Detroit vs. Everybody Remix (16 Minutes feat. Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Trick Trick,Marv Won prod. Statik Selektah)

The original version of Detroit Vs. Everybody was on an Eminem compilation of no particular distinction (Shady XM).  The original featured Shady, Dej Loaf, Royce da 5'9", Big Sean and the more-played-out-by-the-moment Danny Brown (and it hurts us to say that- we loved Danny Brown!).  And rarely use exclamation points for emphasis.

The Remix which clocks in at a whopping and not entirely enthralling sixteen minutes.  Dej Loaf appears on this one too along with Trick Trick, two thirds of Random Axe (Guilty Simpson and Black Milk), Detroit Che, Boldy James, Sino, Payroll, Hydro, Big Gov, Kid Vishis, Big Herk, Calicoe, Diezel, Icewear Vezzo,Big Herk and Marv Won.   All the rappers are Detroit natives or connected with the D - a handful (Diezel, Marv Won, Guilty) having previously appeared together on Trick Trick's second gangster album The Villain.

Northern Heads celebrates 60,000 visitors

Northern Heads began as northernheads.com (a very lo-fi website, essentially a proto-blog covering largely Canadian improvisational 'jam' based music) from 2001-2005.   The website was founded by Canadian Luke Bowden and American Abe Robins and might best be described as jambands.com meets The Onion on ketamine.  

After some dark and hairy times Northern Heads was revived by Luke Bowden as a blog at first primarily focused on Detroit Hip Hop.  The notion behind this limited focus at the outset was that there are countless general interest blogs and music blogs out there and the world of music is so vast that once one starts down a path (say Blues from the 1920's) you could literally spend a lifetime trying to understand that little niche.  From an initial focus on the preternatural J Dilla, his protege Black Milk and many in his camp including Elzhi, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price and (Hybrid-era) Danny Brown the scope of coverage has grown.

Gradually the focus of the blog dilated to include its namesake the Grateful Dead, Phish and the immortal Prince - but more importantly progressive improvisational groups such as The Slip (now The Barr Brothers) as well as a variety of Electronic musicians influenced by a deep musicality (The Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus etc.).   Swinging to the other end of the spectrum my other area of specialization is Roots and Americana music with a fervent interest in Canadian groups with spine and spirit such as The Golden Dogs and their kin Zeus. 

As a freelance music writer I have always operated on the margins of Canada's nepotistic and clingy world of music journalism.  As a rule I do not feature any music which I am not deeply passionate about- setting a standard of requisite craftsmanship rarely present in the glut of releases pumped out on a daily basis.  Put plainly I listen to all the shit so that you don't have to.

As the New Year approaches we'll be highlighting the best of 2014's releases as well as highlighting long form interviews from the past year originally published on No Depression (the Roots music authority since 1995).  Thanks for reading and coming back - if you don't currently follow the blog please consider following it in the future.  I promise to bring you more music, more diverse music and insights, and more frequent updates over the coming year.

sincerely,

Luke C. Bowden

Guilty Simpson (High Way Robbery w. Small Professor/ Swan & Simpson w. Rasco)

Always busy, always on the run, Guilty Simpson charges through a series of new collaborations on two new releases Highway Robbery produced by Small Professor (a concept album set in post-Apocalyptic Detroit but not the Robocop Detroit) and the Swan & Simpson EP (a strong collab with Cali Agents MC Rasco)

Simpson is handily one of the strongest MC's out of Detroit in the last decade.  While Danny Brown has gotten oversaturated attention for his molly-poppin'-clit-lickin' antics Guilty has steadily merced away at increasingly satisfying releases.  Random Axe, his supposed supergroup with Sean Price and Black Milk producing sounded like more fun in the studio than it was to listen to.  On these two releases it's not like Guilty's really progressed as a lyricist, his hallmark is his his street Solomon burly bravado.  But it's not like you want Guilty to change all that much here it's nice that he's got production, DJ and MC collaborators that make his smack-the-white-off-rice delivery fresh.

I'm The City (w. Boldy James and Statik Selektah on cuts) is definitely worth a listen as is On The Run.

Rasco makes a great foil for Simpson with both playing strength off of strength.  It's nice to hear a couple of silverbacks make sweet music and seem to enjoy themselves for a change.  Give History a shot:

True Story/ Dub Rock (Will Sessions vinyl)

It's very difficult to appreciate the sincerity and breadth of Detroit 'funk' band Will Sessions recent voluminous vinyl output unless you're as versed as they are in both Funk and Detroit Hip Hop.

As their name suggests they're a backing band for hire for fellow Detroit hip hop artists like Elzhi, Guilty Simpson and Black Milk.  They're also fully capable of backing actual Detroit soul heavyweights like Dennis Coffey who was one of Motown's original Funk Brothers studio band as well as having a substantial soulo career.

They're output of late (available on their bandcamp) represents intricate efforts to replicate live the productions of various hip hop producers; as they did on both Elzhi's recapitulation of Nas' Ilmatic as Elmatic with note perfect re-workings of beats by Pete Rock, Large Professor and L.E.S, or their Mix Takes One and Mix Takes Two which crams musical cues like a DJ set from the pillar of Detroit hip hop and neo-soul legend J Dilla, to his protege Black Milk, Guilty Simpson as well as rare funk cuts (and epochal hip hop samples) like Bob James Nautilus.



Here though on True Story they've truly out done themself.  True Story (moreso True Story Part 2 from Phat Kat's Carte Blanche)  is one of the most beautiful hip hop songs ever created with lyrics and vocals by Phat Kat (Ronnie Cash) and production by the notoriously underlooked and gifted producer Young RJ who with Black Milk were briefly BR Gunna .

In referencing the history of their contemporaries so flawlessly and with such reverence they are both doing something truly unique and making interesting statements about live music culture and sample based music culture.  Will Sessions are winking at the DJ, winking at the bedroom purist, the music writer and the crate digger.  More importantly they're winking.

Will Sessions Mix Takes (Take Two)

Will Sessions Mix Takes LP - Take Two (partial tracklist)

Rico Suave Bossa Nova - Jay Dee (on Welcome 2 Detroit) 2:11
Pressure - Black Milk (on Broken Wax EP) 3:19
Danger - Black Milk (on Broken Wax EP) 4:13
Take Notice- J Dilla featuring Guilty Simpson (on Ruff Draft) 5:14
Goatit - Black Milk featuring Phat Kat and Elzhi (on Caltroit) 7:23


Again can't pick out the opening couple of minutes but at 2:11 Shellaberger lopes into the familiar bassline of Jay Dee's Rico Suave Bossa Nova again off Welcome 2 Detroit.  Kacir on the MPC or more likely Beaubien on the keyboard chimes in the 'whistling' melody.  This is just the sort of silky groove with a live feel that's perfect for re-interpretation with an actual live feel.  Then at 3:19 they slip into the earlier work of Black Milk digging around fairly deeply in the crates to find Pressure off the Broken Wax EP of 2006. Then again at 4:13 Ryan Gimpert on guitar is coaxing Danger from the Broken Wax EP, that track originally being done with Phat Kat and T3.   At 5:14 it's enough of the pupil's work and the teacher wrests back the mantle.  Take Notice featuring Guilty Simpson is a staple from Dilla's Ruff Draft.  It's both an emblematic piece of Dilla's production but also a classic example of the unique nature of their collaborations together.  A Dilla beat for Guilty, or a Dilla beat that Guilty rapped over, well it's no longer just a Dilla beat.

Bringing the whole train back round to their frequent collaborator Black Milk, again showing their breadth of knowledge and dexterity even with a mix of live instrumentation and sequenced samples, Will Sessions launches (at 7:23) into what seems in hindsight an obvious bet: Goatit (off the Caltroit mixtape put together by Bishop Lamont and Black Milk) originally with Phat Kat and Elzhi.

Will Sessions are beasts. And men among men.

