Shazamers' Blog

‘Dope’ is a curious mash-up of influences. The loping, double bass sample recalls Cypress Hill at their bonged-out best, while there’s a nice early Death Row feel to the menacing minor key chord stabs. Chuck in some escalating acid-tinged squelches and you’ve got a fairly tasty package. While Tyga’s lyrics – a relentless stream of data explaining just how amazing he is ¬– won’t win any prizes for originality, his tricksy delivery and capable flow easily take up the slack. In his 4,765th guest appearance this year, label boss Rick Ross provides some contrast with a more rugged verse of his own.

Despite the blinger-than-thou attitudes espoused in ‘Dope’, Tyga isn’t solely about the glitz. New album ‘Hotel California’ promises some soul-searching introspection amid the tales of booty and Bentleys.

“This album is very personal,” Tyga says. “It’s about my experience of being at a hotel and suddenly realizing how far I’ve come in my career. It’s also my desire to feel at home these days, since due to my success I mainly live life on the road. The only home I ever knew was California, so this album is about those dual feelings.”

Tyga has roped in an impressive list of producers for the new record, including DJ Mustard, Jess Jackson, David DA Doman and The Olympicks. He’s also recently announced that the next single to be taken from ‘Hotel California’ will be ‘For the Road’, a collaboration with his old mate Chris Brown. As long as Chris is involved, we’re sure it’ll be a massive hit.

Huw Thomas New Music Rick Ross, Tyga

Old-school meets new on ‘Unorthodox’ as hip-hop pioneer DJ Premier teams up with rising Brooklyn MC and typographic renegade Joey Bada$$. It’s a match that works out pretty well. Premier’s beats are vintage in the best sense of the word, demonstrating why he’s still one of the most important names in the game. His groundbreaking early work with Guru in Gang Starr would be enough to earn him a lifetime pass to the hip-hop hall of fame, but he’s stayed relevant over the subsequent decades by working with just about every major name in rap. True, he also collaborated with grunting backwards cap enthusiasts Limp Bizkit, but everyone has an off day.

Premier is on much surer ground with Joey Bada$$. Since dropping his debut mixtape ‘1999’ last year, the young Brooklyn MC been tipped as one to watch. ‘Unorthodox’ sees him living up to the billing with style. His verses are dense and knotty, telling tales of street life that ring with authenticity. Chances are he’ll land a million dollar contract and move on to talking about how much his shoes cost, but right now he’s offering a more grounded take on hip-hop than many of his contemporaries.

Hopefully, he’ll be able to hang on to what makes him special as his career progresses. A debut album, as yet untitled, is scheduled for sometime in 2013 so we should find out soon enough. Early signs indicate that his strong social conscience should keep him on the straight and narrow. “It’s the problems in the world that we often get our inspiration from, and these people need voices to speak for them,” he told Prefix. “Some people won’t speak up, and some people don’t have the ability to. We’re the voice of the people, and we support them.”

The oppressed and downtrodden could certainly have a worse spokesman than Joey Bada$$. Long may he make his voice heard.

Huw Thomas New Music Joey Bada$$

If wide-scope, epic synth pop is the kind of thing that floats your boat, then The Good Natured’s new cut ‘5-HT’ needs to be on your list of 2013’s big hitters.

Described mostly as pop noir / modern wave (although lead singer Sarah describes them as if “Robert Smith and Katy Perry had a love child!” while Hamish states they’re like “if Siouxsie Sioux joined The Killers”, The Good Natured bring a euphoric and trancey vibe to their latest single, named after an over-the-counter dietary anti-depressant commonly used by ravers the day after a big session. Allegedly.

The band started life as a solo project for vocalist Sarah McIntosh, but she roped in her brother Hamish on bass and synths, and then added George Hinton on drums to create a fully functional live act.

“We think our music is unique,” says Sarah about the band and their sound. “We like to call ourselves ‘modern wave’, a twist on the new wave movement which especially influenced our sound. Our music is a lot punkier than anything out right now. We sometimes call ourselves ‘pop noir’ too, because we turn dark emotions into pop songs.”

Previously, the band’s biggest hit was Skeleton, produced with one of Robyn’s main collaborators, Patrik Berger. It’s huge.

To whet appetities for their forthcoming new album, the band released a free download of ‘5-HT’, remixed by Loadstar. It’s a tasty slab of bass heavy, window shaking pop euphoria, designed to rattle even the most sturdy of cages.

