If you want to know why Curren$y is a very good, maybe even vital rapper, check out Ski Beatz’s 24 Hour Karate School, wherein rappers of pretty much every style rhyme over Ski’s absolutely fucking immaculate production and all fail pretty miserably. All the other wandering weedhead rappers can’t figure out what to do with stuff this elaborate and neither can your super-serious rappers like Jean Grae or Ras Kass. Shit, Camp Lo even come off pretty bad. That’s why I’m focusing on this bonus track instrumental, “Cream Of The Planet,” which at one point or another, featured Mos Def, but doesn’t anymore, which is a good thing.
“Cream Of The Planet” isn’t a skillful soul beat, it’s a time-traveling, rap-tinged, jazz-funk composition. Note the way the song defiantly arrives–that confident row of horns, the waves of organ—and how it spreads out from there, before turning in on itself in the final moments, each instrument exiting, before a polite, extended fade-out. The only comparable song is Dilla’s cover of “Think Twice.” A quick look at the credits for 24 Hour Karate School show that the only non-instrument here is Ski’s drums—the rest of this is played by a room full of real, live musicians. Now, that isn’t impressive on some musical purity level but because it’s completely unnecessary. That’s to say, this could be another cool blaxploitation-soaked beat from the producer of Uptown Saturday Night and be just fine, but instead it rolls along, slightly shifting, like the interstitial music in a blaxploitation flick (a good, sophisticated one too, more Across 110th Street than say um, Black Samson).
*you can also read this post on Tumblr now, golly!
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
I hope it isn’t a sample, however, sections sound very similar to Son of Ran’s “Last Word”:
http://limelinx.com/files/ab3492545f54c7f8d2ac81ee47538ca7
You can compare.
Paul
20 Sep 10 at 11:54 am
yeah. nice. Ski still doing it after about twenty years. Still a dude.
beez
20 Sep 10 at 3:45 pm
This interview has Ski mentioning that they re-did the album to avoid sample clearance issues and had dudes playing it, so yeah, this is probably still an “interpolation” or some older song. Which one, I don’t know.
Brandon
20 Sep 10 at 7:47 pm
I can’t believe someone else has seen Black Samson.
brad
20 Sep 10 at 10:40 pm
Brad-
Lolz. Yeah. I even kinda like ‘Black Samson’ so don’t take that line in the post as a knock….
Brandon
22 Sep 10 at 4:27 pm
I’ve been reliably informed, Ski Beatz sampled, quite clearly, this monster for Cream of the Planet.
http://www.limelinx.com/files/d7809427c5c6c9c1555b83e374ad9532
Paul
1 Apr 11 at 10:47 pm
December 2, 2012 – 9:22 pm | Hi!Actually, it’s gonna start coming out this month! The next book will come out next year, and the third one the year after that. But you can alwyas get them earlier by buying the Australian editions online.
Priya
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