The Birth of the Cool of hip hop
Last year I was blown away by Kanye West’s Yeezus, which I thought was the most innovative rap-album since Fear of a Black Planet. This year’s rap-favorites I found less enticing. For instance, I don’t understand the excitement about J. Coles new album. I think it’s very, very ordinary.
But then I came across Hidenka and Fumitake Tamura´s Muddy Water and I went WOW! This is a completely original take on rap and hip hop. In fact, it is the complete opposite of Yeezus, which is very aggressive, noisy and extrovert. Muddy Water is silent, slow, thoughtful. I wonder if it can even be called rap. This is more like spoken word, backed by smokey ambient and the most laid-back of soul samples.
Don´t be so surprised that the best rap-album of the year is from Japan, though. Tokyo has a very lively, fresh hip hop scene and it has had that for years.
Rapper Hidenka seems to chew on his words, philosophize about their sound and meaning and the effect they create. His confidence is not conveyed by an authoritative macho posturing, he just seems very much at ease. He seems to speak from experience and insight rather than from anger.
At the same time, the dreamy, hypnotic atmosphere of ´Pistol´, featured in the video above, has a dark, threatening undercurrent that reminds me of Lou Reed´s The Gun a lot.
The title ‘Muddy Water‘ is reminiscent of the great jazz albums of the 1940´s. That is also very much the atmosphere of the music. Therefore, and because of its innovativeness I declare Hidenka and Fumitake Tamura´s Muddy Water the Birth of the Cool of rap.
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