Apologies that I've gone quiet on here again but between work and the Summer League (a local football league I warm the bench in) I haven't had a lot of time to be active on here, I aim to rectify that this week.
This post is about the superb Mister Jason album Mister Jason presents: Frankensteez. Now prior to a few months ago my knowledge of Mister Jason began and ended with him being a producer on the MF Doom/MF Grimm collab track Doomsday. Honestly that's all I knew the dude for, I'm pretty late to the table on this one but better late than never. I noticed on Twitter that one of my favourite bands, Fingathing (review coming soon), linked to the Mister Jason song 'Mister Jason Has A Posse' so I checked it out. Four and a half minutes later I was picking up the pieces of my newly blown mind. This is the best Posse cut hip hop has ever heard! There are 26 rappers on this track!!! 26!!! I'll say it one more time...26!!! Each rapper spits four lines for their assigned letter of the alphabet over Mister's Jason's thumping drums and on point stabs. Now I'm not going to name every rapper on the track but there are names both familiar and new including Akrobatik, Edo G, Slaine, YZ, Thristin' Howl III, and Dizzy Dustin of Ugly Duckling. It also features a rapper named Riacha La Pasta, more on that soon. Now this posse cut is absolutely unreal and I don't think I'll be able to do it real justice so just check out the following video (please note that the video is every bit as tremendous as the track).
The album as a whole is every bit as head-turning as the ridiculous 26 rapper, can't stop saying that, posse cut previously mentioned. There are some big tracks on here and some real left-field tracks that are outside what you would normally expect on a hip hop album.
After a brief intro the album's first full track is Monster On The Rise. On vocals is I believe, could be wrong, a guy named K-No Supreme. He's not a rapper I've heard before but his smooth, laid-back tone fits nicely over a great beat that sounds like it should be pumping out of the stereo of a low-rider as it cruises through an Egyptian market. It's a great opener with a real catchy hook to it and some great turntable work from Mister Jason.
Another track that features K-No Supreme, again I could be wrong, is the simply brilliant 'The Medical World'. The vocals are a little more aggressive on this one and the beats a little less in your face. The drums are still pretty raw but we get some predatory sounding strings and some soft keys at the start which give way to the drums and what sounds to me like a 16 bit character jumping. The thing about this track that really got me involved though was the sample that runs through this song. He's sampling Joy Division's Transmission! On a hip hop album!!! Massive points to Mister Jason there, he's not happy with giving you a 26 rapper posse track, nah he wants to give the world a brilliant Joy Division sampling hip hop track. Unreal.
Another of my favourite tracks on the album is 'Renegades' featuring Riacha La Pasta and Eric Jalbert. The track is a great blend of futuristic space bleeps and old school horns. The drums drive along nicely and the bass is so bouncy it wouldn't sound out of place on a Jurassic 5 album. I'm hoping that at some point I'll be able to track down an instrumental copy of this album and in particular this track. Now Riacha La Pasta that features on this song and the previously mentioned posse cut is a bit of an interesting one for me. I've hit the internets to try and find out a little more about this rapper and I'm not finding anything! I've seen on one site that he is part of a hip hop group called Falsehood but all I could find attached to that was a Myspace page with a handful of cool songs that seemed to be linked to Mister Jason. That's all I've found. To me Riacha sounds like he might actually be one of my favourite rappers ever, Cool Calm Pete (formerly of Babbletron). I could be wrong on this one because as I say I can't find any info on it but that sounds exactly like the Cool Calm one. If it isn't him then at least we've got someone who sounds just like him so we have something to listen to while we continue to wait forever for a follow up to Cool Calm Pete's Lost (a truly phenomenal album). If anyone reading this can shed a little light on this for me it'd be much appreciated.
There is so much variety on this album that it would take me all day to go through the 17 tracks I haven't babbled about but rest assured there is plenty more there for you to enjoy from the flute heavy, Nabo Rawk featuring 'Monolith' to the funk dripped 'Black Angel'. This is a truly great album and I'd recommend it to all. It can be a little hard to get hold of here in Wales (I haven't found a physical copy) but it is available on iTunes for a mere £7.99 so go and support someone that's trying to take the genre to different places. You owe it to yourself to grab a copy of that posse cut alone.
****EDIT****
I've been reliably informed by Mister Jason that you can grab a copy here http://www.undergroundhiphop.com/store/results.asp?searchby=Artist&keywords=frankensteez
It's always better to be able to hold that shit in your hands.
****EDIT****
I've been reliably informed by Mister Jason that you can grab a copy here http://www.undergroundhiphop.com/store/results.asp?searchby=Artist&keywords=frankensteez
It's always better to be able to hold that shit in your hands.
I'm so glad I found this album as aside from being one of the best albums I've heard this year it's also put me on to some new stuff like Mister Jason's former group with Nabo Rawk, Porn Theatre Ushers (fingers crossed Wen hooks me up with the albums for my birthday on Thursday) and rappers like Reks or K-No Supreme who I'd never heard of before but will be trying to get music by.
Please check it out, you'll be better for it.
Laters
MechagodZeala
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