Total Pageviews

Thursday, November 5, 2015

[Stream] MED x BLU x MADLIB - "Bad Neighbor"

Three of the West Coast's most interesting and innovative artists of the day got together to record the full-length LP "Bad Neighbor" which is now available on wax, CD and digital through MED's own BangYaHead imprint. Since its announcement a month or so ago I've been absolutely stoked for this project and I can say that it does not dissapoint. Blu and Medaphoar have a really strong chemistry and their voices and styles go really well together and there's a lot of strong concepts to assure a satisfying listen. Madlib is the captain of the ship however and while it might not reach the incredible heights of "Pinata", 'Lib does create magic here through his delving into his vintage 1970's Soul crates. An interesting note on these recordings is that this album has been gestating for several years, going through a severe transformation guided by MED. Originally Blu recorded a bunch of new songs over beats he had received from The Mad Kid, much of which was put out (and soon after withdrawn) on the free Blu LP/mixtape "UCLA". MED then took it upon himself to use those aborted sessions into building a full scale MED/Blu/Madlib collaboration LP with some massive guest features. And the result speaks for itself... While I felt that the second half is a little stronger, I also gets the feeling that this is one of those projects that will grow a whole lot on you so I'm reserving my final call on this one. But I can put it like this - it is definitely one album I will purchase to add to the record collection.

Stream the entire LP below via Spotify and be sure to support the artists by purchasing a copy of "Bad Neighbor" in your format of choice @ Rappcats (just noticed that the 2xLP set isn't released until December 1, but pre-orders are up).

No comments:

Post a Comment