Day 0856 - New Forms

Roni Size/Reprazent "New Forms" (1997)

Roni had grown up in the musical melting pot of Bristol, home of the trip-hop of Portishead and Massive Attack, but also a lot of dub and reggae.   Roni saw gigs by Massive Attack forerunner The Wild Bunch, learned to DJ at his local youth club and formed 'Roni Size and Reprazent.

Their debut album here is an interesting mix of high BPM DnB patterns with dub, soul, jazz bass, and electro tracks.   The songs are generally built on repetitive loops that are given a good 5+ minutes to develop with vocals featuring on some tracks.

I knew the name Roni Size, didn't think I'd heard any of his music but "Digital" sounds quite familiar, so I may have done after all.

Reprazent only released one other album, but Roni collaborated with other artists, did remixes and even contributed to the interesting soundtrack to the film "Spawn" that paired up metal and hard-rock acts with electronic producers and artists.

Day 0794 - Me Against the World

 Tupac "Me Against the World" (1995)

Tupac started off rapping with Digital Underground.  As he developed his sound, he moved away from their sound and more towards Dr Dre's developing 'G-funk' sound.

Despite having been recorded at multiple different studios and with different producers, the album has a certain cohesion.   Tupac covers a number of different sounds, including the ballad "Dear Mama" and the heavy reality of "So Many Tears".   That seems to be something that is repeatedly noted about this album, that Shakur was wearing his heart on his sleeve a bit more with these songs.  Digging deep and honest with his lyrics.

He definitely had plenty of drama to draw from, he'd shot at cops, been accused of sexual assualt and was even in prison as the album went to number one.

The album opens with an oddly prescient series of newsreaders talking about Tupac having been shot and checked himself out of hospital.  Ultimately Tupac was murdered in his mid-20s, a victim of 'the game' that he rapped about so much here.   

Day 0672 - Sex Packets

Digital Underground "Sex Packets" (1990)

I got some enjoyment out of this, but that is based more on the source material that the album is built from than from anything D.U. bring to it.  Funky samples are used from artists like George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and Herbie Hancock.

I have to admit that this is not what I'd thought Digital Underground would sound like.  I was expecting a nascent electronica album; instead, it's rap built on top of funk grooves with a sense of humour and, unfortunately, a touch of misogyny.

Apparently it's a concept album with a narrative around a drug that provides sexual pleasure.  I didn't really take any of that in though.  As I've said before, I'm not generally a lyrics person.