“Lofi” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To some people it’s a pinnacle, to others it’s a provocative insult. To a generation of students tasked with late nights and armed with red bull, “Lofi” is a girl sat at her desk; a 24 / 7 YouTube livestream of ultra chilled out, spacey Lofi beats. To me, as a music fan and as a beatmaker, Lofi is a word that’s hard not to feel slightly possessive over, or perhaps angry at what can be construed as its “misuse”. In reality, “Lofi” has become a word almost entirely umbrella and meaningless. But my Lofi starts with Madlib and J Dilla.
Now this conversation could be its own entire article, so I’ll keep a lot of the context here brief. When Dilla and Madlib forged their musical conversation in the early 2000s, what they had begun was a cycle of inspiration and elevation. Putting my Dilla bias aside, I think its fair to say that Madlib was probably the catalyst for the style of Lofi hip hop I’m aiming to discuss. This was primarily due to the often-primitive nature of his set up. The SP303 was a mainstay for Madlib in the early 2000s, a tiny portable sampler that (trust me) really isn’t set up to make complex compositions. Its draw is its fantastic Vinyl Sim compression (utterly warm and wonky) and its array of buttery effects. Yet Madlib would take this, and his Fisher Price record player, to digging sprees in Brazil and make beats. The stripped back nature of this set up, and the lack of studio presence lead to instrumentals that were a new level of raw, but also were layered with such a unique texture. Tape his, vinyl crackle, wobble are all left in the mix because they are the mix. Him and Dilla combined also championed this “pumping” effect with the kick drum that now we know as sidechain compression. To get an idea listen to “The Official – JayLib”, “Lets Take It Back – J Dilla” or “Rhinestone Cowboy – Madvillian”.
After Dilla’s tragic passing in 2006, certain producers and musicians in Los Angeles began to build on the church Dilla and Madlib had created. The LA beat scene sprang into full force, making legends out of Flying Lotus, Dibia$e, Thundercat, Ras G and so many more. These creatives were exploring and pushing the boundaries of DIY beatmaking and low fidelity sonics, and out of this crop of burgeoning LA talent came rapper (and producer..) Blu.
Blu had actually briefly crossed paths with Dilla and is even featured on a song of his “Sun In My Face”, but Blu was on his own trajectory. After potential deals with Death Row fell through, the California emcee was introduced to MPC wizard Exile and they teamed up to create “Below The Heavens”. The album was heavily anticipated in underground circles and whilst Blu was on tour promoting, the album leaked in its entirety. By the time the album was released in 2007 it had been heavily bootlegged (maybe a blessing as the release was botched by the record label). In time this album has gone on to receive its well-deserved place in the hip hop canon. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest albums. A beautiful, personal exploration into Blu as a person and an artist. I have run out of superlatives to describe how much this album means to me, it is truly a flawless piece of art. This album may not have put Blu on top of the world, but it got everyone still following underground hip hop glueing there eyes to see where this phenomenal emcee would take his career next, and I’m not sure anyone would have guessed it.
God is Good
After Below the Heavens Blu quickly put out quality collaborations as “Johnson & Johnson” and “CRAC”, but the industry’s sights were set on his debut solo album originally titled “theGODleeBarnesLP”. During this process Blu’s hard drive, containing the mastered versions of these new tracks, crashed. Its hard to imagine still to this day how tragic, frustrating and despairing that must have felt for an upcoming artist. But the tragedy forced Blu’s hand, and what he decided to do next laced it with innovation. In January 2010, Blu tweeted the album as a singular MP3 file, totally unmastered and unmixed. I truly believe this changed more in hip hop than Blu is given credit for, and in Blu “lore” the album was embraced, adored and admired.
Let’s come back to its “rawness” a little later and talk about the music itself. Blu had observed Exile and other collaborators making beats and for his debut album, he handled all of the production, minus one song. Think about this undertaking for a second. You have a hot record out making waves in a hardcore and critical hip hop underground, and for your follow up solo debut you teach yourself how to make beats and handle the entirety of the production. That alone is worthy of commendation, and it just so happens that the instrumentals are fantastic. Blu is one of the most underrated producers out. His ear for samples is so attuned, I find myself entirely confident in the melodies he loops up, the chords he chops and the over all feel of his beats. They are just brimming with personality and emotion. And as a rapper? He has to be my favourite (something I really don’t say lightly, and something I have thought about a lot). His flows, wit, world play, storytelling, vocabulary and voice are impeccable. But more importantly, he’s human. I don’t come from any background of particular adversity, and definitely my surroundings have nothing in common with the Los Angeles Blu grew up in, yet so many of his songs move me because he writes about everything that is the human experience. Love, heartbreak, boredom, inspiration, family, loss, rainy days, high school crushes, hope, depression, music, history, and so on. From the trivial to the triumphant, from the mundane to the multiverse, Blu’s there.
