Νοσταλγία | Nostalgia

On Wednesday, March 28, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio spun favorite tracks from the Pathé 100 Hong Kong + Shanghai series, early Jamaican mento and R&B, Greek garage and laïka, Krautrock from Brain Records, 70s mor lam from Soi 48, and nascent hip-hop from the U.S.A.

Listen to the show now in the archives

Josie Ho | Hell's Kitchen

Reupped a second time on Feb 25, 2015, here.

[Originally posted June 24, 2011.] A keen advantage of listening to "other" people's pop music is that, to the extent it's possible, doing so affords the listener at least the illusion of a far more visceral experience than listening to the music of one's own culture.


There is, alas, no such thing as a purely visceral experience--absent cultural, semiotic, etc., cues--not of anything human-made. We read, interpret, translate, bring our biases to everything. And everything is coded, even if we don't have the key, or have only part of it. There is, I'd argue, as a great a pleasure in completely misunderstanding something as there is in "getting" it--maybe even more so. Just ask the poets.

I bought the CD above--Hochiu (aka Josie Ho)'s "Hell's Kitchen"--in Manhattan's Chinatown one Saturday afternoon before straggling in to the Bowery Poetry Club to host a Segue Series reading. Once at the BPC, I spotted Franklin Bruno, a musician and music critic as well as a poet. I pulled out the CD in question, handed it to him and asked: "Okay, Franklin; you're an expert: What is this CD cover trying to tell us?"

Franklin chuckled a bit and then slowly flipped the CD cover back and forth a few times, before handing it back to me. "I'm picking up Patti Smith," he finally said.

As it turns out, despite "Hell's Kitchen"'s obvious nod to the cover of Patti Smith's "Horses," no one could be further from working-class androgynous hippy-dippy Romantic poet cum rock icon Patti Smith than Josie Ho. For one thing, Ho is the daughter of the purportedly richest man in Macau, casino tycoon Stanley Ho. The differences don't end with class background. Whereas Patti is also a poet, Josie is also a movie star. (And movie producer.) Whereas Patti's music is instantly recognizable for its shaggy, emotive intensity, Josie's music is slick, aggressive Canto rock and pop.

Look again into first Patti's eyes and then Josie's on those covers above. Patti looks soulful, vulnerable, almost frightened, even in what looks like "defiance." Josie looks something in between bored and simmering with sadistic energy. There's a way in which her cover feels as much of a nod to "A Clockwork Orange" as it is to "Horses." Take, for instance, this video, of "自衛術" ("Self-defense Art"), a song from the CD above, the only music video I'm aware of with a cake-fisting scene:



There aren't, to my knowledge, any other female pop artists who express this kind of energy (beyond the cake-fisting, I mean: the dancing with dogs in the tub, the messing with the fish, the singing to sock puppets, etc.). How, I want to know, do Hong Kongers "read" her? Is she a kind of Alex-from-Clockwork-Orange figure?

Grace Chang | Mambo Girl

Freshly reupped on Feb 15,2015, here.

Found in Manhattan's Chinatown, on Bowery, about a block or so above Canal. Born as Chang Yu Fang in Shanghai in 1933, Grace Chang moved with her family to Hong Kong in 1952. Two years later she auditioned for the Tai Shan film company and began her film career. Though a Mandarin speaker, she picked up Cantonese quickly (as well as English, for a role in "Soldier of Fortune" with Clark Gable). In the late fifties she reached superstar status, signing on with EMI's Pathe and starring in a spate of hits, including Mambo Girl, Wild, Wild Rose and Air Hostess.

This CD includes a few early recordings, plus the complete set of songs Chang sang in "Mambo Girl" and "Air Hostess," and three songs in Thai recorded in 1956. (Interestingly, in the 50s, Thai film was still silent, with live orchestras playing background music and a narrator embellishing on the images. A few years ago there was a fad among poets for this sort of thing, which we dubbed "neo-benshi": Check out my own contribution to the form here and here.)

Chang married in 1961 and retired from film in 1964. She's still alive and, although long out of the limelight, supplied photos and fact-checking for the 32-page booklet that came with the CD (some of which was, blessedly, translated into English).

Here's a clip from "Mambo Girl":

Yao Su Rong | Non-Stop 24 Hits | BP 13

Listen to "Steal the Person of the Heart"


Listen to "Lachrymal Clothes"


Listen to "Suburb Way"


Back by popular demand, pared down to 24 hot trax in 320KBPS, here.

