Last year a couple of Vegas Deejays with obviously well-rounded
tastes in Hip Hop took on an interesting mash up experiment: backpack thugs.
The concept was pretty simple – and a really good one: Pit commercial artists’
vocals over underground production, or vice versa. DJ Five and Pizzo (best
known to y’all as the man who runs HipHopSite.com),
are taking another crack at Backpack
Thugs in 2006. Where last year’s effort was much better in concept than in
execution, 2006’s version an improvement in virtually every area.
Not
only are the mash-ups spot on, the songs are mixed incredibly well with one
song bleeding into the next (something that has basically become non-existent
in mixtapes these days). I mean, who knew indy rapper/rocker P.O.S. would sound so dope over Eminem‘s “Shake That?” Black Thought and will.i.am over Timberlake/land‘s “Sexy Back” to make “Sexy Black?” Game over a J-Zone beat? That right there folks, is an ear. Pitbull vs. Glue makes “Bojanglue,” a seemingly match made in heaven. There are
great little touches thrown in as well, such as the Brad Pitt snippet from Seven
that preludes “Crazy Confusion” (Gnarls
vs. Juggaknots). They then turn
around and pit Cee Lo‘s “Crazy”
vocals over The Federation and Corey Hart. Lupe‘s “Kick Push” sounds right home over Snoop‘s “Vato,” as does Sleepy
Brown over J Dilla on the
cleverly-titled “caDILLAc.”
Kentucky
meets Miami as the Cunninlynguists
rock over Ricky Rawse‘s “Blow” to
nice results, and New York goes to the UK when Busta‘s “Touch It” vocals sync perfectly with Lady Sovereign. Easily one of the best joints on here is the “Flashback
Thugs” mix that mashes up Digable
Planets‘ “Rebirth of Slick” with The
Pack‘s “Vans” – the shit is really slick. In fact, it’s almost as slick as
how they sneak in J5 over Shadow‘s hyphy madness “3 Freaks.” And
who said Common couldn’t dumb out? “Tell
Me When to (Go!)” would indicate otherwise. T.I.’s southern drawl meshes perfectly over 9th Wonder‘s west coast twang on Murs‘ “L.A.”
There
are some missteps, however. “London Bridge is Handed Down” (Soul Position vs. Fergie) is a big disappointment as Blueprint‘s dope verse doesn’t fit at all with Fergie‘s crazy beat. I’ve been waiting to hear a real emcee slay that
ill beat that she butchered – this wasn’t it. I’m also not sure why Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes are mashed up together – who is the backpacker here?
Blended Jay‘s “Show Me What You Got”
vocals with Busta‘s “New York Shit”
beat works well enough, but not really to warrant breaking the formula. Hearing
Yung Joc disgrace Outkast‘s “The Mighty O” is also
something I could’ve done without, especially when, again, it doesn’t really
fit the format.
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While
certainly not a flawless mix, Backpack
Thugs is very well done and very entertaining. Over the course of 28 tracks
it will often leave you pondering the kind of music we’d hear if there weren’t
so many lines drawn in the sand by genre classifications, label red tape and
financial discrepancies.
