Jackin’ For (Rock) Beats
Damn, sometimes I feel like I’m the only Blackademic with a keyboard up in this piece . . .
Anyway, I want to let all the rock ‘n roll fans out there know about a lil’ musical nugget I’ve been enjoying over the past several days—a track called “Jackin’ (It Got Ugly)” by up-and-coming Chicago MC Rhymefest. A little history lesson is in order for those that don’t know: in 1990, Ice Cube came out with a song called “Jackin’ for Beats” in which he spit a few vicious verses over a rapid-fire melange of some of the hottest hip-hop backing tracks of the day, including Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrordome,” Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance,” and LL Cool J’s “Big Ole Butt.” In the past six or seven years such established rappers as Sticky Fingaz, Nas, and T.I. have released their own respective twists on the same idea using Cube’s original song title (but usually on white-labels or the backsides of 12″s; never on proper records). Rhymefest’s new entry into the “Jackin’” canon finds the eclectic rhymer spitting over rock tracks by the likes of Guns ‘n Roses, the Hives, Blur, Weezer, and the White Stripes (a particularly provocative choice given singer Jack White’s notorious disdain for hip-hop). Sounds weird, I know, but it works surprisingly well. Feel free to jack the mp3 from the link below.
EDIT: I should mention that I’m not really a huge Rhymefest fan, but this track is definitely atypical of his output.
Download “Jackin’ (It Got Ugly)” here.
Published on August 8, 2006 at 8:49 pm.
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Filed under entertainment, music.
