LL Cool J & Boyz II Men

This is off the same DJ Eufonik mixtape, and is on the same over-sexed tip. This has got to make you smile. I almost miss the 90's.

The Islet Brothers & Mos Def - Beauty In The Dark

I've been bumping this for a while: it's on my favourite sex/slushy mixtape, DJ Eufonik's Things You Do To Me.

Close harmony, and Mos Def's lyrics, make for a tight little R'n'B number. This is such a good wind-down song.

Mos Def - Ms. Fat Booty

This is from the dying days of the Golden Age: 1999. It's built on an Aretha Franklin sample, which has been chopped up like sushi. It's good.

Mos Def is in full-on parable mode here, to good narrative effect. I want to play this in a convertible one day before I die.

Lil B - Motivation

I'm mainly on this for the instrumental, courtesy of Clams Casino. It's a big deal.

Lil B does his line in self-aggrandizing hyperbole on the top.

But that instrumental's a Gregorian chant for hip-hop.

Kendrick Lamar - A.D.H.D

The production on this track is glorious, layered and skippy, but the lyrics are the standout. Kendrick Lamar has written a song which is dark, and sinister, and true. The bombast of West Coast hip-hop is suited to epic songs, and this is like a manifesto for our lost generation.

And his flow is perfectly fluid as he flips seamlessly into double time and out again.



Above and beyond this song, you can see how fast he's developing. The stuff he was making last year has the same tidy rhymes but had a monotonous flow, with none of the cadence that makes A.D.H.D. seductive.

I'm jumping on his new mixtape - the West is back this autumn.

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

This is probably my favourite hip-hop album of the year so far: I love how the lyrics just weave in like another instrument. The synthesis of poem and music and rhythm is perfect.

Oh, and you can stream the whole album. Put this on and be swept away.



Shabazz Palaces - good enough to be shrouded in secrecy.

Goapele - Play

Yeah, I went away again: Latin America called in the middle of the night, and like a lovelorn ex I went running back.

But I'm back, and I'm going to make it worth your while.

Remember when R'n'B was plausibly oversexed? Well, that's back. Goapele is my find of the week, and this song makes me weak. She has the most accurate voice, and this is precious.

Play by goapele

Alejandro Sanz ft. Getto - No Es Lo Mismo (Chosen Few Remix)

Cut to the chase on this one - get straight to the good stuff at 0:47.

This is based on a fairly meditative love song by a Spanish singer-songwriter. Boy Wonder, a Puerto Rican producer sped it up and juiced it with a reggaeton beat. The result is a poetic party piece.



The lyrics are phenomenal: "no es lo mismo ser que estar". They're hard to translate because they take advantage of the fact that Spanish has two verbs meaning "to be" - ser means "to be, permanently", and estar means "to be, temporarily".

For example: soy [ser] inglesa y estoy [estar] en my casa means "I am [ser] English and I am [estar] in my house" - I am always English, and I am in my house right now, temporarily

The first line of the song is simply: "it's not the same to be [ser] as to be [estar]" - transient facts [described using estar] about where we are, how we feel, how we look do not define who we are as people [which is described using ser].

There you go, reggaeton and grammar: grammar-ton? I don't think it's going to catch on.

Queen Latifah - Just Another Day

If you listen to one song today, make this it. It's classic, gorgeous, hip-hop from one of the strongest role models you could pick. And it still sounds so so so good, nearly 20 years on.

There's the simplest boom-bap beat, and one of the best hooks you'll ever hear. And that second verse is simple beauty.



If you want to fall all in love with hip-hop all over again, start here.

Tito El Bambino ft.Banda El Recodo - Te Pido Perdon

Q: What does a gorgeous girl have in common with a brass band?
A: Tito el Bambino loves them equally, and they share screentime in my new favourite cheesy pop song.

Tito (yet another Puerto Rican star) begs forgiveness for unspecified offenses, on top of an excellent slice of Banda-style brassy polka.

This is proper feel-good pop music, like the UK doesn't make anymore.

The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself

My Mama (skinny, white, middle-aged, with a mullet and reading glasses) used to dance around the kitchen and sing this to me when I was a kid. True story. It's been covered a million times, but I like this version. I wonder how different the world would be if this was on MTV instead of this.

Incidentally, it was co-written by Luther Ingram, who also sang this classic, which is the opening number of yesterday's mix. All good stuff.

DJ (Thee) Mike B - Native/Mad Decent Party Set I

We all live vicariously through music. From the suburban boy bumping Biggie in his Suburban, to the lonely migrant listening to music from home, to the dentist conducting Beethoven from his sofa. We all do it.

And here's a chance to dream you went to the party of the year.

Mad Decent, a more-than-decent record label, had a pre-party (they're absurdly cool), and DJ (Thee) Mike B played this astonishing set, and did us the favour of recording it and releasing it for free.

