Blakroc - s/t

I could run through my iTunes library and try to come across an album to post here, but I've basically just been listening to Blakroc for the last two weeks. This collaboration between The Black Keys and various rappers is pretty impressive, and I'm not even much of a Black Keys fan. It's hard to describe Patrick Carney's drumming on this record, he's got some great hip hop beats and he rarely gets in fills, but when he does they riff off the vocals really well.

The best part of the drums on this album are the way they sound for each song. They always have a dirty, trashy sound to them, but it's always different. My favorite track, Telling Me Things has the kick drum and snare fairly low in the mix but the toms come through huge at the end of each bar. Coochie (which has an awesome ODB verse) is the opposite, the kick drum is fairly prominent and the snare is huge and snappy. Hip hop is as much about how the beats sound as it is about the actual beats. When you have Rap/Rock band collaborations that's the one thing that always gets ignored, but thankfully attention has been paid to the sounds.

Since this record has rappers from every aspect of Hip Hop there is a nice mix of smoother, laid back tracks (like the Mos Def ones) and then there is harder edged verses by guys like Billy Danze from MOP and the aforementioned ODB verse.

Finally I can say I listen to Rap Rock collaborations without people assuming I mean Limp Bizkit.

Audio/Visual Evidence : Hoochie Coo. Since there is only one video of them playing live so far, let's reminisce with some ODB videos. Shimmy Shimmy Ya, Baby I got Your Money.