And it’s trouble that starts with playful verbal gunshots and ends with ugly-ass ignorant hatred. It’s not until you get to the “chorus” that you’ll run into trouble. The track starts out amiably enough, with Biggie’s flow playing nicely off the repeated tones. Proceed with caution (and headphones preferably, if at work). It’s not so much the words as it is the context. I won’t put you completely in my unguarded shoes, though, because I have no idea where you’re listening to this and who else might be listening alongside you, so here’s this disclaimer: WARNING: The following mashup contains some language that most people would consider unsuitable. I was minding my own business, browsing the “Remix” tag at Bandcamp when I ran into this. Weakling has done exactly that: juxtaposition with an outsized serving of audacity. The unhealthy urge to put incompatible parts together and coax them into cohesion. Audacity is the name of the game and whatever can have a hook (lyrical/musical) hung on it, will have exactly that happen to it.Īudacity. Genre limitations are burnt to the ground and salted.

Mashup artists know this and go crate-digging with enthusiasm, looking for stuff that shouldn’t work but does. Joy Division).mp3 Įxtreme juxtaposition allows fans from disparate genres to meet in the middle, if only to discuss how FUCKED this mix is and HOW DARE THEY, ETC. Oki – Means to a Firework (Katy Perry vs. No one wants to hear this and yet someone (in this case, mashup artist Oki) heard something the rest of us didn’t and performed Frankenstein-esque dark art to give us what we clearly didn’t want, but find to be surprisingly listenable. Don’t even come in here with that bullshit. There will always be exceptions or stuff that just doesn’t work.) Did you ever have the urge to hear Katy Perry fronting Joy Division? Of course you didn’t. The greater the juxtaposition, the better the mashup. This is where the mashup artist steps in, freeing vocalists from the constraints of their chosen music and allowing them to wander into other genres. An aspiring singer could conceivably sing one song’s lyrics over another song’s melody, but if anyone has ever done that, I have yet to hear it.

There’s no real analogue for a mixtape in other forms of music. The trick is finding something complementary, yet unexpected. If you’ve got one hip hop artist rapping over another hip hop artist’s beats, you’ve got a mixtape, not a mashup. There has to be some sort of A+B tension in order to pull it off. Without juxtaposition, a mashup is nothing.

Dj topcat