Niki N. Phaser

We all know (or do we?) the story of The Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land album and how, because of it, the rave elders of the tribe ruled the world for about two years, before taking a long break. The three singles released from this album, Breathe, Firestarter and Smack My Bitch Up have all made history: the videos included in almost every countdown of controversial mv’s, the tracks covered and remixed by legions of dj’s, they haven’t missed from any live set of the band ever since. But an album does not achieve such success and notoriety on singles alone. Amongst non-single masterpieces like Funky Shit, Mindfields or Climbatize, we also encounter the first official collaboration between Liam Howlett and rapper Kool Keith of Ultramagnetic MCs fame. The hip-hop crew is one of Howlett’s favourite to sample, but this is the first time Kool was actually invited to do the vocals and the lyrics. Before being included on the album, the track used to be played live, known as Blow Ya Mind with Maxim doing some freestylin’ over the beat. The Kool version retained the chorus “Blows your mind drastically, fantastically” and most importantly, the sick d’n'b line, punctuated by a base hit that will test ya speakers and blow ya mind, all in one. It’s interesting that despite hip-hop being one of Howlett’s primal preferences, this is about the only Prodigy tune that would qualify in this genre. It is one of their most powerful tracks, displaying once again Howlett’s ability and pleasure of creating beats that no matter at what volume you play them, they still sound too loud for the neighbours.

LIVE PERFORMANCE OF Blow Ya Mind IN 1996

We all know why Maxim Reality would ever be ignored: because he is a component of one the essential electronic bands in the history of music, The Prodigy. In that big break the band took between The Fat of the Land and Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned, these guys weren’t lazying about. For Maxim Reality it was a chance to finish up his first solo album, by the title of Hell’s Kitchen, released in 2000, which also contains Carmen Queasy, his quasi-famous collaboration with Skin from Skunk Anansie (nice video). Maxim’s music is different than The Prodigy, but has a major thing in common: it’s hard to label. There is instrumental stuff that sounds real dirty and undergroundish, like Dominant Genes, also some more accessible stuff, like the aforementioned duet and a lot of hip hop, which remains Maxim’s favourite genre. In this category we mention Killing Culture, a real dynamic banger of a song. Punctuated by a chorussy bass, that will remind you a bit of The Prodigy’s Diesel Power, Killing Culture is, lyrically, that “I am the baddest motherfucker” song that each rapper has to have. Of course, we are talking about rapping skills, not guns and crew. It’s all about the lyrical ammo: “Drop bombs, stain your eardrum” or “Fear the words spoken by my tongue Nubile force yet to come”. He’s aware of the challenges of a solo move, but not worried as so skillfully expressed here: “Thousand acres of critics Two thousand hectares of addicts”. Like in many Ignored-Gold cases, this is not only about Killing Culture, but the whole Maxim Reality solo project, including his second album Fallen Angel. This song is just a good taste of what Maxim is capable of as an artist, with or without The Prodigy.

If you are slightly familiar with Eminem’s music, you would know that his stuff could be divided into two major categories: the funny songs, where he is clowning and the serious stuff, where he sounds… angry. There is an interdependence between the two, because the dramatic rapping is far more effective because of the flow of jokes from lighter songs like The Real Slim Shady, Without Me or the recent We Made You. Say Goodbye Hollywood from his 2002 album, probably his best, The Eminem Show, is a song which finds a place between those two groups. The beat has a hook which resembles The Real Slim Shady, but the subject is quite serious. Still, it is not delivered in his angry voice (like White America or The Way I Am), but in rather argumentative tone, which suits the fact that he’s explaining why he is leaving Hollywood, here regarded as a symbol of all wrong things that come with fame. All the “classic” characters from Eminem’s music are checked: Kim, his very own Nancy Spungen, his daughter Hailie and his father (“my dad, cus I hate him so bad, the worst fear that I had was growin’ up to be like his fuckin’ ass”). The great absentee is his mother. There are plenty of memorable lines like “just sold two million records, I don’t need to go to jail, I’m not about to lose my freedom over no female” or “It’s like the boy in the bubble, who never could adapt, I’m trapped, if I could go back, I never woulda rapped”. But this is not one of those hip-hop songs, where you totally ignore the beat. In fact, the entire album is a good example of how much attention Eminem pays to the production of his tracks. You have the main beat, but it’s very well filled with subtle sounds and the vocals from the chorus are quite catchy. Another non-single from The Eminem Show I strongly recommend is Soldier.

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE