SHADI - "Lord Mohamed"
Just about any time I write about hip hop here, I mention that my teenage years were filled with listening to hip hop but I don't find much to listen to these days. For the most part, hip hop hasn't really progressed since Puff Daddy mastered the huge 80's hit sample/R&B chorus formula that still pervades most hip hop. SHADI destroys that formula completely. As a young Arab man living in Conservative Florida, he has a lot to rage against. And on "Lord Mohamed," rage he does. The press release for SHADI describes his music as "noise rap," and I can't argue that at all. "Lord Mohamed" barely follows normal song structures let alone normal hip hop formulas. It's almost a freestyle stream of consciousness throughout the entire nearly six minute run of the song with SHADI barely pausing to take a breath. And musically? I don't even know what to say. It's a mash of guitars, flutes, human voices, drums, and more just sporadic...