Quick Hits, Vol. 108 (Prophets of Rage, "Bad and Boujee," Boogie Monsters, De La Soul, Clams Casino)

I found a new Master P song on Spotify, called "Broken," and it is the worst.  Like, the worst. If Donald Glover were to discuss that song on the Golden Globes, he would say it was the "worst song ... ever."  I just spent ten minutes trying to figure out if I could pull off going to Bonnaroo, but there is just no way with the rest of the stuff I already have planned for June. I really hope that U2 gets announced for ACL.

Prophets of Rage - The Party's Over EP.  I love the very concept of this band, although I'm curious to know if they are still around after the election, or if Trump's victory just caused them to spontaneously combust into smoke and ash.  This is the band members from Rage Against the Machine, but with B Real (Cypress Hill) and Chuck D (Public Enemy) standing in for Zach de la Rocha on vocals.  Which is greatness.  You get the same bad ass guitar fireworks and tight, powerful rhythm section as Rage, plus two old heads firing up rhymes with anger and conviction.  This album has two originals ("Prophets of Rage" and "The Party's Over") and then three covers/near covers like Rage's "Killing in the Name," Public Enemy's "Shut Em Down," and a mashup based on the Beastie's "No Sleep til Brooklyn" that is titled "No Sleep Til Cleveland" (where the RNC's convention was last year) but that is mainly the lyrics of P.E.'s "Fight the Power," and then some Audioslave sounding guitar solos.  Here is that namesake initial single:

Holy shit.  I feel like I would hurt myself if I got to go to one of those shows and this tune came on.  I just got two separate sets of goose bumps while watching that video, and I just can't think of a better way that they could have mashed Public Enemy and Rage together into one awesome, angry thing.  I checked their Twitter and it appears that the band is still together and still touring the world, so maybe they didn't explode in a pink mist upon the election of Trump.  We'll see how they continue to make noise during the next four years, I for one hope they release a real album full of more of this stuff.

The Migos' song "Bad and Boujee."  I happened to see a couple minutes of the Golden Globes ceremony the other night, enough to see Donald Glover win for Atlanta and tell everyone that this tune was the "best song...ever."

Surprisingly long, and not surprisingly it sounds just like all the other Migos tunes I have tried and dismissed in the past.  The Metro Boomin' beat is cool, and the guys sound fine, but its just another one of those pointless brag-fest raps.  I also want to know what it means for my girl to be a "dot dot dot."  I know that "boujee" means that she is high class - short for bourgeois - but the ellipsis comparison is over my head.  And now, here are a couple of hundred words about this song.

The Boogie Monsters - Riders of the Storm: The Underwater Album.  This is an old album from 1994 that I never knew anything about until now.  Forget how I found it now, probably from the Rap Yearbook reading.  This is OK, sounds a lot like the Pharcyde, but less inventive or fun.  This has been hanging around in my Q forever, and I just want to get it out of there, so I've listened three more times today and still just think its fine.  Here is a terrible copy of the biggest track from the album, "Recognized Thresholds of Negative Stress," which has 14k streams on Spotify.

Dudes apparently were born again after this and stopped making music.  I won't keep this one around.

De La Soul - and the Anonymous Nobody.  Man, I've been trying really hard to enjoy this album, and have put off reviewing it for a while to keep trying it again to see if something clicked, but other than cameos from interesting people, I'm just not that into it.  Which is too bad, because I still enjoy some old De La, and would love to have more good stuff into the canon, but instead am left with a crappy 2 Chainz collaboration and an utter dearth of sample-based tracks (when that was one of their strong suits in the past).  I guess my favorite track on here is the David Byrne collabo, "Snoopies."

Funky and weird, it really sounds more like a new Talking Heads track with a rap interlude than a traditional De La tune.  This isn't the most popular track from the album, that would be "Pain," which has 2.8 million streams.  It's a funky little jam that sounds pretty solid.  May be worth saving, but I just don't care for the rest of the album.

Clams Casino - 32 Levels.  This is the guy who did some of the best beats for A$AP Rocky, but most of this is super bland.  The crap R&B stuff of "Into the Fire" or "Back to You" are probably the worst, but the Lil B tracks are also bad.  The Vince Staples track is OK, and then the one with A$AP is OK.  But this album isn't even worth the 5 or so trips through I'vre already taken.