Planet Of The Crates
Amid the influx of influential hip-hop producers coming out of the East Coast in the early â90s, Queens, NY reps The Beatnuts had little trouble garnering appreciators of their booming street-level sounds.
Beatsmiths/MCs JuJu and Psycho Les dug just about as deep in the crates as the best of âem to find the juiciest funk, jazz, and Latin music samples for their party-sparking hip-hop. Look up their Roy Ayers-sampled single âGet Funkyâ for an early example; or take the disco-flavored hit âWatch Out Nowâ (which saw J Lo controversially reuse the same sample shortly after). Their ear for bouncy breaks on these tracks is what put them on the map. While the Nuts have worked with other artists like Mos Def, the funky samples and robust drums programming found in their own records is what has kept them world famous.
Of course, the raps of these two have always been secondary. JuJu And Psycho Lesâ free-flowing rhymes about laying freaks, blasting gats, and getting loot arenât anything groundbreaking, but on the rhyme tip, theyâre not trying to be. Still The Beatnuts nimble approach to thugged-out party raps goes hand-in-hand with their rugged production — a combination which should make for a fun set on their rare stop in Chicago. (Saturday@Double Door with Mass Hysteria, Que Billah, and Scheme.)
— Max Herman
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