But back to the Lofi. This project, more than any Blu project, is rough in its sonic quality. Keep in mind this was an accident, not a deliberate choice, and there are certainly moments where that is felt. The album is a file of clipping, static, noise and sonic mud. But there are jewels found in the dirt. Going into this album does mean a slightly jarring adjustment. Admittedly I do have the feeling with this album more than the others I will mention of “what could have been..”. Notably with the first few tracks, which are more bouncy and busy instrumentals, resulting in experiences that feel a little too suffocated in noise to be enjoyable. But there are so many tracks here that I completely love, and what’s interesting is I love the quality. What Blu did by releasing this to his fans was embrace the dirt. He embraced the rawness, after all isn’t that what Lofi is all about? And it really works. One of my favourites is “It’s Okay”. The filtered bassline sample has taken on this distorted warbly texture, and the vocals feel just ever so slightly distant, slightly live, and it just gives the song personality. Think of the distortion and noise as seasoning for so many of these tracks. Listening to this album feels like listening to a time capsule. It feels like Blu has handed you a busted cassette and gone “here, tell me what you think”. “Till We Die” gives me chills every time. The unmastered nature of the cinematic instrumental has almost formed this glue that has merged the drums bass and sample together in a sea of noise and its powerful. The distortion here isn’t too overwhelming and just adds this sense of “turning it up to 11” urgency.
God Is Good was a tragedy turned lifestyle. Blu’s indifference to the massive imperfections of this record, and his faith that his fans would see the vision kicked in the door for a generation of bedroom producers and artists, and showed Blu himself something that he wanted to explore.
Her Favourite Colo(u)r
In 2011 Blu officially released my favourite solo Blu effort, Her Favourite Colo(u)r. This album’s main theme is love, particularly how it relates to pain. Jazz is also a present theme throughout the samples Blu chooses to curate his collages with. In a recent interview with EricTheYoungGawd Blu explains that with this album he was really coming to grips with how to understand Jazz, through sampling and as a consumer and it shows in the production of this project. Across the 14 tracks Blu samples jazz greats such as Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk, and Sarah Vaughan. Apart from Jazz he pulls from Curtis Mayfield, James Brown and even gets Exile to do a seriously imaginative Radiohead flip (it works stunningly well).
Again though, the production is left seemingly unmastered (or very roughly mastered). It’s a lot more palatable than God is Good due to the fact that this isn’t the result of an accident, but there is still a lot of dust left left in the mix. As this time its intentional, all the foibles, distortion and dirt that’s included just add character to these beats. This album really does feel like placing a dollar bin Jazz record on the turntable whilst you pour yourself a drink and kickback in a comfy chair, reflecting on what and who may have been. Today there are people who make a living selling “noise” and “texture” to fellow beatmakers to layer under their compositions, and to me Blu was so ahead of the curve, whether he even realised it himself. “Wind(terlude)” is a melting pot of Gloria Lynne’s vocals, Blus blunted snare drum just drenched in static with raw, intimate poetry a top. The techniques aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, in fact the way he samples is quite reminiscent of A Tribe Called Quest, with filtered basslines being present all over this thing, but he doesn’t have a Bob Power perfecting every drum break and Q Tip / Ali Shaheed Muhammad mixing every element. This just feels like Blu has a computer, a mic and a whole lot to get off his chest, and I don’t think many people of Blu’s stature were doing this at that time.
You can’t really talk about this project without talking about its biggest song “Amnesia”, which is has become a clear fan favourite. This song is a showcase in writing of any kind. This is the kind of song that if I imagine Hip Hop sceptics hiding behind their statements of indifference, this is the song that I would use to breach and crumble those walls. I mean as soon as the song comes on with its Billie Holiday horn lick you are already swimming in this indescribable sea of turntable warmth, then those beautiful keys flurry in as Blu makes his first statement of the album…
“I used to have
Peace, serenity, teaching divinity
Break bread, sipping the blood, eating with enemies
Blind, pearl on my mind thinking we finna be
This, that, and the third
Boy did I learn, tables turn
Billie Holiday burned down to play when my nerves drowned my focus away”
There are few opening verses as brilliant as this one, as Blu grapples with a fading relationship and a girl that may or may not be Hip Hop. One more section because it’s just that good..
