- "I did it again, now I'm busted and blue, I know I pushed you too hard, and I'm losing you." "I know my luck is bound to change real soon, aww somehow the trouble doesn't always win in the end...I was snake bit again." I used to be friendly with a nurse in Annapolis Maryland...we had some common interests including music, alcohol and adult situations. She was goodly enough to make me a small bundle of CDs including "Ash Wednesday Blues" by Anders Osburne which features "Snake Bit Again". I was goodly enough to take her to see Charlie Hunter at the Rams Head Tavern so I think we're even. "Snake Bit Again" brings funk with a gospel organ, horns and wah-wah guitars. Lyrically it's a down and out tale, the kind most people can identify with. The jazz, soul, funk sound on "Snake Bit Again" highlight Anders New Orleans roots. "Who' dat?" "Anders" "Yea, you rite!"
- "Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighborhood, hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood, but I’m taking a greyhound on the Hudson river line-I’m in a New York state of mind." DJ Green Lantern mashes up the Beastie Boys on "New York State of Mind", a mixtape that puts new beats behind classic Beasite songs and features other MCs (Ludacris, Biggie Smalls, Busta Ryhmes) alongside the B-boys. Any fan of the Beastie Boys will enjoy hearing classic songs like "Pass the Mic", "Hey Ladies" and "Sure Shot" reinvented. For me hearing "Body Movin" over Special Ed's "I Got it Made" is a special treat. "New York State of Mind" highlights one of the great strengths of hip hop- the inherent flexibility of the art form. A hip hop remix is only limited by the imagination of the DJ. As Rakim once said, "Even if it's jazz or the quiet storm, I hook a beat up and convert it in a hip hop form".
3. Trouble Man- Marvin Gaye
- " (I) Come up hard, baby I had to fight, took care of my bid'ness, with all my might." "There's only three things that's for sure, 'taxes, death and trouble, 'oh!" In 1972 Marvin Gaye scored the soundtrack to the blaxplotation film "Trouble Man". The jazz album is mainly instrumental and is best known for the title track which found it's way onto a number of Marvin Gaye greatest hits compilations. With Issac Hayes scoring "Shaft" in 1971 and Curtis Mayfield scoring "Superfly" in 1972 the blaxplotation era was at it's zenith. For Gaye, the offer to score the film was an opportunity to compose jazz and for a time delay a true follow up to the massively successful "What's Going On" (1971) LP. "Trouble Man" was a musical step to the side and an interesting one at that. The title song has a slow menacing groove and the silky smooth vocals that made Marvin a legend. "Trouble Man" creates a real mood and it's inclusion in the hit film se7en was well done.
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