ANIMAL KINGDOM - YOUR CRIME THRILLER FOR 2011...

So Vice magazine gave me this tip about Animal Kingdom and I must say my Orange Wednesday vouchers will be used for this one, looks epic!

You can view the trailer HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYMgBjdk4RY)

Starring Guy Pearce (The Proposition) and the OSCAR-nominated Jacki Weaver, ANIMAL KINGDOM is a stunning modern crime thriller of brooding and brutal intensity. Masterfully directed and graced with outstanding performances, the film is being ranked alongside crime classics like A PROPHET, THE DEPARTED and LA CONFIDENTIAL. Following the death of his mother, the young ‘J’ Cody goes to live with his estranged gangster relatives. With conflict escalating between his family of criminals and the police’s armed robbery division, J finds himself at the centre of a cold-blooded vengeance plot. As he naively navigates his way through the criminal underworld, he is forced to question where his loyalties lie as he tries to decipher who he can trust and who can protect him as he struggles for his own survival. Animal Kingdom won the much-coveted Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

HIP HOP away into the New Year.....

I haven’t been writing for a while, I could say I’ve been busy but I think becoming laxed is the key reason. Now post ‘Umbrella’ RnB & Hip Hop has hit a post sludge of the same it has to be said, once producers and artists got the formula of using distorted guitars, wavy synths and eclectic samples, the sludge train docked its load of the door of mainstream radio outlets i.e. Radio 1 (but what else can you expect).

The last couple of years have been notorious for ‘BIG’ mainstream hip hop, we had the mainstream birth of Lil Wayne, T.I taking Grand Hustle to the UK in the form of Paper Trail and protégés galore with Cash Money using the aptly titled adjectives in its name to grind out Drake, but you cant help feel this momentum of mainstream success has blurred the vision of how ground breaking a genre could and ultimately should be.

As I lay on my bed freezing my ass off, I’ve been listening to some mainstream artists who could turn the tide for said genre’s in the new year with a sense of a ‘new’ formula, taking the style in a fundamentally new direction, being ground breaking without having to rely so heavily on the sludge train, some examples of this can be seen in artists such as Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, Shyne and even (yes its coming!) Dr Dre.

Now the latter I feel will bring about a positive shift in early 2011, with Dre releasing the highly anticipated Detox sometime in February and Shyne taking his release from prison as a step not only to realise a form of religion but to also unleash 10 years of angst of being locked away to snowball the airwaves with intelligent and hardcore raps that many labels including Cash Money and Def Jam are willing to pay BIG marketing dollars for.

Now the much hype that ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ has ensued is in my opinion deserved, Kanye, who spent two years making the record has broke the formula chains to great effect, the album which is his dark take on all things celebrity and his own demons is astonishing, highlighted tracks for me are Blame Game with John Legend which ultimately see Kanye using studio wizardry to seemingly show his many inner monologues, done to great effect and the fantastic Power with Kanye rapping, "My childlike creativity, purity, and honesty is honestly being crowded by these grown thoughts/ Reality is catching up with me, taking my inner child, a line which to me symbolises his genius of producing but also his ego nature to steal MTV awards and attack rednecks.

Nicki Minaj, fresh off much ado about nothing continued beef with Lil Kim finally released Pink Friday, and although it does sound fresh, it ties inbetween where I feel she wants to be and what’s commercially viable for mainstream radio play which we all know creates the big $$$, mixtapes before the big release were so promising edgy, off beat wordplay, shifting personalities but I feel the sludge has forced itself on her, with failing to chart Massive Attack (although great) being replaced with the use of Annie Lennox samples on Your Love, I feel if she had been allowed she could have changed the face of females in hip hop, hard hitting and ready to take on the norms and this is something she has ultimately failed to do.

So the end of year has been strong for hip hop, although it could be stronger, newly released single ‘Kush’ by Dr.Dre sees the doctor rapping about one pass time that hip hop generations young and old can understand ‘green’ but what can a 45 year old man rap about, when he spends most of his time in the studio looking after his artists, lets hope we some surprises on Detox. The one great hope I look forward to in 2011, will be Shyne, cooking up his come back LP, I really hope that the sludge will be partly shifted….

NOTE:

The reason I fail to mention the likes of Eminem, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, is because although at times great records it goes no where near the fundamentals, the commercial viability of such records makes it so it cant really be ground breaking.

An example of $ludge vs diversity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSFyrrhKj1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZCUtnuAXg8

Guess which is which.........

Glastonbury 2010: A Personal Review

Ahhhh the salient transcendental atmosphere that we (as in me and friends) call Eavis’ back garden, home to close to 180,000 people over 5 days of treacherous debauchery (I lie that’s only to a certain demographic), yes that term Glastonbury has symbolised for so many years the ultimate holy grail of festivals not least as it’s the last festival in the UK it seems that isn’t being talked about in a board room by INDIE ROCK men in suits counting cheques as they order brunch in a high street coffee shop, NO, its run by a father and daughter, an ultimate combo that strike an accord with so many people not least because of the diversity of this truly special festival.