I got the double CD from whence the 24 songs that made the final cut originally appeared at the Flushing Mall in, duh, Flushing. It was actually part of a four CD set; I posted the other two CDs--songs by legendary 30s singer Zhou Xuan--here. (I originally posted a 30-song selection back in May 2012, without a cover and in random order. I've gone back and spruced things up, including giving you the often oddly-translated English titles instead of the Chinese, as I had last time. Plus, c'mon, look at that cover.)

I had no idea how hard Yao Su Rong was going to rawk; in fact, Zhou Xuan held my attention for months before I really gave Yao Su Rong a proper listen. Part of the problem is that about a quarter of the songs in her collection, which is mostly made up of 60s and 70s classics, are absolutely godawful unlistenable atrocities from the 80s and 90s, even to a pop gourmand like me. (I took the liberty of removing those songs from the present mix; trust me, I did everyone a favor by doing so.)

Here's her bio from Last.FM:

Yao Su Yong (sometimes Yao Su Rong) was born in 1946. Her breakthrough came in 1969, with the title track to the movie “今天不回家” (Today I Won’t Come Home). That one song swept her into fame, the song being sung by young and old alike, securing her a much-coveted Hong Kong record deal with 海山 (Haishan Records), selling 600,000 copies.

Before that, she’d been singing songs for a while, a minor hit being a Mandarin-language rewrite of a Japanese popular song, “負心的人” (Cruel-Hearted Lover). No longer would she have to worry about success — instantly, she was selling out shows and getting invited to concerts all across the Mandarin-speaking world.

Certainly, her catalog is extensive, with over 200 recorded songs.

On August 18th, 1969, Yao Su Yong sang at a packed crowd in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. The audience was crazy about her, cheering madly every time she appeared on stage, and pleaded and begged her to sing some of her banned songs. Initially, she declined as politely as she could, saying that she was not permitted to perform those songs, and that she hoped the audience would forgive her. However, the requests wouldn’t stop, and eventually, she sang “負心的人”, hoping the popular appeal of her song would override any official censorship.

Unfortunately, the police guards stationed at the theater didn’t agree. They called her offstage and questioned her, asking her to record her playlist and make an official confession. Failing to produce a playlist, her singer’s license was revoked, “leaving no door or window” open. Since she was no longer allowed to perform in Taiwan, she turned to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to continue her career.

Now, she lives a quiet life in Singapore. Though Taiwan officially invited her to perform at the 1998 Golden Horse Film Festival (the biggest movie event of the island, government sanctioned), she politely declined, saying that now that her life was peaceful and stable, she preferred to remain out of the limelight. However, her legacy lives on. “Jin Tian Bu Hui Jia”, the movie, was remade in 1996, but still used her original song. Her records continue to be very popular, and her status in the annals of Chinese oldies divas is well-secured.

Fama | Feng Sheng Shui Qi (Wind and Water Rising)

Totally fabulously fucked up first track from this super great CD

Reupped by popular demand, here.

[Originally posted in July 2010.] Found somewhere on the Bowery. Oh God I love Fama. And I especially love the first track on this CD, "温故知新." I mean, OMFG, how many time changes are there in this? How many things have they collage-crammed into it? It's just ... spectacular.

I could be wrong, but I think the title involves some sort of word-play involving "feng shui," which can be literally translated "wind and water" ... right? 

10 Best Albums of 2012

It's that time again: Holiday lights have filled the windows; radio stations are besotted with Christmas ditties; Fox News commentators have dusted off their War on Christmas toilet paper cozies; and dorky listmakers everywhere are starting to put together our Best Ofs for the year. 

But, can we be honest? What I offer are really not the best albums of 2012. For one thing, how could anyone in good conscience ever confer such a status on anything when there is no qualitative system we can all agree upon to measure "bestness"? When, in fact, "best" can--as we've seen happen this year--include sonic driftwood by the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Frank Ocean? It should be pretty ding-dong clear that the word means wildly different things to different people--anything from "I'm sympatico with this dude's politics" to "I guess the D'Angelo album is going to be delayed another year."

So ... awrighty, then. Here, in order of their release dates, are my personal favorite albums of the last more-or-less 12 months:


Birdstriking 
Birdstriking 
January, China
Purchase a copy of the CD ($15.60 US) or individual songs at 75 cents each, here.
I first came upon this album half a year ago while doing research for this mix; I somehow forgot I even had it until maybe two months ago. Since then, it's been the most re-listened-to album on my iPhone. This obnoxious review in Timeout Shanghai to the contrary, what separates Birdstriking from other Beijing two-chord wonders is their unflagging level of energy: they might be the Metz of mainland China. I don't care who invented this general sound--Sonic Youth, the Velvet Underground, a group of Neanderthals in prehistoric El Castillo--what ultimately matters is who is currently kicking the most ass with it. That would be these kids.

 
Listen to "Monkey Snake"

* * *

Noisecat 
Sunday Sunset Airlines 
February, Korea
Buy a digital copy for $7 here.
One of the nicest things about doing a music blog is that people begin to come out of the woodwork, offering to turn you on to music from their own part(s) of the world that for, whatever reason, you've given short shrift to. Noisecat, who I "discovered" thanks to a guy currently based in Seoul going by the name of "Male Cousin" who put this mix of South Korean pop (as opposed to K-Pop) together for us last month, is a bit like one of those American bands from the 1990s who wishes they were British and it was the 60s (e.g., the Dandy Warhols or Brian Jones Massacre). They remind this listener a bit of 22Cats and Guitar Vader--my nerdy, hipster-hat-y, "look how much I know about shit" way of saying that I've quickly grown very, very fond of them. As, come to think of it, so might you. 

 
Listen to "Running" 

* * *

Mati Zundel 
Amazonica Gravitante 
March, Argentina 
Procure an MP3 version of this album for $8.99 here.
Anyone remember the Nortec Collective? Well, a similar movement is afoot in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where musicians like Zundel and others associated with Zizek (aka ZZK) Records are blending electronica with local forms, such as cumbia. A fitting thing to be happening in a city about which the great Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama once said "the epic and lyrical meet." 

 
Listen to "Bronca" 

* * *

The Yellow Dogs Upper Class Complexity  
May, USA/Iran 
Get the 4-song EP for $4 here.
My first experience of this four-piece was a live performance at the Brooklyn Bowl that I witnessed with my friend Carol in October that completely blew both of us away. After that, we became obsessed with the group: we downloaded all of their available music and watched No One Knows about Persian Cats, a film about the underground music scene in Tehran that the Yellow Dogs appeared in. I even begged my editor at Open City to let me write about them. A self-described dance-punk unit (we hear a bit of Gang of Four and Siouxie and the Banshees, yeah?), the Dogs are currently living in Brooklyn and working on a full-length collection of new songs that they hope to have ready some time next year.

 
Listen to "This City" 

* * *

Sharliza Jelita 
Strange Things 
June, UK/Singapore
Seize your own digital copy ($12.88) or autographed CD ($16.10) here.
This album is to pop music what Falai's Elementi is to dessert offerings: decadent, fruity and a bit self-consciously exotic. (That's Carmen Miranda in the lower right quadrant, btw.) This record--Jelita's first after having moved from Singapore to apparently still-swinging London--lays down one sugar-filled gnosh after another--from the one-two (fruit) punch of openers "No Go Pogo" and "Is That Your Underwear on the Floor?" to the heartbreakingly gorgeous "Breaks My Heart in Two" and curtain-closing title song. But what I love most about Strange Things is how it can feel simultaneously pop-pitch-perfect and amateurishly awkward ("I Want More Sun"? "Credit Crunch"?), as though, hey look!, one of your best friends made a record and you're sort of obligated to listen to it, but actually, whoa, wait: It totally doesn't suck.

 
Listen to "Breaks My Heart in Two"

* * *

Melhem Zein 
2012 
June, Lebanon
Preview and grab it (gratis) here.
Is it a failure of imagination or just brutally candid honesty that leads one to title their album after the year it was released? Maybe it's an avant garde or, like, jazz thing? Whatever. If the year 2012 was this album, we'd have all had us one of the greatest years of our entire freaking lives. Oh, and guess how I discovered this album. No, seriously. Give up? On Amtrak. That's right. I had my computer open and was listening to something--God knows what--when suddenly, freakily, someone's entire iTunes library was being shared with me. I didn't even know such a thing was possible (I'm not exactly young or tech-savvy). I remember incredulously scrolling through this person's vaults and randomly clicking on something from this album and, then, as the hard-driving music began pounding its way through my brain, my hands shaking with excitement, I quickly scribbled guy's name in my notebook. Within a few days I'd found my own copy at Alfra (25-23 Steinway Street), a few blocks from where I live.

 
Listen to "Taj Rassi" 

* * *

MC HotDog 
Ghetto Superstar 
June, Taiwan 
Want it? Go here and scroll all the way down.
MC HotDog, known for laying down some of the most vulgar lyrics over spliced-and-diced super-cheesy pop (from Glen Frey to Teresa Teng), released this year what your humble Bodega proprietor believes to be the second-best album of his career (first best would be this one). I picked up my copy at my favorite Manhattan go-to mom-n-pop, P-Tunes & Video, featured in the header image of this blog. How can you not love an album that includes a song titled "Party Like Hotdog"?

 
Listen to "Party Like Hotdog" 

* * *

Abou el Leef 
Super Leefa 
July, Egypt
You'll find it for nuthin' here.
Currently the fastest moving disc in the Bodega (click link above), owing to a shout-out from the fabulous Doug Schulkind at WFMU. I'm glad, because this really is the kind of record I want everyone to hear and know about, it's really just that good. Plus, how else can I bring it up "casually" in conversation? ("Yeah, it's like Abou el Leef says in 'Hatofrag Aleena' ...") Also-also? "Super Leefa." Now, that's a catch phrase just waiting to be super-memed into the collective conscience.

 
Listen to "Khaleek fe Elnoor" 

* * *

Pussy Riot
Kill the Sexist! 
July, Russia
Your copy is waiting right here.
The runaway success of PSY's "Gangnam Style" has apparently made Seoul a newly popular destination for American vacationers; can't say the same for for Moscow after Pussy Riot members were imprisoned and their videos banded in Russia. But these gals so quickly and thoroughly became an international cause célèbre, there's already a doc detailing their story premiering at Sundance next month. The music, which I actually do happen to like, is almost beside the point.


 
Listen to "Ubej Seksista (Kill the Sexist)" 

* * *


My Little Airport 
Lonely Friday
October, Hong Kong
Pick up yours for $14.49 at YesAsia. 
Another P-Tunes & Video find, this is the seventh album by my all-time favorite band from Hong Kong. When Nicole and 阿P started a decade ago, they sang almost exclusively in English; 10 years later, only three of the 17 songs on this album are in English, including the uber-charming "How Can You Fall in Love with a Guy Who Doesn't Know Gainsbourg?" If I were one half of a twee pop due (阿G, maybe?), my song would be "How Can You Fall in Love with a Guy Who Doesn't Know My Little Airport?"


 
Listen to "How Can You Fall in Love with a Guy Who Doesn't Know Gainsbourg?"

22Cats | 10 Years of 22Cats

Listen to "Grunge Love"

Get it all here.

It's too early for a Best of 2012 post, but not too early, I hope, to begin upping some of my favorite records of the year. There are 10 albums at the top of my list, one of which is this freebie from one of Hong Kong's most beloved alt bands, 22Cats--the others will follow soon.

I'm not going to mince words: I've already checked out Pitchfork and Spin's 2012 Best Ofs, and I have to say, I don't care how hard you foist Grizzly Bears, Frank Ocean, Swans and other pretentious & immediately forgettable U.S./U.K. crap in my face, you're never, not in a million billion years, ever going to convince me that killing myself in the most horrifically painful way imaginable is not the more desirable alternative to resigning myself to living in a world where people honestly consider it listenable.

Fortunately, I don't have to resign myself to living in that world. I can live right here in the real world, where albums like this one exist. And, guess what? You can live there, too.

22Cats don't have so much as an English-language Wikipedia page, but they've been rocking, if this compilation is any indication, for the last decade--and rocking harder than your average cats. I got this free download through a link on Facebook posted by the band's label, Harbour Records. I guess the idea is that, once you listen to this comp, you'll want to buy their actual albums. Considering that: (a) no one in the mainstream music media has nor ever will write about them; and (b) they will not likely therefore ever be asked (and paid) to play anywhere in the U.S., it's the only way you're ever going to hear more by them.

Anita Mui | Days of Being Wild

Listen to the "Days of Being Wild"

Get the Bodegapop exclusive Anita Mui mix here.

If you're a fan of Wong Kar-wai, you probably remember the sample song above as the music accompanying the closing credits of his film of the same name. You may not have known (a) the singer, Anita Mui, or (b) that it is a version of Xavier Cugat's "Jungle Drums," but with lyrics.

Mui's rendition wasn't the first time Cugat's song made it into Hong Kong cinema. In 1957, it made an appearance in "Our Sister Hedy" (see the video here). I'm fascinated by the international popularity of Cugat's tune, which strikes me as a case of ersatz "exotica," the likes of which the great music critic David Toop wrote about in his 1999 book Exotica: fabricated soundscapes in a real world, the single most influential bit of music writing on your friendly Bodega proprietor. (See, for instance, this talk.)

Wong Kar-wai, whatever else he does, traffics in a kind of cool, knowing exotica, which is, I would argue, why he was so popular in the United States at the turn of the century. A reasonable person might ask: Why didn't Wong Kar-wai just get Faye Wong to record the song, considering her presence in more than one of his films? Because, I would argue, Anita Mui, among Cantopop singers, was by far the most self- and media-exoticized superstar the genre ever birthed. Often referred to as "The Madonna of the East," a more appropriate reference, had she been around in the 90s and aughts, is Lady Gaga. (A Google image search may give you a quick sense of why I say that.)

I've long wanted to post a mix of Anita Mui's cooler, more dance-y exotica, but I was waiting to find a copy of her last album, the ironically titled I'm So Happy, recorded before her untimely death at age 40 from cervical cancer. Alas, I haven't yet found it and, as I'm not sure when I ever will, I've gone ahead and put together what's here now, which draws heavily from her 1999 album Larger than Life, where she does (in that instance) look more than a bit Madonna-esque.

Anita Mui got her big break in 1982, beating out over 3,000 other contestants in that year's New Talent Awards; she began recording soon after, causing almost immediate controversy with her 1985 hit "Bad Girl," a song that you probably have to understand the lyrics to appreciate (I didn't include it in this mix). When she toured mainland China she held off singing the song until her final night and then reaped the negative-publicity benefits of the shit-storm that followed.

Although I'd appreciated her acting for many years (she was especially terrific in Stanley Kwan's Rouge), I had no idea she was a singer until I found the aforementioned Larger than Life CD in a Hong Kong media store on Bowery and Canal several years ago--from that moment on, I became obsessed with her as a singer, although admittedly, I couldn't stand most of the music I was picking up. What I do like, I've included here. She is, I will say this, unique in Cantopop, not simply because of her hyperexoticized stage presence, but also for her contralto voice--husky, deep, and serious, though (I assume) fairly knowing.

I'd love to know what you think.

Cover Me | 2 Dozen Super Awesome Covers

Listen to Melt-Banana's mash-up/deconstruction of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" and "You're Welcome"

Hear Crowd Lu fearlessly scale the upper registers of Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You"

Dig Anthony Wong's Lou Reedy take on Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"

Let your jaw drop in utter disbelief as Kahimi Karie reconceives Jimmy Cliff's "Harder They Come" for the 21st Century

Thrill to Mika Nakashima's dead-pan run-through of Sid Vicious's version of "My Way" (Note how "fucking" passes the censor several times, but not a reference to killing her cat, which gets bleeped out)

Sweat and fret as O.N.T.J detonate The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb"

Grab it all in one big glop, here.

According to George Plasketes’ Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music, there are an estimated 40,000 songs floating around out there with at least one recorded cover version. This strikes me as an incredibly conservative estimate.

Whatever the real number might be, there are degrees of covering, and not all acts of covering mean or resonate in the same way. There’s a significant difference, for instance, between a Cambodian pop musician of the 70s swiping guitar licks from Santana or Creedence Clearwater Revival and a contemporary Latino group in Los Angeles basing a whole career covering songs from The Smiths catalog.

Neither act is better or worse, neither more nor less interesting than the other. But they are, in terms of their meaning, different enough to note.

Likewise, and more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow’s covering Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You” (the clean version of “Fuck You”) on an episode of “Glee” exists on a whole other meaning-plane from that of Gnarls Barkley’s cover of the Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone,” despite the common denominator of Cee Lo.

Speaking of which, what is UP with Gnarls Barkley’s “Gone Daddy Gone”? First, take a look at this official video. (Sorry, you'll have to click the link; embedding has been disabled.)

The song was a huge hit in the 1980s for the Violent Femmes, who were, if memory serves me, THE voice of the geeky white ectomorph. Every song seemed, regardless of the lyrics, to be about the experience of being extremely uncomfortable in one’s distressingly reedy, pasty body. So, what could a rather larger-than-normal black guy possibly be wringing out of this song?

As it turns out: Everything. The video, which pictures Cee Lo as a plump fly, his band mates as other insects, emphasizes and expands on the discomfort of the original, even as the actual musicianship slickens and pop-readies the song up from the much more spastic original. Cee Lo’s and Gordon Gano’s meaning are not exactly trans-racial equivalents, but there are interesting echoes going on. In the context of Cee Lo’s later smash-hit “Fuck/Forget You,” the “Gone Daddy Gone” cover makes even more sense: both recordings pitch Cee Lo as heroic outsider, marginalized underdog. But Ceelo doesn’t feel uncomfortable in his body; it’s more about him wondering what your problem is with it.

So, getting to the mix at hand. While listening to one song after the next might make it all sound entirely random, there are reasons for each inclusion—though there was no one single criterion that covered everything. First, and at bare minimum, I only included a cover if, in transit, some significant border was crossed: ethnicity, gender, nationality, race. Beyond that, I chose sublime examples of reconfiguration, amped-upness and unlikely verisimilitude.

Fama | Feng Wing Chi

Listen to "跟队唔该"

Get it all here.

Released in 2005 and already out of print, this is Hong Kong duo Fama's second album. You can get their first, "Poon o'da Moon," here, and their insanely wonderful "Wind and Water Rising," here.

At their best--and their best lasted for nearly half-a-dozen albums--Fama is noteworthy for the range of styles, genres and time signatures they take on--even within single tracks. (For the most ear-popping example of this, click on the link to "Wind and Water Rising" above and listen to the sample track on that page.)

This goes out to Craftypants Carol and Holly, my Online Hong Kong Hip-Hop Appreciation Sisters.

China A Go Go | A Bodegapop Original

Listen to "偷心的人"

Listen to "Shaking All Over"

Listen to "淚的衣裳"

Get it all here.

A selection of supremely rockin' 60s (and perhaps one or two 70s) songs from Hong Kong, Taiwan and maybe a few other places on the globe.The temptation to poach from other music blogs was great, but I instead limited myself to what I've found on CD in Manhattan and Brooklyn's Chinatowns and Flushing, Queens. (The sole exception is the Nancy Sit version of "Shaking All Over," which I couldn't find anywhere else but on a YouTube video, so I grabbed it as it's rather insanely great.)

Not enough for ya? You'll find more in this vein on No Not Nyet, here (including a version of the first song above, but ripped from fabulously warm & scratchy vinyl) and on Ghost Capital, here. (Trust me, both are well worth the time it takes to download them.)

Rap Around the World | A Bodega Pop mix

Listen to "Phnom Penh Hip Hop" by The Khmer Rap Boyz (Cambodia)

Listen to "Haiti" by Elza Soares (Brazil)

Listen to "Eat Around" by Missile Scoot Girl (Japan)

Listen to "Γουστάρει Η Παλαβή" by Εισβολέας (Greece)

Listen to "DK Anthem" by Divided Kingdom Republic (Zimbabwe)

Get the 24-song mix here.

As anyone who has spent a bit of time in the Bodega knows, this here shop keep has a particular predilection for international rap and hip-hop--the further the language from English, the better. That said, rap & hip-hop from around the world comprise a small percentage of the CDs in my collection, maybe 1%, if that. But you wouldn't know it, looking at the BP tag cloud.

I'm not exactly picky when it comes to pop; though I suppose I do have some standards. But, while there is certainly a goodly amount of bad hip-hop out there--mostly stuff that simply mimics rap in the USA--there are people in all corners of the world who, picking up cues from Western examples, take it somewhere else, occasionally somewhere totally unexpected. 


I'm not going to sit here this morning and tell you that every hip-hop artist in this mix is some sort of insane genius, turning rap & hip-hop up to 11. But some of them are. And those that aren't, at least among what I've tried to include here, are at bare minimum making the genre their own.

If you visit here often and have partaken of the dozen or so hip-hop related CDs I've posted over the last couple of years, fear not: I tried really, really, really extra-special hard not to duplicate, whenever possible. So there's Fama in here, but not the Fama you can get elsewhere on this site. I didn't actually count, but I think maybe 4 or 5 songs in this mix can be found in other full CDs or mixes on this blog.

I also didn't just rip stuff from YouTube videos, although--Jesus God Almighty, it was certainly tempting. Everything here is from my own personal CD collection, with a few things I downloaded myself from other sites that I wasn't able to find in CD anywhere (e.g., the Khmer Rap Boyz).


Okay, I'm going to shut up now and let you get to this. Would love to know what you think. It's my personal favorite Bodega Pop mix, and--at some point in the future, assuming people like this--I'll probably put together another (or two, or three).