Dose One, the nasal one from cLOUDEAD, is rapidly becoming the BustaRhymes of underground hip-hop, popping up on various albums over thepast year including Hood's "Cold House" of all places. Also, like MrRhymes, he's possessed of an unusual voice, kinda like the annoying onefrom Cypress Hill, but without being annoying, if that makes sense.Boom Bip, on the other hand, has had some well-received releases on theAnticon label.
Although originally on Mush, home of the fantastic So-Called Artists,it has just been released in Europe by Leaf. Being a fan of all thingsAnticon, I picked it up last year. Unsurprisingly, like everything onAnticon, it's great. It's also seriously weird. I mean if cLOUDEADweren't really hip-hop, then compared to this they were Run DMC. Thiscrazy amalgam of street noise, chanting, spoken word, droning and,occasionally, beats and rhymes is some of the least hip-hop hip-hopI've ever heard. The rhymes can be sung, spoken, whispered or rattledoff at speed. They're often incomprehensible, when they aren't they'reoften nonsensical. (At first anyway.) The backing can range from Lostin Space style 'space sounds' to heavy fucked up beats over the courseof only one song. The whole package, which at first just bewilders,improves with each and every listen (I must be up to listen 20 atleast). The Anticon collective are true trailblazers, reshaping hip-hopas they go, and surely trumping the Def Jux crew as the underground'sposterboys. As Dose says on 'Questions over Coffee', "I'm no leader, Ijust can't see myself following you". It's great to be around toexperience this, even if I am paying crazy import prices for everythingelse on Anticon and Mush.
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