Anyway, a bit about the personal then we can get onto 5 of my top acts at the festival (as this is a music blog after all, but screw it, I have a life too god dam nit!), we arrive in the blazing Somerset heat, to a barrage of happy campers filling up space like a an aeroplane with a disproportionate customer, and much to our dismay we start to camp right (and I mean RIGHT) at the top of the pyramid stage, so close in fact we would get a close up view of the toilet merchants delivering the days pastures via their tractors, at a point our small group (more to join later) were so tired, hot, hungry, dying for a drink we nearly banged on the door of Eavis demanding a Brothers, some milk and a traditional Taunton dish, but we were saved by fellow friends and camped near the Other stage.

So Other stage, beer, views, sun, friends, lotions and many an assortment of party prescriptions later, I will not give a detail by detail account of each day as that’s beyond boring but I will say that this festival is so special, being able to watch fantastic bands (not just your headliners but lets choose from the 44 other stages!) and to cap it off the Arcadia, Shangri-La, London Underground and NYC Block 9 are simply what a party is meant to be like, hitting that every night on a different planet with friends has to be the best feeling in the world. Glastonbury seems to be its own utopia of unbridled joy and to top it off for 3 days straight, talking to hippies about anything and at 5:45am the sun just casually rising (I must admit in my altered state, I felt I was watching some warped version of Teletubbies, waiting for the baby to laugh, that’s how surreal Glastonbury can be!), and a new days begins, totally spectacular, I defy anybody to tell me differently, many people ask what is Glastonbury like, but its one of the only questions I can give a this answer to……EXPERIENCE IT is all I can say and report back to me.

ENOUGH, enough of me tickling Eavis’ beard, what about the bands, well below are my top 5 bands/artists of the festival (from what I saw!)

5. Giggs – Peckham rapper, SN1 chief and all round bad boy with the press for his stark reality that some parts of inner city London are riddled with various crimes (NOOOOO! NEVER!), even Trident couldn’t stop this ACTUAL rapper (sorry Tinchy, Chipmunk and co, kings of POP rap), he tore it up along with guests including Shola Ama and Skepta with Mistajam lacing the decks, although I did feel sorry for him as he was performing as the stage crew took upon themselves to set up for Mr.Tempah whilst Giggs was performing, but for a man that has been through so much, it was quite a moment to see that look on his face that spelled ‘Is this for real?( Smiles), great short set and after a slow start eventually the crowd surfaced and felt why XL took him on despite opposition. Song choice – ‘Don’t Go There.

4. Fatboy Slim – Back at 2008’s Glastonbury, after I watched Kings of Leon, I came back to the tents and met up with friends who were astounded by Fatboy Slim, and after watching a lifeless Gorillaz on the Pyramid, myself and a few others thought we’d go and see the Brighton (onian) DJ legend smash it, and that he did! The beginning of my disco biscuit adventure started here, the atmosphere, the poppers, the scouser girl going crazy, the lights, the tent, everything was just spectacular, and my Fatboy Slim cherry was well and truly broken, a-m-a-z-i-n-g, his mash ups of hip-hop, dance, electronica and indie were just flawless, truly a legend.

3. (Bit of cheating here), Sub Focus, Kissy Sell Out and Pet Shop Boys - I say this is cheating because, I could here all three while I was comatosed in my tent for over indulgence, and even though I eventually got up to party at Shangri-Li, when I was in the tent I could hear all three acts a mixture of KISSY DROP THAT BASSLINE, WESTEND GIRLS! And some thumping bass WOM WOM dropping from the Glade, I would have liked to have thought I could be some kind of hermaphrodite 800m runner and see all 3, but I’m not! But with ear gendering comes response, and these 3 even in my state garnered a response, my misty hat off to you 4 gentlemen, I salute and honour. Songs that I could muster -

Doctor P – Sweet Shop (Kissy Klub version)
Sub Focus – Rock It (serious arm waving in my tent)
Pet Shop Boys – WEST END GIRLS.

2. Foals – I’m not going to lie, since the uni days, my love for all things Indie have died out, with saturation levels as high as Rik Wallers, the amount of bands that bring anything to the table is severely limited (please be pardoned most of NYC), but on the Friday Foals gave a show stopping performance, filled with passion (one thing you always get at Glastonbury from even the most pretentious bands) and dance like a fool laced tracks, Yannis and co are definitely on the up, the tracks from Total Life Forever were amazing and sprinkled with Balloons, Two Steps Twice and Cassius, it gave fans a Bassett affair laced with assortment (sorry).
Song – Spanish Sahara (Tooooo good)

1. SNOOP DOGG! – OK, a person like me comes with many stereotypes and one of them to people I don’t know, is you MUST like hip-hop, and I say, course I fucking do, even though my style is not geared towards such pastures, I am a massive hip-hop fan so when the Doggfather graced the stage (I stood through Willie Nelson, that’s how desperate I was to get a good spot), I was in my own hip-hop world, and at the same time scaring a pair of 15 year olds to death as I sang the classics Snoop Dogg gave Glastonbury most notably 187 (his first song with Dr.Dre as his protégé), absolutely amazing and by far the best act I saw all weekend.
Song – 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted (ode to the late 2pac)

Glastonbury 2010, one of the highlights of my existence…..EXPERIENCE IT!

