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Nightmares on Wax - My Definition



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When first listening to My Definition!, the first two tracks are so off-putting that I almost passed on reviewing this record because I didn't want to give a bad review to Nightmares On Wax, whose original work I've admired for some time. Ben Horn's "Case" drones on with its terribly repetitive melody and an equally repetitive sample of some guy going on about some nut who prefers things with Coke and is followed by "Lyrical Maniac" by Blade, who's rappin' is great but is mired by the bubbly one-measure loop that's pretty monotone on it's own.

Who knows why the particular cut is on a collection that's not even mixed is stuck on the front end where most judgments are generally made on a work such as this?

Nonetheless, from track 3- Camp Lo's "Black Nostaljack"- on, the collection is a pretty stellar crate of goodies that swerves all over the funky map. There's the gritty Britt hip-hop of Cappo's "Learn to be Strong," the West African funk of Pablo's "Roll Call," and the dancehall hot-stepper of Nextmen's "Piece of the Pie." Paris' "I Choose You" goes down like a Marvin Gaye classic, Tom Brown's "Thighs High" is on that bridge 'tween disco and 80s electropop, and then there's a track that sounds like Badly Drawn Boy getting tangled up in DJ Shadow's Permanent Press, Black Grass' "Going Home." Even the odd corny tracks are great grow-on-ya's like the 1980s stock soundtrack funk of The Crusader's "Don't let it get you down" and the French lounge funk of Keith Mansfield's "Morning Broadway," of which will be familiar to Danger Doom fans as the original source sampled in "Space Hoes." Every so often on this collection there's a few tracks that are maybe around the same par as the opening tracks (Apsci's "See That?" and The Equals' "Funky Like a Train," for example), but compared to most music being pumped out in today's market, they're above the cut.

For fans of Boozoo Bajou's Juke Joint 2 or DJ Monk-One's Scion mix.


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