It's smoothly engineered from head-bops to body-pops, taking in every genre of music people have danced to on MTV. Trust me, this is probably my new favourite mix for dancing around my bedroom. pretending I don't have work tomorrow. And if you don't enjoy it, you can get your money back.

Native Mad Decent Block Pre-Party Thee Mike B DJ Set Part 1 by maddecent

D Rakkas - Gangsta Revivial (JWLS remix)

I once went to a Moombahton night at The Camp. There were about eight people there and the DJs were atrocious.

The experience wasn't enough to put me off, which says more about the visceral appeal of moombahton than it does about my sticking power. This song is an example of why chopping and screwing can get you places in the world - I had never heard of D Rakkas or JWLS and I'm bumping this hard.

D Rakkas (South Rakkas Crew)-Gangsta Revival (JWLS Remix) by maddecent

Ghostpoet - Garden Path

Two reasons to like this straight up:

1. It sounds like the freshest garage beat of the year (battling it out with that Ooh Aah Eee remix). I've been loving the resurgence of garage, and one of the best aspects of the genre has always been the interplay between a coarse natural voice, and artificially pure-toned instrumentals. This has got that in spades, alongside one of the most effortlessly pretty instrumentals.

2. The lyrics aren't bad either. Nothing world-shattering in terms of wordplay but the sincerity's striking. Ghostpoet gets hyped for a reason. And this is it.

Ghostpoet - Garden Path by ghostpoet

La Vida Vale La Pena - Petrona Martinez (Uproot Andy Remix)

How could I not like this? The recipe is perfect: take a bonafide hit from a phenomenal Afro-Colombian folk singer, and put Uproot Andy to work.

Señor Andy is one of the prophets of tropical bass, breathing new life into traditional music. The video (made by Ghostleg) brings out the politics... it's dark and uneasy, just like the music.

It's relentlessly sinister and grating music: not the happy tune of the original. The original is a straightforward anthem: "la vida vale la pena" literally means "life's worth the struggle", and it details how the campesinos make their living from the land. But the remix shows how unfair the burdens placed on poor rural people are. They are ruthlessly exploited by their governments and by industry - their lives do not need to be so full of struggle.



If you want something gentler and more beautiful, watch the original: the video's also a beautiful lo-fi depiction of rural Colombia.

Los Rakas - 'Ta Lista

OK, first off, I love Los Rakas: they're one of the most exciting Spanglish things coming out of California. And I love the sound of this single - that instrumental is like hyphy that's been chopped and screwed with the treble up, and their voices have the most amazing quality.

But what's with the girls at the beginning of the video?! They look about 14. If the lyric of your chorus is "ella 'ta lista" ("she's ready"), it doesn't look good to have pre-teens in your video. Just saying.

I'm not blaming Los Rakas - their lyrics are faultlessly non-specific, and they have a great track record of not presenting women as objects. But whoever cast those girls needs a reality check.



Anyway, ignore the video, listen to the song, and love that instrumental. Los Rakas are amazing.

Paul White ft Guilty Simpson - Trust

I apologise for the scanty communications. Other exciting things have been happening, including me getting a job reviewing for the astonishing Potholes In My Blog.

One awesome album that I got to review was Rapping With Paul White. It's an intense album - stream it free from the label if you want a preview. This single embodies such an aura of menace, the instrumental creeps you out even without the paranoid vocal. I love music that moves me.



It's always exciting to find a new favourite producer. I like the fact he put rappers on the album (even if their verses aren't the most exciting thing I've ever heard) - it's a rebuttal of anyone who says that hip-hop beats need to be simple for a rapper to shine on top. Complexity is the new king.

Hip-hop is one of the most innovative genres we have - it doesn't have to be simple, as long as it's this good.

Julieta Venegas - Primer Dia

I love it when artists genre-bend. Especially when it comes out sounding better than the classics. Here, the ever-talented Julieta Venegas turns her hand to reggaeton, and utterly kills it.

There's the classic Dem Bow riddim at the bottom, and then an accordion on top, and Julieta belting out some post-feminist lyrics in her faultlessly rich voice. It sounds like a river of melted chocolate flowing through a dancehall, with Mexican accordion players floating in boats on the river, serenading passing dancers. Seriously.

Also, the video is a masterpiece. Calle 13 might have been the first artists to make interesting reggaeton videos, but Juli has upped the ante here.

Trim (prod TRC) - I Am

Everything Shabazz Palaces are doing in the USA, is happening in grime here. This is a series of fresh instrumentals for Trim's seminal track. Give it 6 minutes and be blown away - the Mr Mitch remix at the end is a killer.

Shabazz Palaces - Recollections of The Wraith

Wow. This demands your full attention. The beats are complex enough to stand alone, but the lyrics are fast and smart. This is a new direction for hip-hop, and a statement against all the crowd-pleasers that have dominated since the 90's.

It also sounds like a nuanced response to the nostalgia for 80's hip-hop - there's soul in here but it sounds fresh, beats are squiffy. In short, they just reinvented hip-hop. Get excited.