “That’ll Work,” G-Side’s “In The Rain,” Juicy J’s “Purple Kush,” Diamond District’s “Who I Be,” and DJ Quik’s “Do You Know,” though the last one didn’t make the cut (I guess ML thought my 140-character write-up was just plain lazy and they’d be right). There’s lots of good writing in the entire piece and plenty more good music to be heard that I’ve only barely scratched the surface myself. Here’s what I wrote for the Alchemist joint:

Three 6 Mafia is perfect for this track because this Alchemist beat is along the same lines of Satanic hip-hop that Three 6 came up on earlier in their career (and the style they went back to this year). The difference being that Three 6 beats sound like gargoyles, church steeples, and bloody goblets and shit. This beat sounds like a record being played backwards, twisting a nice sunny melody into a secret message from Lucifer.

Zombies Ate My Rappers

“I was overseas one time years back doing some shows with Havoc and P, and I remember looking out at a packed crowd one night thinking, ‘goddam look at all these rap zombies’!

I dunno why.

They just all had their hands up, and the collaborative sound their off-pitch, accented mumbling made them sound and look like a bunch of fiending hip hop ghouls.”

Alchemist cites this experience as the original inspiration for his latest music video, “Lose Your Life”, and when I read that, I immediately took the zombie image as a slight on the rap audience as if to say we’re all mindless consumers, hungry for beats, hungry for rhymes, hungry for instant gratification with no stopping to think about what we’re doing with ourselves.

Beat Drop Revisited: Alchemist @ Metal Lungies

I had the pretty prestigious honor (like seriously, I’m kinda high off this) of being invited to participate in one of Metal Lungies’ renowned Beat Drops. For Beat Drops, Metal Lungies invites various bloggers and even artists that they’ve connected with to talk about their favorite beats from a single producer. This time, the subject is Alchemist. They only let us choose one beat each this time which is actually great because I know criminally little about Alc. I chose Pharoahe Monch’s “No Mercy” with the incomparable M.O.P. because I’m always trying to find excuses to talk about Pharoahe. Writing my contribution for the Beat Drop was actually the inspiration for the brand new Mondays with Monchichi series. Check it out:

While “Hell”, the track immediately preceding it on Pharoahe’s album, is a glimpse into the dark recesses of Hell, “No Mercy” is an adrenaline-filled ride through Hell itself. The beat sounds like you’re being thrown into the midst of a thermonuclear, biochemical World War III fought between Dick Cheney and Beelzebub. Alchemist salvages this gem of a sample from an obscure, B-grade ’70s action flick The Last Run and constructs the beat almost entirely from different elements of it–from the terrifying but beautiful string loop to the intermittent stabs to the foreboding flute intro. I like to put this on in the car driving home from work. Because after a long day of slave labor leaves you spiritually broken and battered, nothing else gives you that rush of power like banging your head and screaming “SHOW NO MERCY! For the love of this shit here, niggaz are bloodthirsty!” at the top of your lungs while the three other cars around you in traffic pretend not to look or hear or laugh. But yknow what? Fuck’em because this song is serious.

Be sure the read all the other contributions too. I hold most of these contributors in high esteem. And bookmark Metal Lungies, mayn.