The band have eclectic musical tastes that come from their divergent backgrounds. “My earliest musical memory was hearing my Gran play her Yamaha organ from the 1980s down in Scotland when I was about five years old,” recalls Sarah. “She was incredible. When I was 15 I rescued the old thing when she deemed it as a ‘piece of old junk’. I found it by the back door ready to go out to the trash! I took it home with me. I wrote my first songs on that organ, it’s very special to me even if some of the keys are broken.”

Drummer George remembers something quite different from his childhood. “My earliest musical memory would be when I was about five, my parents were really into surfing and so every weekend we’d always drive to the coast. Every trip down my Dad would put on his cassette of Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’. I have memories of looking out the car window, desperately trying to be the first person to see the sea, with ‘Come As You Are’ playing in the background. Every time I hear that song I always remember those days. Good times!”

The Good Natured are on tour in April, supporting Imagine Dragons. Tour dates below:

Twitter – @thegoodnatured

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‘5-HT’ is released on March 8th in the UK, available to pre-order from iTunes now

Helia New Music

From beginnings as the parent-scaring face of grime, Dizzee Rascal has taken an improbable career trajectory to become something of a minor national treasure. Lest we forget, he popped up on that misguided 2004 remake of Band Aid and played a role in last year’s Olympic opening ceremonies. Hardly the work of a terrifying, hoodie-clad urban bogeyman.

Critics complain that Dizzee has forsaken the hard-edged sounds of his debut ‘Boy in da Corner’ for more chart-friendly bangers like the Armand Van Helden-produced ‘Bonkers’. We say pish to these critics. There are few things more annoying than a successful artist banging on about his life on the streets when we all know that he’s a millionaire who lives in a diamond-encrusted mansion on the moon. Dizzee’s situation in 2013 is probably pretty sweet, so why shouldn’t his music reflect that?

‘Bassline Junkie’ is certainly in keeping with Dizzee’s more party-focused outlook. A thumping celebration of bottom-end pleasures, it is a jolting shot in the arm for anyone jonesing for a low frequency hit. It’s a short, simple and brutally effective track, even if Dizzee’s repeated demand for ‘Bass, dirty stinking bass’ can’t help but remind you of this more culinary bass jam.

‘Bassline Junkie’ forms part of Dizzee’s forthcoming new album, his first in four years. The man himself is clearly enthusiastic about his latest release.

“I’m at a point where there’s so much music,” he told Radio 1. “It’s mad. It’s the best-produced album I’ve done so far because of the calibre of producers I’m working with. It’s all big league.”

“This past year or so, moving to Miami, I’ve actually had a life,” he said. “I feel a lot more settled now. I’m coming out ready just really wanting to get out there, perform new music. I’ve been doing the same songs for a little while now, and it’s cool, but it’s nice to do some fresh material.”

Huw Thomas New Music

Chemistry is a funny thing. You might think that a veteran hip-hop producer who grew up loving DJ pioneers like Red Alert, terminator X and Marley Marl would have little in common with a self-confessed ‘nerdy white kid’ who started out making house music. ‘Higher’ suggests otherwise.

Just Blaze has been in the game for years, producing tracks for Jay-Z’s ‘Blueprint’, ‘Blueprint 2’ and ‘The Black Album’. Baauer is quickly making a name for himself with monstrous electro/hip-hop party anthems like the irrepressible ‘Harlem Shake’. Together they’ve produced one of the most infectious tunes of this young year.

‘Higher’ starts big and keeps going bigger. An aural assault of hip-hop prowl and concussive dancefloor electronics, its crescendos have crescendos. It sounds immense when listened to on YouTube, so we can only imagine how truly megalithic this would be out of some massive speakers in a packed room.

The track also has the major distinction of featuring a vocal drop from none other than Blaze’s bud, Hova himself. It’s good to have friends in high places.

“I got a call [from Jay-Z] when we were working on ‘Higher’,” Blaze told MTV Hive. “I figured it might be cool for Baauer to meet Jay, so I took him over there with me. When we left, I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I just had an idea.’ Ran back in and I told Jay-Z, ‘Could you do a drop for the tour?’ It was originally just something we would utilize somehow during the show. I had him record it for me, right into my phone. The night we put it out, we were trying to figure out an intro and I was just like, ‘We got it. Just put the Jay-Z track at the top’.”

