The Bad Kid Keeps Rollin'

My readership knows my feelings on the life and music of James "J Dilla" Yancey, and so you know I mean no disrespect whatsoever when I tell you that the late beatmaster's labelmate and friend Madlib continues to thrive in his absence. If you like good hip hop beats - and hopefully you can imagine what I mean by that - you need to buy Beat Konducta, Vols. 1-2.

Much like Dilla's album Donuts, the 35-track Konducta disc is a veritable smorgasbord of one-to-two minute beats, without any major vocal presence (samples excepted). Also like Donuts, it keeps you jumping top to bottom. The first half of the CD-release has been out on vinyl for a while, but the second half is brand bangin' new.

I've said it before: the formula is simple, it's all in the execution. And the digging. What makes a guy like Madlib so special is the process that goes into finding just the right samples for his brand of beats. While he's had the good fortune to be allowed - invited, actually - to remix the Blue Note catalog, most of his records are filled with sounds found deep in the Motown stacks. I'm sure Madlib would tell you himself - sometimes you gotta dig for days to find that perfect five-second cut.

For the uninitiated, Stones Throw wants you to hear their shit, and they're willing to give a little away for free. The second episode of their new podcast series is a twenty-plus-minute mixup (thanks to J Rocc of the Beat Junkies, who seems to be the resident remixer) of tracks from Madlib's new release. It's a fairly representative sample, a good preview of the Bad Kid's new disc, and it features a couple of nice cameos.

That's my musical contribution for the day. I'd also like to shout out the best NCAA tournament of all time (seriously, how many overtime games and buzzer-beaters can one set of 64 games have?). Finally, I'd like to shamelessly suggest that you - that's you, dear K-bor - go ahead and click on the link for my NBA blog and, whether you like the NBA or not, click on some of the ads you see there. I'd consider it a personal favor, and you'll essentially be keeping me fed in the mac-n-cheese/frozen taquitos style I've become accustomed to. (I told you it would be shameless.) If enough people click on my ads, maybe I'll even be able to afford one of those Krispy Kreme Burgers.