Monday, April 30, 2012

My Music Monday

I had forgotten about Us3 and their song "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" probably for the last decade.

That was until Saturday. When out for lunch I thought what I heard was a version of it - alas it was not.

I'm not a big "jazz" fan, so I had zero knowledge that the music part of the song was more than a sample of Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" (thank you Shazam!).

"Cantaloop", released in 1993 (really? it's almost 20 years old? oy!), mixes jazz and rap - and it works.

It's Herbie Hancock jazz, not Mingus, not Monk.  It's clean rap, not NWA rap, not full on gangsta rap. It's a type of rap that never quite took off. I suppose if it doesn't have shock value it gets less street cred and not considered legit.

However, I think quite the opposite. Not that bitch-slappin' rap doesn't have some artistic merit, but there is a lot of talent in just being able to put words together and speak-sing them in a fashion that doesn't have to be crude.  ....and let's face it, I'm a big fan of crude.

Still, according to their website (who knew they had one?) Us3 just put out their eighth album (who knew they still existed?). I never heard another song after "Cantaloop", but I never sought one out either.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great choice. I forgot how much i loved these guys/

Anonymous said...

New app alert! Ugly Meter. Scan a person's face and get an ugly rating of 0-10 10 being butt ugly. Each rating comes with a comment. At 2.7 I was told that firemen would be hunting me down I'm smoking hot! And it didn't even ask if I was gay!

The more lined up the scan is (head on no profile) the more 'accurate' the rating. Truvy got a 0. I can't wait to try a few pics.

Wonder Man said...

I banned that song from college parties

Erik Rubright said...

Odd. I've heard this song before, but not with the rap parts. At least I thought it was this song. Doubly odd.