It all sounds so simple, but then the best recipes often are.

Huw Thomas New Music

Just once, it would be nice to see a rapper namecheck a slightly cheaper and more practical car. Sure a Bentley, Rolls Royce or a Lexus is classy, but what kind of fuel consumption does it get, what insurance bracket is it in and how easy is it to park? Beck bigged up the humble Hyundai on his ‘Midnite Vultures’ album back in the 90s, but no one followed suit. Hip-hop just doesn’t care about N-CAP safety ratings and generous manufacturers’ warranties.

Just like spud-faced, manufactured outrage-generator Jeremy Clarkson and his Top Gear accomplices, rappers don’t want to talk about vehicles that their audiences can afford. They’re about the aspirational, big-ticket rides which are solely the preserve of the mega-rich. Top businessmen, royalty and – yes – successful hip-hop artists.

The popularity of tracks celebrating vehicular excess suggests that most listeners aren’t too concerned that their idols are rapping about things they’ll never own. They just want to go along for the ride. Florida’s Ace Hood clearly understands this. By naming his latest track after the maker of the world’s most expensive car, he’s clearly aiming high.

Much like it’s namesake, ‘Bugatti’ is a low-slung and glossy creation. Ably assisted by Rick Ross and Future, Hood delivers an autotune-inflected paean to life’s pricier pleasures. There’s not much going on behind the shiny surface, but who ever said a good party needed a subtext?

At least Ace Hood is working hard for his money. ‘Bugatti’ comes from his forthcoming album ‘Trials and Tribulations’ but he’s also just released a new mixtape. Titled ‘Starvation 2’, the tape features guests like Meek Mill, French Montana, Yo Gotti, Choo Choo and Kevin Cossom. It’s something that Hood is intensely proud of.

“‘Starvation 2′ is my latest but greatest creation thus far,” he told AllHipHop. “I’m proudest of my growth with this mixtape. Seeing life through my perspective, I think this is the purest form of substance and hunger.”

If the dude’s hungry, he should think about getting a less expensive car. We hear Hyundais are very economical.

Huw Thomas New Music

The latest cut from Kendrick Lamar’s all-conquering ‘Good Kid, MAAD City’ is initially perplexing. He’s known as a rapper who’s operating on a different level to many of his peers – an artist who’s more interested in the realities of modern life than banging on about his bling, bitches and Bentleys.

It’s therefore a little surprising to hear him nakedly lusting after money and power on ‘Backseat Freestyle’, as well as expressing the wish that his ‘d**k gets as big as the Eiffel Tower’. This genital fixation continues elsewhere, with what could be the first use of the word ‘scrotum’ in a mainstream rap track.

Divorced from context, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Kendrick had forsaken his thoughtful principles in favour of a more conventionally commercial approach to hip-hop. However, when taken as a part of the overarching narrative of ‘Good Kid, MAAD City’, it starts to make a lot more sense.

The album tells a story of a single formative day in Lamar’s life. As such the section covered by ‘Backseat Freestyle’ reads as the thoughts of an inexperienced kid growing up on the streets. He wants all the things that mainstream hip-hop tells him he should want. If these desires are chiefly focused on the financial and the carnal, that’s hardly surprising. They reflect a key stage in Lamar’s development to the artist he is today.

“This is me, this is a 100 per cent true story – everything that happens on this album was one day that changed my life,” he told Metro. “A lot of these songs really admit to wrongdoings, whether in deeds or thoughts. But that’s what separated me, when I started doing that, from a lot of artists who were out.”

Saying all that, the track’s pretty easy to enjoy even without the analysis. Built with customary minimalism around a clanging bell and what sounds like the sonar ‘ping’ you’d hear on a submarine, it’s a solid canvas for Lamar’s assured flow. Starting off languid and building to frenetic finale, his lyrics are dense and meticulously constructed. Another reminder – if one were needed – that Lamar is one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop today.

Huw Thomas New Music

Having obviously had enough of sitting in the wings, Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr (or Nelly to you and me) has been busily preparing his seventh studio album M.O. – and from it, he’s just dropped this latest platter – “Hey Porsche”.