“Used to speak
Sweet with sympathy
Tease to mimic me
Sunshine every line you ever sent to me
Heaven sent, heavenly scent that later crippled me, shit
Simple men don't learn, where was your empathy”
What Blu demonstrates on this album is what I would call intimate Hip Hop. I don’t mean intimate in a Teddy Pendergrass way, what I mean by it is the sense that the music is entirely personal. Everything from the production choices, to the samples, to the formatting of this project was down to Blu. Lyrically Blu is not the first rapper to rap about his personal life and struggle, he often sights Common as one of his biggest inspirations, a rapper well known for his introspection and philosophical musings. But before Blu (for me anyway) there is still that sense of performance, that feeling of this was the perfect take. You can feel Electric Lady Studios in the grandeur of Like Water For Chocolate’s immaculate production. Whereas Blu sounds as though these thoughts and ideas are just coming to him. Like this album is collection of thoughts and sounds that passed through him as he came to terms with his heartbreak. So much of this is down to the Lofi nature of these recordings. You don’t picture Blu the other side of the studio glass, headphones on, rapping his ass off; you picture him walking through his house, talking to his record player.
Jesus
The final project I want to talk about is Blu’s heavily underrated and slightly polarising mixtape “Jesus”. This project was supposedly released on Bandcamp under the alias “B” in 2011, and fans quickly picked up that it was a Blu project. The tape was later given an official release in the summer of that year.
This is a project that probably flies under the radar of a lot of casual Blu fans and in so many ways I understand why, and in so many it baffles me. If Her Favourite Colo(u)r was Blu’s exploration into the world of Jazz, then this album is him returning to sun-soaked soul. He also enlists a lot of outside producers, and this album holds the impressive accolade of being the only existing project to feature production from Madlib, Knxwledge and The Alchemist. If that doesn’t peak the interest of any Hip Hop head then I truly don’t know what will and you may as well stop reading. The dichotomy of this album is that the production itself I would say is more accessible than the previous effort, but the delivery is certainly not. Blu went very raw here with the mastering and mixing, and it’s a very bold decision at times. Take “What If I Was”, a soul laced, lazy instrumental that could have maybe gone very far into casual fans playlists, but Blu has gone so lofi with this track that it almost feels like at points the vocals and the instrumental are fighting over the mix. It’s a challenging listen but again one that grows on you and rewards replay. “On The Porch” to me masters this ratio. It’s a slice of summery heaven. A familiar Aretha Franklin rises out the static, playing in a charismatic Blu as the beat kicks in. This whole affair clocks in at less than a minute and a half and I play it more than most. The whole instrumental has a very Madlib feel to it, a gooey compression of all the elements that make up the track, and the nature of this recording makes it really feel as though you’re sat next to Blu on a baking hot porch as he’s freestyling.
Knxwledge (who was a youngster in the game at this point not the household name he is today) was on his own journey of innovation, with the Dilla Bible in hand, and exploring lofi sonics extensively with his groundbreaking 2010 beat tapes. Here he laces Blu with standout “4 U” where Blu begins to explore his melodic side, delivering ear worm hooks over this head - nodding loop with Knxwledge’s lofi compression techniques in full swing. The Alchemist gifts “Doo Whop”, a dreamy drumless beat for Blu, Planet Asia and Killer Ben in a time where not many were hip to the possibilities of so called “drumless” instrumentals.
For me it’s the full circle moment of the title track “Jesus”, produced by Madlib that is the standout. I’m not too sure how this collaboration came about, or whether Madlib had any say in just how raw this recording was going to be, but I adore this song. The instrumental is Madlib incarnate. It’s somewhat contemplative. It has this push and pull feeling as this isolated guitar lick then makes way for a drum break, all supported by Madlib’s signature flanger – esque bassline. So wobbly, so funky, so dirty. It’s a really unique instrumental and I’m not really doing it justice with my words, but Blu certainly does. Blu explores his religion and his duality on this track through philosophical writing:
On my knees, fell to God
Thank you for my broken heart, thank you for my Noah's Ark
Thank you for the coldest parts
Ayo, I thank you from the bottom of the bucket where the totem starts
It’s a fantastic exploration, backed by a master whose influence is all over his apprentice.
Blu’s journey through Lofi to me paved the way, whether it meant to or not, for so much culture that we see today. The “sLums” movement that encompasses artists such as MIKE, Mavi, Earl Sweatshirt, Navy Blue and so many more have made careers for themselves delivering dense, poetic lyricism over woozy, raw and dust filled loops. Even if he isn’t a direct influence, Blu was doing this over a decade ago. What Blu did took courage. His vision at so many points was questioned. Fans often didn’t like his Lofi approach, but he was crafting a lane for himself that said “I can do whatever I want, and I can put my art first”. We live in an age where some of the most sought after and expensive production plugins are ones that allow you to add vinyl distortion, texture, clipping and static to your compositions. We certainly have Madlib, Dilla and other producers to thank for this and they get their needed flowers, but hey, put Blu in that conversation too.
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