Beef or chicken, tell me what you want ?
A Bathing Ape world domination plans continue this week with the release of Teriyaki Boyz (what's that name btw?) debut album, Beef or chicken. Why should you care ? Well, first the Boyz are among the new artists signed on the Jay Z is the boss Def Jam label. And now Jay is wearing Bape everywhere he goes, good for the street cred of Bape in the States. Nigo, Jay and co managed to get an impressive list of producers for the project, resulting in an all the money can buy type of album: Daft Punk ? check. The Neptunes ? sure. DJ Shadow? yep. And Just Blaze, Cornelius, Cut Chemist Ad Rock etc I mean who's missing ? Lil Jon ? might have been skiing somewhere. Kanye ? his Sidekick ran out of batteries. You get the idea.
And the result ? a clever marketing move for Bape, some good tracks (Cornelius, Blaze, Daft Punk, a chopped and screwed mix - I told you, all the elements for an hip hop success in 2005 are here), and an album that still sounds closer to J pop than to hip hop. Those guys are too clean, too nice, too quiet to impress anyone, even with the best producers behind them. Sorry, but this is no ghetto shit, despite Nigo's gold chains and camo Royce. But maybe they are all missing the point: why try to sound ghetto in Japan ? why not laugh at the silliness of it all ? Isn't wearing a Bape uniform ridiculous in Japan in 2005 ? why don't they make fun of it ? where's the fun ? where's Japan's TTC ? give us something fun, not 100% pop, not 100% street cred hip hop shit, give us something unique. And we can discuss the question of wearing purple camo hoodies later.
Chimidoro rockin' the house
At the exact opposite of the hip hop spectrum are Chimidoro . I went to their live tonight in Kichijioji and once again they rocked the place with a clever (and unique) mix of rap, electro beats and jokes. Fun, fun, fun. It's not perfect yet, I feel they are still thinking about what to do with the project, but they have potential, they can represent a much needed fresh air on the boring japanese hip hop scene. I don't know what they will do next, but this is a band I would love to produce tracks for. After their performance my head was full of ideas for strange, broken, fun beats to work on. Chimidoro we love you.