It marks a different sound for the St Louis rapper, picking up a poppy club beat no doubt designed to get booties wiggling on dance floors. It brings to mind some past work he’s done, like “Dilemma” which he performed with Kelly Rowland. It’s all set to be a radio smash. Are you ready to let Nelly back into your life? You better be…

Although there’s no release date set for new album M.O., his return to the studio has got Nelly out of the gossip columns for his recent break-up with soul singer Ashanti. They had been dating for nearly ten years although neither actually confirmed the relationship, even though they were photographed together all the time. In December, Nelly broke up with Ashanti after finding out that she had allegedly had an affair with producer Chink Santana in 2005.

Nelly’s come a long way from his humble beginnings as part of teenage rap outfit St Lunatics, and even from his first two albums, Country Grammar and Nellyville. So what advice would he give to himself back then? “I would tell myself to be patient and enjoy a lot more of it,” he says.

“Take in those moments at those times when it does happen. I believe in you gotta make your mistakes in order to grow. So to look back, I wouldn’t change anything. I’m not one of them people to be like, “I’mma change everything.”  You just gotta live with the choices that you make. People can’t fault you for that. But people fault you for making the same mistakes over.”

M.O. to be released later in 2013, no release date as yet

Helia New Music

2013 – it’s the year of huge megastar comebacks, from the underwhelming ones (Girls Aloud – ok, so that was more late 2012 but let’s not split hairs about that, shall we?) to the top secret, hush hush ones (aka Justin Timberlake and his “Suit and Tie”) to the the massively awaited ones.

You can add Destiny’s Child to the latter group, of course. The power trio of Knowles, Rowland and Williams formed the cornerstone of early 2000s pop and were one of the most successful girl groups in modern musical times. Want proof? Is selling over 50 million albums proof enough?? Well then.

When they announced their comeback with a new single, new album, and rather impressive reunion show at the Superbowl, the world sat up and listened. The girls sashayed back into our lives with “Nuclear” – a new jam produced by Pharrell and co-written by Michelle Williams – a suprising twist considering that it’s usually Beyonce or Kelly Rowlands who are recognised as the musical tours de force from the group…

NME recently reported the set list that the girls will be  for their big comeback show at the Superbowl, and as you’d expect, it contains a slew of their greatest hits. Beyonce will also perform her smash, “Crazy in Love” to start the show – she’ll then be joined by Kelly and Michelle to sing tracks including “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “Survivor,” and ending with “Nuclear.”

Although Princess B was in the news recently with the controversial story that she’d lip-synched the National Anthem at the President’s inauguration, few fans seemed particularly bothered by it. Michelle Williams

appeared on Good Morning America and said the so-called controversy was “disappointing and sad . . . that was such a big moment for her. I wish people would let it go.” Beyonce’s proved to have pretty powerful lungs in the past, and she’s sure to prove that at the Superbowl. Look out if you’re in the first three rows…

Love Songs is released on January 29 on Columbia

Helia New Music

The rap game is full of all manner of upstarts these days, but few are as deserving of the hype as Harlem’s A$AP Rocky.  His latest single is the teaser for album Long.Live.A$AP, which suffered more than a few delays in its release. The track itself is a slow burning leftfield urban cut, which has a black and white video which has Rocky wandering around a weird castle surrounded by knights, making you feel like he’s a pawn in some bigger game – the rap game, perhaps? Ok, so that’s a lot to read into it, but still.

A$AP Rocky’s new album features a whole bunch of industry friends, including Santigold, Drake, Florence Welch, 2 Chainz, Kendrick Lamar, Danger Mouse and Skrillex. Not a bad guestlist for a studio debut – just imagine what birthdays are like at his place, eh? For a rapper who’s obssessed with standing out from the crowd, getting those big names interested enough in featuring on a start out record was big news.

“It’s about breaking down barriers,” he says. “I feel like people worry about the wrong things sometimes. I’m not perfect. I strive for perfection, but I’m not perfect. But what I can say is my morals are totally different than any other 24-year-old rapper my age now. I look at life totally different. A whole other aspect. I have different views and morals on life in general. And opinions. I’m just here to express it and show people who I am as a person and as an individual.”

Rocky is pragmatic about the delays to the album, but happy that it’s finally been released. “It’s like a weight’s coming off my shoulders. I’m feeling really good about it. It feels like a prison inmate that just did 25 years finally being free. No parole. No probation. Just free. I know that’s a fucked-up reference to use, but that’s how it feels. It feels like the album was the key to people wondering what I’m capable of. They don’t know yet. They gonna see on this album how creative I really am. And how much of an artist I really am.”

Long.Live.A$AP is out now on RCA

Helia New Music