GLASTO 2010!!! Review coming soon.......

..................................................................................................................................................... It got mad sunny........................................................................................................................................................

Is the road to music success in the black community defined by pop rap or street journalism, I look at Giggs.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asking myself this question, broadly based on a UK initiative not in the U.S, mainly due to the fact the hype that continues to surround the the next ‘big’ thing in UK hip hop Giggs. But can we call it hip hop or shall we refer to it as street journalism, a tale of many stories some positive & some negative that documents a best selling rough travel guide to life in deprived areas.

This road to success for a black artist clearly has some guidelines, 2009/2010 has seen the rise of many I would call cartoon characters of the black community, not denying the sense depravity they might have had growing up but to escape that, it seems the notion of ‘selling out’ buckets down like spring rain but who could blame them with labels, money and exposure dangling just above their questionable D&G shades.

But in essence of street journalism we have a new artist on the block, those who know him from the ‘streets’ aware of his clique ‘SN1’ and their notorious mixtapes (selling them in the streets, but not quite as drastic as Eazy-E did with a gun, check out Welcome to Deathrow), quickly from that gaining notoriety for his deep voice over gritty beats, the new essence of UK hip hop stems from staying to the streets and not straying over to the darkside (by that I mean mainstream).

Periods in jail for guncrime charges, Giggs can certainly (if he wanted to) take the throne most rappers worldwide base there gritty background from, but looking at interviews it appears this man is purely about his business, taking his XL contract, his designer SN1 label and street journalism and shoving it down the throats to those that will listen.

But can he make it? It appears nowadays its not just the mainstream media not backing your goals (although 1xtra gives him credit, a 0.9% audience share doesn’t do this man justice) it appears to be the met police appear also to deride any sort of success, warning XL recordings not to sign him, tours being cancelled due to safety concerns, it appears a desire to tell a story (no matter how gritty) is enclosed in a tomb to be opened at your peril according to many.

Street journalism or ‘rap’ as its coined seems to strike to fear, a voice that treads fear into many, a hopeful beating back into his old is the hopes and dreams of many but I hope that many realise that there is talent in the streets of many inner city areas that can tell a story and get people to WAKE UP and NOT be ignorant, XL have artists that send messages that have been heard, M.I.A progressing onto to more serious issues, Thom Yorke ever challenging the social norm, and now we have Giggs, lets hope a message can now be delivered that can be real, positive and have people look in more detail of the ‘struggle’.

Nardwuar.....The Human Serviette

From his shortly lived but still ongoing band The Evaporators (who At The Drive In did support once upon a time), Nardwuar is and continues to be a cult phenomenom amongst music fans alike, not so much for his love for his purposeful mis-matched dress sense, but for his inane, baffling, insightful, confusing interviews which eludes to the interviewee admiring his work or reach for the nearest exit, whatever the result, Youtube is rife with interviews he has done over the last 20 years and it has become a frequented pass time of mine.


Known for his signature catchphrases 'check, check, check', who are you?, where are you from? (to start with) and ending always with a 'doot dooda doot doot' to which the normal reply is either fuck off or a 'i'll go along with this' attitude from the interviewee. What you will notice with Nardwuar is that his research is second to none, in the modern era of not adopting a relationship with musicians and just looking at a piece of paper and firing mondane questions about production style differences, influences and all that wafty stuff, Nardwuar usually produces gifts, old samples they have used, influences that are relevant and questions that somehow connect with Canada (his home is Vancouver, British Columbia to be more accurate).

Such instances that spring to mind include, regularly baffling Snoop Dogg, pissing off Slipknot, having plenty of laughs with the Mars Volta (seemingly respecting him for not insisting on Omar's pedal levels), again baffling Pharrell with ultra rare vinyl records, having photo's of Josh Homme at primary school and superior knowledge of garage rock which The Horrors can only respect. That's just a short list of the interviews he's done, there are so many and each one just as entertaining as the next, if you're bored then look up NardwuarServiette on Youtube, sit back and enjoy because this transcendental form of interview which sure to amaze.

Now hosting his own radio show in Canada, it seems he's got into the current affairs game and regularly frequents parliament with odd ball questions for the suits in power, who 9 times out of 10 find him rather annoying, but sticking to his first love of music badgering, here are some memorable ones, including Dave Rowntree almost assaulting the geeky tartan wearing maple flower.












Check out more that include interviews with The Strokes, Florence and the Machine, La roux, Lady GaGa, Nirvana, Franz Ferdinand, Jay-Z, The Libertines, Marylin Manson, Slipknot, Common, Nas, Flava Flav, Blowfly, Killers, Little Boots....Basically the list is endless.

Brilliant....Mr Adam Buxton

Save 6 Music (http://www.love6music.com/)