solesaurust
08-20-2005, 06:35 PM
Here's the traslation:
For years, the BB music was associated to giants of rap, such as RUN DMC, Public Enemy, or LL Cool J. Nevertheless, their trayectory looks more like explorers like Sonic Youth or Beck: a work that always choose the continue search, eclecticism and the alternative ways. After six long years of silence, the trio comes back with TO THE 5 BOROUGHS, their long waited new album, in which they spread their love for New York, their despise for George Bush and their renewed faithfulness to the old school.
RAPORTERS (There's this very famous and funny argentinian TV show and in one of the acts, there were these two guys, who protested about the current bad argentinian situation, and they did it rapping. They called themselves THE RAPORTEROS).
The extensive and overloaded Hello Nasty (1998) was the last one (and a little bit dissapointing) discographic news from the Beastie Boys for six long years. Not counting, of course, a few compilations that bearly got to disguise the emptyness of inspiration that surrounded the golden white hip hop trio model '00, and that did nothing but to sink their future on a sea of doubts. In all this time, it also wore out their sourse of their paralels ocupattions. The magnificent Grand Royal magazine that they edited themselves, wasn't out in the street no more, and their proyects with the record label of the same name, dissapeared on august 2001: "It got too complicated, and we never would've let that a hobby turn into a bussisness", they say.
That's why it's so surprising that now, in the middle of an unespected mediatic commotion and with the hip hop rulling (too comfortable) the charts, MIke D, Adrock and MCA decided to get out of their retirement with the intransigent TO THE FIVE BOROUGHS, a brutal hip hop record, way less baroque than its predecessor, that impress specially beacuse of its overwhelming political messsage against George Bush and because of its reapropriation of the old hip hop. Beastie Boys came back - as Sonic Youth with the recent Sonic Nurse - to distrub. And they do it precisly, by touching those subjetcts that the toda hip hop chooses to ignore, with a lot of excellence and too little shame. TO THE FIVE BOROUGHS is a return to the esencial purpose of rap: to turn music into a mordant statement. A statement that in this case, comes with a granade thrown directly to Bush's face.
Because after all these years, these "old young ones" still have things to stand up for. And their fangs are sharper than ever.
INTERVIEW.
- What did you do in these last six years?
MCA: We pu out the anthologies on CD (The Sounds of Science) and on DVD also, that took us a long time. We also gave a few concerts. Personaly, I spent a long time trying to learn to play mah-jong on the Internet (laughs).
- How was your mood by the time you started recording TT5B?
Mike D: The recording started on april '02 and ended on april '04. We were so excited because each one of us have worked on their own. We started to put our own different ideas together with the intention of doing something different, and from that moment on, we spent a long time on the studio with our sketches, with our lyrics on them.
- TT5B is much shorter than Hello Nasty.
Mike D: My only complain to Hello Nasty, is how long it is. We grew up hearing those twenty minutes on each side vinil records, and that was it. Most of our favourite records don't last more than 40 minutes. For this album, we focused on respecting that time, not letting ourselves carry away by the characteristic of the CD.
- Did the old school sound was pursued on purpose?
MCA: We started recording by playing hip hop, and we decided to continue with that line. On our records, we switched sistematically from one system to another as we were recording. We would start playing instrumental parts, we went from hardcore to rap... This time we submerged into hip hop directly, that's what we like.
AdRock: Beside, let's be honest, at our age, you don't change anumore. There are songs, like "Oh, Word?" that are explicit references to the old school and that refers fully into the 80's, and some parts of the record come directly from hip hop records from that time: The chorus of "The Hard Way" for instance, it's from the Funkmaster Wizard Wiz record that we heard a lot on the "Licensed to Ill" era. This album had two songs: "Believe Patiently" and "Crack it up", a pro crack hymn. The guy was completely nuts. He talked about eating roachs, peeing on people, of cops putting handcops on his penis... a real punk MC.
- Do you feel nostalgic of your begining times?
Mike D: I don't think we aproached this record on a retro or nostaglic way. At the making of the beats of this record, I though about doing new stuff, different beats. Nevertheless, the hip hop that we grew up with, it's still pretty much impregnated in our lives in such an evident way, that it reflects on our way of composing. When hip hop was born, it dealt with the chronicles of what was happening between groups, and each one of them, had their own techniques and rhymes. Now, hip hop artists work alone... there isn't that poliphony that existed before. In our case, it's enough to hear how our voices changed for that to take you to the hip hop of twenty years ago.
- How did the technology influenced in the making of the record?
Mike D: It made things simpler and more approachable. When it comes to me, I feel very atracted to computrers; I rather play with my programs than having to fight with the old equipments. Each one of our records has the influence of the technology of its time; we did what the technology of every moment said. By the time of "Licensed to Ill", we didn't even had a sampler; to do the chorus, we had to ask to other groups... Now it's easier: all of the sudden, we don't need a sound engineer no more nor a producer. And the fact of doing it without a fourth person, gave us an immense freedom. There are no more instrumentation, and even though this pecularity makes it harder to choose, and harder to concentrate on one composition, it also makes you try with thousand of things permanently.
