"We got espers that let us bless
with fresh shit,
undetected by yes men, questing for
five nanoseconds of fame.
Protecting the brain from conspiracies
against my cosmos,
while I flow to Neo-Tokyo with Opio
or discuss combustible rust clusters
with Plus.
Evade cyber police in a computer crib,
confuse the kids,
but I can make a kickin' rhyme that's
sacred.
Telepathic mind that takes his
greatness from the Matrix."
from 3030
Time for another review of a classic
that may or may not get a sequel later this year! The late 90's and
early 00's represent, among a lot of other things, a time when hip hop
production was heavily inspired by mainstream music moving away from
rock guitar acts and more into electronic music. At the time it seemed to
be where hip hop was going as well, with producers everywhere
choosing to make their own beats with synthesizers instead of
samplers. As with most trends, some stuck to it while some went back
and what we're left with is, if nothing else, more diverse than it
was before.
Deltron 3030 came out in 2000 and is
the product of MC Del tha Funkee Homo Sapien, DJ Kid Koala and
producer Dan the Automator at some point sitting down and deciding
they wanted to make a concept album set in the future. That may sound
cheesy, and it totally is, but what has made the album stand the test of
time is the near flawless execution they managed to pull off. The
trio then went on to produce the Gorillaz debut album, also a great
success in many ways, but then fell silent.
Kid Koala kept releasing
cryptic turntable records, Del did some solo releases and Automator
went about being a producer for other artists. With the first album
growing in popularity, they eventually issued a statement in 2004
saying that there would be a sequel entitled "Deltron Event II"
and that it would drop in 2008. To make a long story short, we're
still waiting on the album(though all things point to it finally
being released in 2013, since the first single is officially
released).
The story is unusually vague for a
concept album, but revolves around some sort of superhero called
Deltron Zero. In the year 3030, hip hop is controlled by mega
corporations and Deltron is on a quest to restore hip hop to it's
former glory or something like that. It's not always clear to the
listener exactly what's going on except for these mega corporations,
mech warriors and rap battles but that's ok. Lyrically, Del is not
telling a story so much as describing the conditions of this
hypothetical future, and the soundscape is consistently futuristic to
make it at least somewhat believable. Throughout the album, the Dels
rhymes are amazing, the delivery flawless and his style is more laid
back and smooth than it ever was before. That's not to take anything
away from his other releases but while they are- at least in part-
great, some of them have felt a bit rough around the edges lyrically.
If you are unfamiliar with Dan the
Automator, his production style is unique and quirky in all the right
places but never crosses over into silly or doing odd things for the
sake of it. A classically trained violinist, he samples everything
from classic to contemporary music and manages to find gems
everywhere. As with Del, his works prior to and after Deltron have
yet to pull through for me in the same way but every beat on Deltron 3030 just works
and sounds like nothing else.
Every creative person has ups and
downs, obviously, and maybe this album just happened to come out at a
time when three creative peaks converged but judging by the tracks
from "Event II" that have been released thus far this
hopefully isn't the case.
High point of the album: Mastermind
Low point of the album:Things you can do
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