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Edan, "Beauty and the Beat"
Boston beat nerd Edan's second full length Beauty and the Beatis, appropriately titled, a hip hop fairy tale, a record with b-boycredentials and otherworldly destinations. Before he heard Straight Outta Comptonand converted to the church of rap, the former Berklee College of Musicattendee wielded guitars and grooved to Woodstock-era rock, folk andpsychedelic records.
Lewis Recordings
And it shows: the music on Beauty and the Beatis undeniably old-block hopping funky hip hop music, but comprised ofmostly samples from trippy 60s and 70s space and acid rock and suchlikeinstead of the usual jazz and R&B blend: David Gilmour instead ofDavid Axelrod. It works, in part, due to Edan's simplicity (or is itjust ease?) when it comes to making music. Much of Beauty and the Beatis just a simple three-part loop with some shifty sampling stapled to awhimsical, rapidly and steadily cadenced and often esoteric rhyme flow.But something—be it the incredibly energetic pace (the 13 tracks speedby with Edan or a partner spitting nearly the whole time), theaforementioned unusual source-material or the contemporary GeorgeMartin-like freewheeling production—makes the music subtly sublime in afunky and bizarre way. Making a hip hop record while utilizing a scantnumber of percussive sounds is perhaps Edan's greatest triumph on Beauty.He raps over a barely-audible snare and drum line from what could be aVelvet Underground record, something that conventional bass-cannon-bredMCs could barely hear, let alone flow on. He loses the audience onoccasion, but only with his obscure references andstream-of-consciousness attention span; bombastic b-boy couplets like"I work with the aesthetic of a brain medic/ Cutting up the reels withcrystal shards to make a tape edit" work best, even when uttered over astrangely minimalist but downright "groovy, man" loop with barely abeat to rap on. It's as distinctive-sounding a hip hop record as I'veheard lately and yet feels like its comprised of strangely familiarsounds, none of which I could never identify. It's far out, G.
Lewis Recordings
And it shows: the music on Beauty and the Beatis undeniably old-block hopping funky hip hop music, but comprised ofmostly samples from trippy 60s and 70s space and acid rock and suchlikeinstead of the usual jazz and R&B blend: David Gilmour instead ofDavid Axelrod. It works, in part, due to Edan's simplicity (or is itjust ease?) when it comes to making music. Much of Beauty and the Beatis just a simple three-part loop with some shifty sampling stapled to awhimsical, rapidly and steadily cadenced and often esoteric rhyme flow.But something—be it the incredibly energetic pace (the 13 tracks speedby with Edan or a partner spitting nearly the whole time), theaforementioned unusual source-material or the contemporary GeorgeMartin-like freewheeling production—makes the music subtly sublime in afunky and bizarre way. Making a hip hop record while utilizing a scantnumber of percussive sounds is perhaps Edan's greatest triumph on Beauty.He raps over a barely-audible snare and drum line from what could be aVelvet Underground record, something that conventional bass-cannon-bredMCs could barely hear, let alone flow on. He loses the audience onoccasion, but only with his obscure references andstream-of-consciousness attention span; bombastic b-boy couplets like"I work with the aesthetic of a brain medic/ Cutting up the reels withcrystal shards to make a tape edit" work best, even when uttered over astrangely minimalist but downright "groovy, man" loop with barely abeat to rap on. It's as distinctive-sounding a hip hop record as I'veheard lately and yet feels like its comprised of strangely familiarsounds, none of which I could never identify. It's far out, G.samples:
