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Punk and hip-hop mashups & remixes
Mashups may be the cultural hallmark of this decade, and for what it’s worth some of them are actually kind of impressive. The first mashup of punk & hop-hop that I can remember hearing was Joy Division and Missy Elliott, (“Love Will Freak Us Apart”) back in the halcyon days of 2000, way before any of us even dreamed of a world where Girl Talk could exist, let alone sell out summer festivals. So here we are twelve years later and there are two dudes that have remixed punk and hardcore songs with hip-hop. One of them is my friend and partner in crime Ben Durband, who’s day job is singing for the Minneapolis hardcore band In Defence. Here he raps under the name 1-2-Go! Crew and has even played some shows doing these songs live…usually while wearing a gigantic over-sized plastic clock around his neck, leaving audiences from Fargo to St. Louis scratching their heads. The other prodigy in the unholy marriage of punk and rap (whom I don’t know) is NYC producer & turntablist Max Tannone, remixing under the name Mic Check 1234! They have kinda similar names, but I assure you they are worlds apart in style and theme. Ben’s songs are hip hop arrangements of straight edge classics that he raps over, Max’s songs are mashups of modern hip-hop rhymes on top of (and mixed into) punk classics. Even if you think mashups are the scourge of humanity I think you should give some of these songs a chance (really), because arranging this stuff is way harder than you think AND the remix changes the message of the song, sometimes in very surprising ways. Too often punk and hardcore are held in high regard as untouchable (in in the historic sense), yet none of that absurd preciousness will be found here. Here are some of my personal favorites from both of these guys in no particular order. The 1-2-GO!-Crew stuff is out of print (for now) but the Mic Check 1234! record is available as a free download at maxtannone.com.
1-2-GO! Crew – Minor Threat (Minor Threat)
Mic Check 1234! – Bring The Bars (Public Enemy & Black Flag)
1-2-GO! Crew – Bringin’ It Down (Judge)
Mic Check 1234! – Police Get Busy (Black Thought & Dead Kennedys)
1-2-GO! Crew – Walk Together, Rap Together (7 Seconds)
Mic Check 1234! – Los Angeles Blues (Tupac & X)
Mic Check 1234! – Youth Words (Kanye West & Reagan Youth)
1-2-GO! Crew – Nailed To The X (Bold)
Mic Check 1234! – America Calling (Eminem & The Clash)
Mic Check 1234! – Talk To The Kids (Nas & The Adolescents)
