1 Part Glue, 2 Parts Maker's Mark = sticky, drunk beats Posted by independent j

Never Really Know - Glue from the album Catch As Catch Can on FatBeats (2006). Live It (Part 1&2) - Maker from the album Shooting The Breeze on Galapagos4 (2005). Honestly f/ Qwel - Maker from the 12" single on Birthwrite Records (2004). I was really caught out of nowhere by Glue's release this year. I feel like I say this about every hip hop album I like, but the beats just carry this through. MC Adeem says positive things and doesn't bother me, but overall I'd rather listen to this album as an instrumental, which blissfully is packaged write in there with the full album in the CD release. Maker is the producer for 75% of the album (other credits go to DJ DQ, who gets under-utilized as a DJ through the rest of the album) and it is some of his finest work. Picking just 1 of 4 possible favorites, I chose the "Never Really Know," which features excellent horns and minor key piano over crunchy boom-bap beats. Its a little hard to find someone making old-styled sample boom-bap these days with all the keyboard wizardry running amuk. Maker's put out quite a few production releases (he's the fuzzy chinned fella on the left in the above picture of Glue), 1 of which I was surprised to find buried somehow forgotten in my stacks. That would be his track with Qwel called "Honestly" from 2004. They also recorded a full album together, but I haven't been fortunate to hear it yet. Anywhats, Qwel does the perfect white Mos Def sing-rant about the appropriation of hip hop by the money hungry bitches folks and channels Kurt Cobain in what could be a corny but applicable reference concerning artistry vs. industry but amazingly just works beautifully. Finally a proper Maker instrumental where he loops up big, fat drums to make an almost live sounding cine-funk track sounding a lot like ultra-early DJ Shadow. I know I could use more of that sound in my life today. Neither Maker nor Glue are doing something completely new, and they're not the only ones embracing this older style of hip hop but for right now they are up on it better than anyone else. And if they end up near you, Glue is a fine show live.