Will Sessions Mix Takes (Take One)

Will Sessions Mix Takes LP - Take One (partial tracklist)

Nautilus (on One) - Bob James (1:44)

Made You Look (on God's Son) - Nas (2:22)

The Clapper (on Welcome 2 Detroit) - Blu/Jay Dee (3:05)

Antiquity (on Love Is The Answer) - Dwight Trible & The Life Force Trio/ J Dilla (4:09)

untitled/fantastic (on Fantastic Vol. 2)- Slum Village (5:10)

Nasty Ain't It (on Carte Blanche) - Phat Kat/ J Dilla (6:39)

Will Sessions Mix Takes is a limited edition vinyl LP out this month on Fat Beats. It plays through like a DJ set with each side an uninterrupted instrumental: Take One and Take Two. Will Sessions is a normally 8 piece soul-funk band known for backing such guitar and Motown luminaries as Dennis Coffey (one of the original Funk Brothers) as well as swelling up to 15 pieces as the Guilty Simpson Big Band. They've likewise backed other Detroit hip hop luminaries like Phat Kat and in particular trumpeter/keyboardist/arranger Sam Beaubien and bassist/keyboardist Tim Shellaberger both made measured contributions to Black Milk's standout Album Of The Year.

Here the 5 piece is rounded out by their longstanding bandmates: Ryan Gimpert (guitar/keyboards), Bryan Arnold (Drums) and Eric Kacir (Percussion, MPC). But it's the repertoire not the personnel that is so bloody fascinating about these two takes of music- two sides of a slab if you will. I haven't pegged the opening cut but at 1:44 on the nose they clearly launch simultanueously into Bob James Nautilus - one of the most sampled songs in hip hop history. It is so pervasive a sample that most people of this generation will recognize it solely from Ghostface Killah's Daytona 500 breakthrough single with the singular video. Elsewhere on their Real Sessions release the band plays this number as So Gone/ Nautilus with Black Milk. They're sticking largely to the Bob James original, admittedly chopping the sample or portion that suits them, but the punch and recontextualization in a hip hop setting suggests that they are playing whatever the listener hears: Nautilus/ Daytona 500/ So Gone.  Slamming two tracks together that might not have met otherwise Will Sessions leaves the listener aghast when they drop the strangled guitar line from Nas' Made You Look exactly at 2:22.

Then at 3:05 they do one of the singularly coolest things I've seen an instrumental, at least hip hop, group cook up.  What they do is they play The Clapper production attributed to Blu/Jay Dee from his first solo album Welcome 2 Detroit.  The Clapper's a funny choice for a number of reasons the least of which is its name.  Particularly if you're familiar with the near constant revolts and revolutions of sound that define his seminal (and final) Donuts full length, The Clapper in comparison sounds like that records redheaded stepchild.  It seems highly unlikely that Yancey (Jay Dee, J Dilla) would have imagined his early beat tapes circulated to MC's with their jokish and tossed off track names would later become a source of deep reverence- but they have become just that.  The Clapper itself is a funny by appearances fairly simple beat to knock off.   This is a sign in of a great craftsmen, the apparent ease with which they seem to render their creations.  It seems likely, and the members of Will Sessions all studied musicians render it with due humour and revery, this track was odiously hatched together from god knows what arcane sources because Yancey liked the particular clap sound (or likely a number of claps) he was able to sample then manipulate through his MPC (Midi Production Centre).   This process itself, the effect that an MPC has on the sound of original source material, gives certain sounds a 'woody' or in any case a pleasing sound to the ear.  Every hip hop sample you've ever heard has been pushed through one sort or another of these little boxes- some would say the loss of information from the signal is sometimes just as pleasing to the ear.  For Will Sessions then to play a fairly simple little diddy, a melody, a couple of rhythmic conceits in 2/4 time off  the floor live is for them no big challenge.  It's in the winking self-referential nod to all that Jay Dee was aware of and put into the track in the first place that gives the moment it's grandeur.

