This AM i found the review of "Bi-Conicals Of The Rammellzee" on the
'Cocaine Blunts & Hiphop Tapes' blog and when I could't find a place to comment on it , decided to comment here .
First off , respect to Noz and his Blunts , I've enjoyed the blog and his views .
But I need to address a few things mentioned in the review before they become seen as fact or 'word' ...
While 'renewed interest in "Beat Bop" ' may have played a part in the logic of making this record , Rammell didn't finally decide to record this Album because of that.
I , as producer , decided it was high time for Rammell to do a whole Album for himself,
we discussed it , made a plan and I took it to Gomma who i had worked with before on their brilliant "AntiNY" Comp.
Actually Rammell is quite tired of writers raving about "Beat Bop" and Jean M Basquiet,
'folkhero' he has become , therefore Rammell wanted to create "Beat Bop Part 2" in an effort to get everyone past the first "Bop".
Being Rammell and I had first met in W Berlin bk in 1983 ,
and we were going to be working with a German label,
we thought it would be fun to have both NYC and German Artists do the tracks.
I worked with Gomma to 'enlist' the other producers and choose tracks carefully out of many others that were sent to us from Germany.
Munk ( the Gomma Gang guys) had 3 cool tracks
and their friend Jaws had such simple but effective breakbeat -y tracks we decided to let his tracks be the ones that had the guest MC's on them
("Pay The Rent" and "Beat Bop Pt.2" ).
The Naughty and Chaos track uh, rounded out the German contributions .
The NYC tracks were made by Taketo & Kajiwara as Ferris Wheel , DCC and myself.
Actually , alot HAS changed , whether it be hiphop , the outside world or the sonics themselves.
Hearing a glib Talib K 'hiphop was dead' quote a few years back was a factor in me wanting to do this record with Rammell.
We didn't set out to do an old school / 'Skool' retro record , but recombined elements of that era with ProTools tech.
Rammell likes to drag race , so tracks were created to let him run , usually one take straight on through to the other side.
"Pay The Rent" tells the tale of Shockdell (not Rammell) about to lost his place -
didn't lose it yet as can be plainly heard in Shock's story .
After "Beat Bop" , Rammell samples bounced around UK hiphop from the UNKLE Album (-) and New Kingdom (+) guest MC spots to the point where once upon a time when I was grazing Cable TV in Hong Kong when a lazy ' yeah baby' sample drifted by lodged in a SKY TV station ID .
The part of the review I do have a problem with is the claim that
'A record like this cannot exist in this day and time ...'
Well , it does exist , needed to exist and will be around long after Gomma gets a US Distributor for it.
The record has garnered 70 + reviews in Europe , Russia , Iceland , Singapore , etc. almost all positive.
Regardless of whether reviewers really 'get' Rammell's 'Gothic Futurism' ,
can decipher the words, or even like the Album , we didn't do it for them .
Or to arrow into the hiphop mainstream.
It's designed as sdtk for tales of Gothic Futurism .
'A record like this cannot exist in this day and time' ,
maybe a good blurb for something - but not this record.
I see a point that tried to be made , but have to disagree.
Perhaps surfaces were read as content ...
Hearing the influence 20 year old releases such as DCC's 1984 12"
and even more widespread, Rammell & K-Rob's "Beat Bop"
(JMB was 'Exec' Producer , didn't do a track on it ) have had ,
I dare say this record WILL continue to exist , be played and influence yet another round of MC's and hophop music makers that are still 'in school'
argabright @rcn.com