- What's your attitude toward the materialization of music?
Mike D: It doesn't terrify me, although I must say that it wakes contradictory feelings in me. Some of the CD that I buy, go directly to my MP3 reader; but others, on the other hand, it still makes you like keep inspecting them from coast to coast, to spend a great deal of time looking at the booklet. I grew up listening to vinil records, and I spent a lot of time reading the credits on the covers. My relationship with music doesn't en on the fact of hearing the music: I need to have contact with the booklet, to read the lyric of the song.
- Is TT5B a realistic descirption of the current New York way of life?
Mike D: No, it evokes the city in which we grew up, just as it was at the late 70's and the beginning of the 80's, that mean, 'till the beginning of the reign of Giuliani; he transformed New York. Before him, there was tension, violence and brutality. All of that is gone and even though it seems ridiculous, a lot of times I feel a little nostalgic about that time. But anyway, now I can get to walk around the city at four AM in the morning, without having to watch who's behind my back. Before him, going out at night, it was extremelly dangerous.
- Hos did S-11 influenced in your music?
Mike D: It was obvious that S-11 had to have a place in our record. The fact of having to face what it could've been the lost of our city, it made us think a lot. The fact of being in the city that day... we'll be talking about that for a long time.
- You also mention Bush, "that president we didn't elect".
MCA: That phrase has two meanings: he didn't have popular vote, and we didn't vote for him. The day his lies cost him his precidency, it'll be a glorious day.
- Do you feel that your record has some relation with Michael Moore work?
Mike D: No, I don't think we have that much affinity with him, but I know that we need a lot more like Michael Moore, people who through their art, develope reality and throw some light over certain things. We need people who's not afraid of telling the truth, wihtout thinking of the consecuences of doing so. In our case, our aproche to the same target is quite different from Moore's. With TT5B we tried to make a record and to have fun. Always made us believed that politic was a matter aimed to serious people, and all the people that wants to have fun, shouldn't get involved. That's the vision that was imposed to us, through people who's got power, to reduce the political development to a place guarded and unreachable for most of the people. We have to fight against that myth.
- Is modern hip hop separated of its political part?
MCA: It's possible, but maybe it's a matter of time. If someone had suggested us fifteen years ago that we should write about politic, we'd surely have told them to fuck off, and now, here we are, comparing ourselves to Michael Moore... (laughs).
STEP BY STEP.
LICENSED TO ILL (1986): With a few changes in their formation, and after a turn from hardcore to rap, the opening simple "She's on it" (85), it already anticipated the har hip hop bases with heavy guitars, that in this album extend its fortune to "Fight for your right" and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", the two first songs on rap history that managed to take that kind of record to the top of the charts. Led Zeppelin samplers with "Afrika Bambastaa" electro rhythms. The Beastiemania it's already a fact.PAUL'S BOUTIQUE (1989): A big step. The B-Boys leave behind all of those who said that they were just one hit wonder group - the Def Jam label, Rick Rubin - and they moved to Los Angeles. There, with the Dust Brothers on the machines, they give birth to the "Sgt. Peppers of rap": a dense and opresive album, spined by an immense number of samples (they still have lawsuits because of this album) scratches and loops. A fascinating and timeless record, that in its time was seen as an artistic suicide, beyond its great reviews.
CHECK YOUR HEAD (1992): The first one for Grand Royal, their own record label, and also the first one to give a more organic evniroment for the sound, with the guest Money Mark and Mario Caldato, contribuing on several jams. Instrumental pieces like Power or Groove Holmes, coexisting with with the calmed Narmaste and the rapped cuts like So Wat'cha Want and Pass the Mic. After the assorted PAUL'S BOUTIQUE, the B-Boys get their more rounded work.
ILL COMUNICATION (1994): More of the same, only this time with a worldwide hit: Savotage, that put them again on the center of attention, impulsed also by its faboulous vide, directed by Spike Jonze. Hip hop, latin rhythms, funk and jazz by the hand of a madure group, that now control their career and achieved the goals that they set upon themselves. It was time to look for new directions...
HELLO NASTY (1998): ... but not this way. And excesive long record, that goes different ways, but without depth enough on any of them. Not even the effective rap of always, not the phsycodellia, nor the dub manage to conceal the thoughtless vastness of a work that was done uphill. It took them 6 years to get back the compass.
TO THE FIVE BOROUGHS (2004): :cool: .
solesaurust
08-20-2005, 06:44 PM
TO THE FIVE BOROUGHS (2004): The return to the studio that surprises for two reasons: on one hand, they get rid of their instruments (no more rock or instrumental sessions), to try a look to the first sounds of hip hop (beat box, electro) that concects this album to "Licensed to Ill": pure hard rap. On the other, they solidify a political and comited speach, clearly charging against Bush's goverment, the Irak invasion, and above all, making a clear statement about their unconditional love for their city, New York. Dancing, yes. But with their feet on the ground.
solesaurust
09-03-2005, 03:34 PM
It sucks that the magazine put down on "Hello Nasty"!!!! Just because it didn't have the impact that records like "Ill Comunication" or "Paul's Boutique" had, it doesn't mean it's a bad one!!!!
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