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CMU Approved
Approved: BadBadNotGood
By Aly Barchi | Published on Tuesday 21 October 2014
Canadian ‘post-rap’ jazz trio BadBadNotGood are a good way down the road to ‘establishment’ right now, having released three numerically-titled BBNG LPs: the first two a mix of hip-hop covers and the odd original track, and the third, ‘III’, all bona fide their own ideas.
Trained at the same jazz programme in their native Toronto, the band’s first big hip-hop tie-ins involved various factions of Odd Future, this after OF captain and jazz fan Tyler, The Creator noticed a series of OFWGKTA cover videos they’d posted online, and later came over ‘in real life’ for a now-kind-of-infamous basement jam.
Since making that initial point of collaborative contact, BBNG have done production work for Wu-Tang Clan (for the score to 2012 film ‘Man WithThe Iron Fists’); notably made the extraordinary, Ennio Morricone-on-acid-esque backing tape to ‘Hoarse’, a track on Odd Future wonderkid Earl Sweatshirt’s first solo record, ‘Doris’; and, in contrast, smartly downplayed their finger-print on ‘Float On’, the Charli XCX-featuring closing song to Danny Brown’s ‘Old’ LP.
So all in all it’s a strong CV so far. And Danny Brown’s voice, in fact, is scrawled all over ‘Six Degrees’, the lead single to ‘Sour Soul’, BBNG’s new joint release with Ghostface Killah, which is released via the Camden-based Lex Records on 16 Feb.
Looking like one to please both rap heads and jazz nerds alike, the LP finds the BBNG boys ripping leaves from the genre styles and recording modes-du-jour of the 1960s and 1970s; like on ‘Six Degrees’, a pithy mix of Wu-Tang’s ‘Gravel Pit’ and the soundtrack to a hammy spy thriller, or the deeper, spaghetti western-themed ‘Gunshowers’, which features one-time Slum Village MC Elzhi.