Then Take One just continues to build with nuances only the deep Dilla heads and crate diggers are going to chin wag too.  Having not only dropped The Clapper the group seamlessly progresses into a deep instrumental entitled Antiquity, which would typically have out jazz vocalist Dwight Trible's gravelly sentient voice overtop.  Adding insult onto injury this again morphs into a vaguely recognizable untitled number from Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 2.  The piece de resistance though has to be the clarion call of the signature Dilla siren from Nasty Ain't It off Phat Kat's benchmark Carte Blanche LP.  Here Shellaberger ever the rock liquid bottom switches from bass to the bass pad and punches out the distinctive and hard line.

Random Axe leak Chewbacca

In the quick runup to the release of Random Axe' (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price) self titled another track is available for your listening pleasure.  Chewbacca featuring Roc Marciano opens with a Black Milk calliope beat you swear you've heard from him before - Sean P quickly diving his head into the snowy beats.

Random Axe "Chewbacca" feat. Roc Marciano by duckdown

Random Axe debuts self-titled at NYC listening party

Billboard is reporting on a listening party held at the Dominican NY Theater & Lounge for Random Axe's (Black Milk, Sean Price, Guilty Simpson) self-titled debut.  The 15 track album including the already previewed The Hex includes cuts entitled Chewbacca, Understand This and Random Call.

While Black Milk is the sole producer on the album - it is the uncanny collaboration of Brownsville native Sean Price's and Guilty Simpson's and their jocular style of jailyard collegiality that gives the album it's deep grind.  It's deep grind floating atop Milk's slightly-less-spaced (than this past years Album Of The Year) beats lends to its deep appeal.  Getting the sessions going with Price and Simpson engaged in any manner of chicanery was apparently a constant tug of war of productivity over hilarity.   Likewise while Milk conducted the sessions and had Price rapping his deep internal and stacked rhymes over 'Jimi Hendrix shit' - Price lobbied for Milk to come to the fore vocally on more tracks as he does on The Hex.

Random Axe Random Axe is being released June 14th on Duck Down Music.

Random Axe (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price) collab drops June 14

The long in the works super-group collaboration between uber-Hip Hop producer Black Milk and gutteral gifted street voices Guilty Simpson and Sean Price is set to drop June 14th.

The lead track The Hex is now available for viewing, purchase (through Itunes) and listening.

Random Axe "The Hex" by duckdown

Black Milk, Album Of The Year preview

Although an old clip this is the most in depth preview of Black Milk in the studio, first talking about the forthcoming Random Axe collaboration (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price), then an album he's doing with  vocalist Melanie Rutherford called Searching for Sanity then his own highly anticipated Album Of The Year.  Simply seeing the young Curtis Cross move nimbly in his own studio is electrifying, some of the best footage comes at the end though when his live drummer Daru comes into the studio and they work out a dizzying live beat.

Hip Hop Legend Sean Price plays Toronto's Revival (Aug. 26, 2010)

Born in Brownsville, NY Price is known in the rap world since his debut in the early 90s for his work with Heltah Skeltah and Boot Camp Clik. A frequent collaborator with a whole host of heavyweights Sean also has two solo full lengths (Monkey Bars, Jesus Price Supastar) and a slew of mixtapes under his belt, the most recent being the Kimbo Price Mixtape.


True afficianados though no Price from a single (literally) collaboration that Heltah Keltah (where Price was known as Ruck (The Irrational) with his partner Rock(nessmonster) and Originoo Gunn Clappaz did as The Fab 5.

Price has come a long way from his humble beginnings listen to for instance his contemporary work on The Matrix (from Black Milk's pivotal Tronic) likely one of the greatest Hip Hop tracks produced in the last 5 years.





Price is a frequent collaborator of  Black Milk's and makes up one third (with Milk and Guilty Simpson) of the supergroup Random Axe (predominantly mentioned on Guilty Simpson's song Run from Ode To The Ghetto).  Here is Monster Babies the first joint released from the forthcoming album.





Here we see Sean Price signing with Duck Down records (ostensibly for a gold rolex) for the release of the forthcoming Random Axe album.  Price drops a short a capella verse directly addressing the camera giving the listener some insight into his force, bravura and bravado.







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