ON REPEAT: Kim Gordon, Shirley Kwan, Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, MF DOOM & De La Soul, Loraine James, Kenzo B, Emotional Oranges & Tkay Madiza
DOOM brung that bum, there goes that news van again
Hello. Thanks for reading these. I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug my new podcast, The John Gentle Show, currently behind the Best Show Patreon paywall (an excellent deal) as an exclusive for now. But here is a preview:
Excellent art by Jo Minor! And here’s John meeting Sarah Squirm from the Best Show 24 marathon!
Ok, now onto nice songs. Here’s where I keep all these.
Kim Gordon “Bye Bye”
I’ve talked about Kim Gordon’s experiments in hip-hop before. It works so well and looks like her new album The Collective will have more of Kim G speaking over beats that sound like they’re coming from a busted subwoofer.
Shirley Kwan “Forget Him”
Over my holiday break, I had a Wong Kar-wai movie marathon. Naturally, I fell in love with Chungking Express’ Faye Wong, so I decided to take a deep dive into her music career since there’s not much to her filmography.
I listened to a lot of cantopop, some interesting covers and a kinda cool Cocteau Twins collaboration. But it all sounded a lot better on paper but a lot of it sounded like standard pop to my brusque eastern palate.
Then I watched Fallen Angels, an extremely cool-looking film, which features this song, originally by Teresa Teng, that is a staple of karaoke bars in Hong Kong. It’s covered by Shirley Kwan and has exactly the vibe I was hoping to find in Faye Wong’s catalog, fitting perfectly with other songs on the soundtrack from Massive Attack to Gary Numan. I’ve been playing this in walks to Trader Joe’s where I pretend I’m a hitman for the Triad.
Natural Wonder Beauty Concept “Natural Wonder Beauty Concept”
Natural Wonder Beauty Concept is a name I like, but maybe it’s just because it reminds me of Handsome Boy Modeling School. It’s the duo of Ana Roxanne and DJ Python, who I don’t know a ton of individually but fits in with the jungle & trip-hop revival that seems to be in vogue right now.
Kenzo B “BFFR”
I love songs like this. I guess this one is blowing up on The TOK but in any era I will dig a diss track to a fake friend with a Baltimore/Jersey beat, with bratty vocals whether it’s Lil Mama or Rye Rye or Big Freedia or Kenzo B!
Emotional Oranges (feat. Tkay Madiza) “Be Somebody”
Australian duo Emotional Oranges joins forces with the Zimbabwean rapper Tkay Madiza, who I know well from the billboard that hovers over the hellish courtyard of 4100 Bar and her Pixies cover. It’s a jam!
Loraine James “2003”
With all respect to Loraine James, who has an excellent track here, if you’re gonna make a song called “2003” it should sound like this.
De La Soul & MF DOOM “Rock Co.Kane Flow”
THE GOLD STANDARD
Speaking of the early 2000s, my earliest forays into underground hip-hop were so exciting to my virgin ears. MF DOOM and De La Soul quickly became my two top favorite hip-hop acts (still are) but I was without internet and playing catch up and hadn’t heard of this collaboration. So when this popped up on my television in 2004, it was mind-blowing.
And it’s by far the hardest De La has ever gone, and aware of it:
They say the good die young, so I added some
Badass to my flavor to prolong my life over the drum
It’s got some of my favorite DOOM lines, too:
DOOM brung that bum, there goes that news van again
Act like you knew like Toucan Sam and 'em
He eat rappers like part of a complete breakfast
Your rhymes ain't worth the weight of they cheap necklace
This is a reference to an Eyewitness News commercial that used to air every night while I’d be watching Jeopardy and a shout-out to the Froot Loops mascot that nobody ever liked.
Fuck off man, birds shouldn’t have fingers.
On another DOOM kick lately, I’ve been doing deep dives on YouTube, and found the above clip of this champion doing this at karaoke and I’m so jealous there was a crowd familiar and excited to see it happen. I promise someday I will attempt this to confused faces and not do nearly as well as her.