 |
| |
|
| |
Album Review
by SashaS
26-7-2004
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Moby and Public Enemy: peace up! |
|
Moby & Public Enemy: 'MKLVFKWR'
(Mute)
Moby & PE: mighty like an interor tsunami!
9.6/10
The penultimate line [in a reverse-edit] is that this is - pardon my shouting - THE BEST SINGLE OF THE YEAR BAR NONE!
‘MKVRFKWR’ - ‘Make Love F**k War’, to give it its 'full' title - entwines everything that the past, present, and fair bit of, the future have to offer. Old-skool, nu-skool, no-s**t-skool, it’s got the lot a hit-song should: the monstrous beat, the gigantic hook, the singalong-ability, it engages your muscles and brain cells, it taps into your spinal fluid to create a tsunami inside your entire system!
The rhymes - "Power to the people because people want peace" - are instant/easy to identifiy with and, although can’t do it for a Pez, can't resist rapping-along to evoke a feeling of going and playing it loud outside that fortress of 'ignore-the-masses-we-know-what’s-the-best-for-us' - No. 10! It induces the sense of indigence about the modern democracy, it makes you wanna riot against the lies, the spins, become anti-all.
The track was written specially for ‘Unity - The Official Athens 2004 Olympic Games Album’ compilation, out next week, that rings like the dreaded alarm-clock in the morning after a heavy night of excesses. Even if the competition was stiffer but Alice Cooper teaming up with Xzibit, Jamelia duetting with Tiziano Ferro, Destiny’s Child with Will.I.Am, Macy Gray with Keziah Jones, Avril ‘Punkette’ Lavinge [solo], Sting ‘The Wise’ [with Mariza], Brian Eno with Skin [ex-Skunk Anansie], among many others - Moby & PE's track would still tower over the rest because it is one super bowl of balls!
The downside is that its title and lyrics prevent it from being on a radio station near you. This is not cosmetic-rap that you get nowadays in the relentlessly eternal race to the greatest blingalicious status; Chuck D and nutty [not as much as ODB, though] Flavor Flav are one of the very few rappers who have remained active and still meaning it - pertinently, fervently and fiercely.
Hip-hop for them is a weapon against ignorance, a tool to express the ills as well as too cure the rages, political but also feel-good with a bitter topping. Moby, his charting of idiosyncratic songs has been one constant delight during a decade when genre-definition has become a statistical data. [You can’t print art like you do money, physically speaking.]
Chuck D commented recently that [Hip-hop of today] “is not even just at grass roots level, either - it misrepresents the majority of Hip-hop out there. I defy anybody to say that they have Hip-hop all worked out into one category like they seem to think they can. Most of the artists you see on TV channels aren't half as misogynist in real life as their marketing campaigns would have you believe. A lot of it has to do with contractual obligations, and that's something ugly that's actually grown over the last five years.”
[Fear of people being turned off by something different], he continues, “is the same across the board but, also, the good acts are always the ones that don't give a damn. Public Enemy never did, and still don't. If people are just making albums that they think the NME or whoever will consider stellar, then they're damn fools. Too many times in hip-hop artists will tap dance just to make somebody happy, and you can't work like that. That's not what a true artist should really be about. Should you really care if somebody supposedly important likes your record or not? To me that's like going on a date and asking the girl over dinner: 'Do you like me?' If you don't have the confidence in yourself, then you'll get the answer you expect.”
PE left a major contract because they weren’t allowed to utilise the ’Net years before the industry was ready. [The industry is just about catching up now.]
Moby says of Public Enemy "I've always been a huge fan" and talking about the role of music and protest he states "we do still ostensibly live in a democracy, so my hope is that at some point the people will vocally rise up and let the current leaders know that they've had enough."
Chuck D: "Working with Moby on this theme and project again shows that music can be a universal language of peace. Knowing his great work and concerns of the planet made this project one of like-mindedness and world spirit."
Chuck D adds, "The song is a request that being a citizen of the world should transcend nationality in the name of peace."
The music for ‘MKLVFKWR’, was written by Moby while the lyrics were penned by Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy.
SashaS
26-7-2004
Moby & Public Enemy single 'MKLVFKWR' (CD + 12”) is released 26 July 2004 by Mute
‘Unity - The Official Athens 2004 Olympic Games Album’ is released 02 Aug. 2004 by Virgin/EMI
Moby's 'Play: B-Sides' compilation is released 09 August 2004 by Mute
|
|
|
