This last Saturday something wondrous and magical happened. I lost my virginity. Go me! Then something even more wondrous and magical happened: I got excited about listening to a new Hip Hop CD. I was filled with that half-forgotten sense of exhilaration that comes with discovering new music you know will be with you for years to come. I don’t know that I experienced that euphoria even once last year but it made a triumphant return over the weekend.
The album, not so surprisingly, was DOOM’s Born Like This. I’d put off listening to it because I was weary of disappointed yet again by a favorite artist. Stupid world, why must you be so filled with heartbreak! DOOM is one of the all-time greats in my book but by the time The Mask And The Mouse rolled around in 2006 his shtick began to feel awfully familiar. Mouse was still a very good album but some of the magic and wonder was gone. DOOM had delivered genius rhymes for so long that it was easy to take him for granted.
Then DOOM away for a while and came back revitalized and reborn. I don’t want to say much more, since I’ll be reviewing Born Like This in a few weeks but really digging a new rap album made me both happy and sad. Happy because I was still capable of getting super-duper-psycho-geeked about the Hippety Hop and sad because I couldn’t remember the last time a new rap CD had made me feel that way. One song that did make me feel that way, however, was the Blackalicious song, "Make You Feel That Way".
How bout you? What was the last new album, Hip Hop or otherwise, that made you want to run down the street in your pajamas yelling at strangers to pick it up immediately?
Two recent songs that made me feel that way are the epic, feel-good remix for UNI's "Beautiful Day" and "Say It", a monster posse cut from Termanology’s Dilla tribute album If Heaven Was A Mile Away. These song just plain make me happy so I figured I’d share them with you. I also recommend these here mixtapes. One’s a tribute to 90s Hip Hop spotlighting a slew of talented up and comers. The other’s a nifty Biggie tribute project: